How Bose, Nehru differed sharply, frankly

By K. Natwar Singh

In March, 1939, Subhas Chandra Bose and Jawaharlal Nehru wrote to each other. While Bose wrote a 27-page typed letter, Nehru’s was a13-page. Here goes Bose’s letter:

“My dear Jawahar,

I find that for some time you have tremendous dislike for me. I say this because I find you take up enthusiastically every point against me; what could be said in my honour you ignore. What my political opponents urge against me you concede, while you are almost blind to what could be said against them. In the course of what follows I shall try to illustrate the above.

Why you should have developed this strong dislike for me remains a mystery to me. On my side, ever since I came out of internment in 1937, I have been treating you with utmost regard and consideration, in private and public life. I have looked upon you as politically an elder brother and often sought your advice. When you came back from Europe last year, I went to Allahabad to ask you what lead you would give us. Usually, when I approached you in this way, your replies have been vague and non-committal. For instance, last year when you returned from Europe, you put me off by saying that you would consult Gandhiji and then let me know. When we met in Wardha after you had seen Gandhiji, you did not tell me anything definite…

If I have used harsh language or hurt your feelings at any place, kindly pardon me. You yourself say that there is nothing like frankness and I have tried to be frank— perhaps brutally frank.

I am progressing steadily and slowly. Hope you are all right.

Yours affectionately
Subhash”

Nehru replied on April 3, 1939.
“My dear Subhash,

Your letter is essentially an indictment of my conduct and an investigation into my failings. It is, as you will realise, a difficult and embarrassing task to have to reply to such an indictment. But so far as the failings are concerned, or many of them at any rate, I have little to say. I plead guilty to them, well realising that I have the misfortune to possess them. Personally, you have treated me with the utmost regard and consideration, in private and as well as in public life. Personally, I have always had, and still have, regard and affection for you, though sometimes I did not like at all what you did and how you did it. To some extent, I suppose, we are temperamentally different and our approach to life and its problems is not the same.

……. I dare not now, in the early hours of the morning, write about national and international affairs. I am not silent about them as a rule. As you have observed, I talk too much and write even more. I shall leave it at that for the moment.

Yours affectionately Jawahar”

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The other day a friend asked me, who my 25 famous Indians of the 20th century are. Here’s my list: Rabindranath Tagore, Balkrishna Gokhale, MK Gandhi, Sri Aurobindo, Sardar Patel, C Rajagopalachari, Munshi Premchand, Sarojni Naidu, Rajendra Prasad, CV Raman, S Radhakrishnan, Abul Kalam Azad, Jawaharlal Nehru, BR Ambedkar, Subhas Chandra Bose, Syama Prasad Mukherjee, Jaya Prakash Narayan, Golwalkar, Charan Singh, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Ram Manohar Lohia, Indira Gandhi, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Amartya Sen and Zakir Husain.

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Kumari Mayawati resigned from the Rajya Sabha on July 18. She did so in a huff. The reason: The Deputy Chairman asked her to cut short her speech. When a leader of the stature of Mayawatiji resigns, it is an event. Her party is in a mini crisis.

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Gopalkrishna Gandhi’s high-minded statements must cause discomfiture to the Congress. He is his own man. He has the qualities for occupying the presidential chair. He has no pose, only poise. Why he accepted being the Vice-Presidential nominee is a mystery to me. He will lose to Venkaiah Naidu with a wide margin. It is said that some defeats are more glorious than victories.