The Terrible Price of Freedom 217standing among his people, at a time when the British were eager to
brand him a quisling. In a series of broadcasts in late March and early
April 1942, Bose excoriated Stafford Cripps for donning the imperialist
mantle and urged the Indian people and leaders to contemptuously
reject the offer of dominion sta tus after the war’s end.^37
Bose need not have worried. Gandhi was not of a mind to accept a
postdated check on a bank that was obviously failing. Nehru and Azad
may have been open to a compromise, if the defense portfolio in the
central government could be handed over to the Congress. But Cripps
had nothing to offer in the here- and- now: he could only hold out
promises for the future. Linlithgow worked closely with Churchill and
Amery to make certain that Cripps did not concede anything of sub-
stance. Gandhi was not prepared to accept anything less than full in de-
pen dence. Abul Kalam Azad found that “Subhas Bose’s escape to Ger-
many had made a great impression on Gandhiji.” “He had not formerly
approved many of Bose’s actions,” Azad explained, “but now I found a
change in his outlook. Many of his remarks convinced me that he ad-
mired the courage and resourcefulness Subhas Bose had displayed in
making his escape from India. His admiration for Subhas Bose uncon-
sciously colored his view about the whole war situation.”^38
While deriding the Cripps offer, Bose had welcomed the assurances
of Japanese premier Hideki Tojo, who promised “India for the Indi-
ans.” On April 11, 1942, as the Cripps mission teetered on the brink of
failure, the Japanese sent a draft declaration to Germany and Italy, ad-
vocating freedom for the Indians and Arabs. The German Foreign Of-
fice deemed the draft “too journalistic,” but produced an amended
draft of its own; on April 16, Ribbentrop presented it to Hitler and
urged that it be accepted. The German foreign minister suggested that
“peace- favoring circles in Britain” would welcome such a move. Hitler
did not take the bait, and rejected the declaration the following day. He
saw no reason to accept the declaration just when the Japanese sought
it. He was wary—and not a little envious—of Japan’s spectacular suc-
cesses against the European colonial powers in Asia. Italy was more in-
clined to go along with the Japanese; but at a meeting on April 29 at
Klessheim Castle, near Salzburg, Hitler persuaded Mussolini not to is-
sue the declaration.^39 Only when the world was collapsing around him,