Roads to Delhi 285S. A. Ayer, “Netaji coolly walked down the steps of the saluting base,
strode unconcerned to the edge of the parade ground, and sat under a
tree until the duel between the ack- ack guns and the fighters was
o v e r.”^97 In a radio address later that day, Bose described the war in
Burma as “a fight between the human spirit on the one side and steel
and armor on the other.” “In no revolution in the world’s his tory,” he
reminded his followers, “have the revolutionaries ever had superiority
either in numbers or in equipment. Nevertheless the revolutionaries
have, in most cases, succeeded in overthrowing the foreign yoke. This
will also happen in the case of India.”^98 On October 21, the first anni-
versary of the formation of his government, he expressed the hope of
taking Imphal and Chittagong in a new offensive.
Bose left for Tokyo on October 29, accompanied by M. Z. Kiani,
A. C. Chatterji, and Habibur Rahman. The new government—in which
Shigemitsu continued to be the foreign minister—received him warmly.
He was given an audience with Emperor Hirohito. Bose and his minis-
ters complained about the failure of the Hikari Kikan in maintaining
proper liaison with the INA during the Imphal campaign. He wanted
full- fledged diplomatic relations to be established with the Azad Hind
government through the appointment of an ambassador. Tokyo ac-
ceded to this request, but when Teruo Hachiya hurriedly arrived with-
out proper credentials, Bose refused to receive him.^99 Bose agreed in
Tokyo to deploy the INA’s third division in the defense of Malaya. This
was not, as it seemed, a concession to the Japanese. Since people, more
than territory, currently formed the basis of his sovereignty, it made
sense to defend the million- strong Indian population in Malaya, among
whom large numbers had sworn formal allegiance to the Provisional
Government.
Away from the battlefield, Netaji found one last occasion to give his
views on the fundamental prob lems of India, when he was invited to
address the faculty and students at Tokyo University in November
- He argued, in what has come to be called his “Tokyo thesis,” that
the creative faculty of its people and their determination to resist impe-
rialist domination gave ample proof of India’s vitality as a nation. He
dwelt skillfully on the theme of Indian modernity, and offered finely
etched assessments of Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore. The