296 HIS MAJESTY’S OPPONENT
by now,” he noted, “that the war aims of the Soviet Union are quite dif-
ferent from those of the Anglo- Americans, although they had a com-
mon enemy in Germany.” He was pleased that at the San Francisco
conference, Molotov had refused to accede to Anglo- American de-
mands. In fact, he had gone to the extent of challenging “the puppets of
Britain and America who came to represent India and the Philip-
pines.”^134
In Bangkok, Netaji reassembled his civilian administration. Ragha-
van, his fi nance minister, brought resources from Singapore, and Ayer
negotiated a loan from the Thai government. Chatterji was sent to
Saigon, and Sahay to Hanoi, to reconnect with the Indian communities
there. After visiting the INA’s gunner detachments in Thailand and
reaching an un der stand ing with the Thai government, Bose returned
to Malaya. The INA’s third guerrilla division was stationed in various
parts of the peninsula, as were the heavy- gun and tank battalions of the
first division that had not been taken to Burma.^135
Meanwhile, Archibald Wavell, the British viceroy, had invited leaders
of Indian po lit i cal parties to a conference in Simla to discuss po lit i cal
prog ress after the war. Mohammad Ali Jinnah questioned the right of
Abul Kalam Azad, the Congress president, to speak for that party in
Simla. Disagreements between Jinnah’s Muslim League and the Indian
National Congress had in any case doomed the Simla conference from
the outset. In late June 1945, Netaji made a series of broadcasts from
Singapore urging Indians at home not to compromise with British im-
perialism. He argued the case for a three- pronged strategy in pursuing
the goal of Indian in de pen dence: continued armed struggle outside
India, resistance rather than compromise inside India, and diplomacy
in the international field. Since the almighty British Empire had gone
down on its knees to seek American help, he felt he had done nothing
wrong as the leader of an enslaved and disarmed nation in allying with
Japan. No country had won freedom without some degree of for-
eign help, he said in his speeches, which now sounded like harangues.
Far more im por tant than his analysis of Wavell’s initiative were the
grounds on which he felt en ti tled to offer advice to his countrymen at
home: