A Life Immortal 325amicably. Who knows, perhaps there may have been no bloodshed, and
no drifting apart.”^43
Bose’s critics had charged that he would become a dictatorial leader
if he made a triumphant entry into India. His strategic alliance with
totalitarian regimes opposed to Britain was seen as evidence of his
ideological predilections. That he had no affinity with the pernicious
philosophies of the Axis powers whose help he sought during World
War II is beyond a shadow of doubt. He stood up to them courageously
to maintain India’s honor, but, regrettably, not on behalf of the victims
of their brutality. The suf fering human beings about whose fate he
was concerned were the colonially oppressed people for whom World
War II presented an opportunity to break the shackles of Western im-
perialism. He did, on at least three separate occasions, speak of the
need for a period of authoritarian rule after in de pen dence, to effect the
dramatic social and economic transformation he envisioned for India.
The empowerment of women, peasants, workers, and the subordinate
castes had always fig ured prominently on his po lit i cal agenda. The in-
ertia that accompanied the approach of the formally democratic Indian
state to the gigantic prob lems of poverty, illiteracy, and disease might
well have exasperated him. Under those circumstances, he may have
been tempted to deploy the instruments of a strong party and state to
bring about the revolutionary change he sought. Yet it is doubtful that
he would have been personally enamored of the trappings of state
power. His entire life was characterized by a series of renunciations of
wealth and weal, worldly comfort and joy. The streak of self- abnegation
was stron ger in his character than that of self- assertion.
Nehru and Bose had much in common when it came to their views
about the social and economic reconstruction of India. Both believed
in variants of socialism, with Bose being a little more attentive to In-
dian notions of justice and equality. He was also far less impatient than
Nehru when faced with expressions of religious or linguistic differ-
ences. He did not subscribe to the dogma of secular uniformity, but
rather strove for unity by respecting and transcending cultural distinc-
tiveness. This approach toward negotiating the prob lem of internal
differences was closer to that of Gandhi, except that Bose believed in
the possibility of forging cultural links between different communities.