262 HIS MAJESTY’S OPPONENT
from funds con trib uted by India’s overseas citizens. Bose visited Indian
students at their hostel. “Like a mother,” the Japanese narrative states,
“he showered his heartfelt affection on them and inspired them by his
words to devote themselves to the future well- being of their mother-
land.” He decided to leave all the gifts he had received, including a Japa-
nese sword, with the Shibusawa family, saying he would take them only
when India was free. He had charmed the entire Shibusawa family, es-
pecially the children, and their staff who felt “in the whole wide world
they would not find many lovable personalities like Bose.”^50 He had
clearly made a profound impression, in both public and private, on his
Japanese hosts.
The con flict between Japan and China had troubled Bose since the
1930s. He had wanted to visit China in 1940 following Nehru’s trip to
that country, but the British had not allowed it. On November 18,
1943, Bose left the shores of Japan for occupied Nanjing at the invita-
tion of Wang Jing Wei, the pro- Japanese Chinese leader, though he in-
tended to communicate with the Chungking government of Chiang
Kai- shek. He paid homage to Sun Yat- sen, the father of the 1911 Chi-
nese Republic, at his memorial in Nanjing. In a broadcast from Nanjing
on November 20, he described Sun Yat- sen as “a sincere believer in the
liberation of Asia and in Asian unity.” On November 21, 1943, he
broadcast a second appeal to Chungking from Shanghai. “The Indian
people,” he said, “really sympathize with China and the Chinese peo-
ple.” He reminded the Chungking government that, as president of the
Indian National Congress, he had sent the first medical mission to
China as a gesture of sympathy for the Chinese people. He urged
Chungking not to send troops to India “to fight against us on the side
of the British.” He tried to suggest that 1943 was not 1937 and that East
Asia faced “an entirely new situation.” He looked forward to the day
“not far off ” when, by means of an “honorable peace,” Japan would
“withdraw her troops” from China. Given the recent his tory of Japa-
nese atrocities in China, this wishful thinking about a rapprochement
between China and Japan was unrealistic but showed a lingering faith
in an Asian universalism, despite the rifts caused by nationalist rival-
ries. Bose mentioned Gandhi’s statement the previous year: had India
been free, the Mahatma would have embarked on a mission to foster