The Terrible Price of Freedom 209form of address “Your Excellency,” could not relieve his frustration
with the Germans and Ital ians. In September, he went to Badgastein
and had to be coaxed back to Berlin with promises of forward move-
ment in implementing his plans.
Bose’s Indian followers held him in awe. Respected Indian lead-
ers were generally granted honorific titles—Gandhi was “Mahatma”
(“Great Soul”); Bose’s po lit i cal mentor Chitta Ranjan Das was “Desh-
bandhu” (“Friend of the Country”). Tagore had hailed Bose as “Desh-
nayak” (“Leader of the Country”) in 1939, but it was the simpler
“ Netaji” (“Revered Leader”), used by Indians in Europe and later in
Southeast Asia, that caught the popular imagination. A soldier had re-
ferred to Bose as “Hamare Neta” (“Our Leader”), and from that it was
a small step to “Netaji.” Far from smacking of the fearsome connota-
tions of “Führer,” it was a very Indian form of expressing affection
mingled with honor. The man being so honored expressed his disap-
proval, but his followers had their way.^19
Both N. G. Swami and Hasan had volunteered to join the mili-
tary wing of the movement. Swami became the leading fig ure among
ninety young men who received sophisticated training as members of
an elite commando force at Meseritz, near Hamburg. The commander
in charge of the training camp was a very capable German of fi cer
named Walter Harbich. Indian members of this unit wore a German-
style uniform with a silk emblem—the Indian national tricolor with a
springing tiger in the center—stitched on their left sleeve. While most
wore a German field cap or helmet as headgear, Sikh soldiers wore
green cloth turbans and Sikh of fi cers were distinguished by turbans
made of light- blue silk. A veteran of World War I, Harbich had the po-
lit i cal sophistication to implement Bose’s ideas about mingling mem-
bers of the different religious and linguistic communities, instead of
keeping them separate, as the British had done. Bose wanted Indians to
be united in the smallest tactical unit, regardless of their religious af fili-
a tion. “Contrary to the original doubts,” Harbich reported, “the result
was surprisingly good.”^20 According to a British intelligence of fi cer who
later interrogated the Meseritz recruits, “Morale, discipline and Indo-
German relations were excellent” and “the German of fi cers first- rate.”^21
Hasan’s primary role was to make the initial overtures to Indian