326 HIS MAJESTY’S OPPONENT
Many socialists—such as the scientist Meghnad Saha, whom Bose had
appointed to the national planning committee chaired by Nehru—be-
came critics of India’s first prime minister, once he embraced the colo-
nial bu reau cracy at the helm of a centralized state and obstructed the
Congress’s longstanding promise to bring about a linguistic reor ga ni-
za tion of states.^44 A firm believer in Indian unity, Netaji nevertheless
understood the salience of multiple identities, including those based on
ties of religion or language.
Prem Kumar Sahgal has recalled that during the height of the Im-
phal campaign in April 1944, Bose was visiting the Burmese hill town
of Maymyo, and there he analyzed Jawaharlal Nehru’s “greatness and
his weaknesses.” The young military secretary sat with his leader many
a night after the day’s work had been done, “listening to him, en-
thralled,” as he held forth on a va ri ety of subjects. In addition to Nehru,
the topics included the philosophy of nonviolence, Mahatma Gandhi’s
role in Indian politics, the causes of the Germans’ defeat in World
War I, their current mistakes in Europe, the reasons for Mussolini’s
failure, and the “inevitability of the partition of India if the British
were not driven out of India before the Allies fi nally won the war.”
Sahgal marveled at his leader’s “great intellect and the clarity of his
vision”—the achievement of a man who, sadly, had been born in a
“slave country.” Sahgal believed that Netaji, in a land of the free, would
have found his place as “the greatest teacher of his times.”^45
In free India, Bose was always regarded as a great popular hero; but
of fi cial recognition of his stature was somewhat muted during the
prime ministership of his rival, Jawaharlal Nehru, until 1964. Nehru’s
daughter, Indira Gandhi, admired Netaji for his courage and his vision.
Yet the Indian National Congress, to which he had been twice elected
president, truly acknowledged him as one of its own only during the
1990s, when under Narasimha Rao it ceased to be under dynastic con-
trol. Having become an icon among icons of the freedom struggle,
Netaji has been subject to po lit i cal appropriation, especially on the eve
of elections. The Hindu right lauds his military heroism, ignoring his
deep commitment to Hindu- Muslim unity and the rights of religious
minorities. The communists, who were his harshest Indian critics and
derided him as Tojo’s stooge during World War II, have changed their