218 HIS MAJESTY’S OPPONENT
in the spring of 1945, did Hitler regret his decision not to back the
struggle of the colonized peoples of Asia and the Arab world.^40
The tenacity of Bose now came into play. He thought he could get
Italy on his side. On April 19, the renowned Ital ian journalist Luigi
Barzini had published an interview with him in Il Popolo d’Italia, de-
scribing him as “a Buddha, vivacious and dynamic, though peaceful in
his speeches and gestures.” Bose had spoken “with devotion and admi-
ration of the Mahatma” and his “composure and self- control” Barzini
interpreted as “a sign of Asian nobility.”^41 On May 5, put ting all his per-
suasive powers to the test, Bose went to Rome to meet Mussolini in an
attempt to get the Salzburg decisions reversed. Galeazzo Ciano, Italy’s
foreign minister and Mussolini’s son- in- law, recorded what transpired
in his diary: “I go with Bose to the Duce. A long conference without
any new developments, except the fact that Mussolini allowed himself
to be persuaded by the arguments produced by Bose to obtain a tripar-
tite declaration in favor of Indian in de pen dence. He has telegraphed
the Germans, proposing—contrary to the Salzburg decisions—pro-
ceeding at once with the declaration. I feel that Hitler will not agree to
it very willingly.”^42 Ciano was right. Hitler turned down Mussolini’s
proposal.
While seeking the tripartite powers’ endorsement of Indian in de pen-
dence, Bose was keen to distance himself from the ideologies of their
totalitarian regimes. In a candid broadcast on May 1, 1942, he made it
clear that he was “not an apologist of the Tripartite Powers” and did
not see it as his task “to defend what they have done or may do in fu-
ture.” He rebutted “Britain’s paid propagandists,” and jus ti fied his own
wartime strategy in the quest of India’s liberation in these terms:
I need no credentials when I speak to my own people. My whole life,
which has been one long, consistent and continuous record of uncom-
promising struggle against British Imperialism, is the best guarantee of
my bona fides. If the Britishers[,] who are the past masters in the art of
diplomacy and po lit i cal seduction, have in spite of their best efforts
failed to tempt, corrupt or mislead me, no other power on earth can do
so. All my life I have been a servant of India and till the last hours of my