PREFATORY NOTE
Since most readers are not bothered to delve into details, the narratives which might apparently appear to be unrelated to the topic of this write-up are being relegated to the footnotes. However, serious readers, desirous of knowing in greater detail, may like to peruse the footnotes as well, to appreciate the matter fully.
INTRODUCTION
It is pertinent to know the background state of affairs in India in 1942, when we attempt to study the attitude of Shri Mohandas Gandhi, who believed in the compromise [1]. It is well-known that Subhas Chandra Bose, from the beginning, was against any type of compromise with British imperialism, with injustice and anything wrong. [2] In this aspect, they were individuals of opposite poles.
The World War had begun in early September 1939 and it was going on in full swing in the beginning of 1942. [3]
The Japanese offensive towards Burma had begun on January 20, 1942. Singapore fell on February 15, 1942, and the Japanese took around 55,000 Indian soldiers as prisoners of war. Then Rangoon fell on March 8, 1942, and the rest of Burma was free-falling. As the Japanese army was advancing, some 70,000 Indians were evacuated by sea, 4,800 followed by air, and 450,000 tried to cross over to India by land-route. Out of these, about 50,000 Indians might have died on the way. [4]
CRIPPS MISSION
For long, Prime Minister Churchill had been ignoring President Roosevelt’s suggestion to settle the Indian issue. But, when the Japanese threat of invading India became a reality in the minds of the British Governments [and also in the minds of the compromised leaders of the Congress Party in India], Churchill, knowing well that USA’s help was mandatory to save the situation, understood that obtaining the support of the Indians was very important for Britain and the Allies. He therefore consented to send his Wartime coalition cabinet colleague Sir Stafford Cripps to India with a few proposals. Sir Cripps had actually volunteered to go to India.
Being a Labour Party member, Sir Stafford Cripps was traditionally sympathetic to the Indian cause. But, unlike in India, the Britons – belonging to the Conservative Party (Torries) or the Labour Party or the Liberal Party – were British first. They were mindful of the interests of their own nation first and went with the national consensus. Sir Stafford Cripps reached New Delhi on March 23, 1942, and spent three weeks in India meeting leaders of all the parties and communities. [5]
One of the proposals Sir Stafford Cripps brought offered Dominion Status to India after the end of the War but the caveat was that the constituent Indian provinces or the Princely States would have the right to secede. While Jawaharlal Nehru and some other Working Committee members were upbeat, the Super President (de jure since the adoption of the Pant Resolution of March 1939) of the Congress Party, i.e. Shri M.K. Gandhi, rejected the offer. So did Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose through several of his radio broadcasts from Berlin. M.K. Gandhi told Cripps: “Why did you come if this is what you have to offer? If this is your entire proposal to India, I would advise you to take the next plane home.” [6]
It is reported in some books that Shri M.K. Gandhi said that the Cripp’s offer was “a post-dated cheque on a failing bank”. [7]
Many, including Jawaharlal Nehru and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, thought that Shri M.K. Gandhi’s opinion was that Japan and Germany would win the War. While Maulana Abul Kalam has written this in ‘India Wins Freedom’ [please see further below in this write-up], Jawaharlal Nehru said this to his colleagues in the Congress Working Committee Meeting held in Allahabad in end April 1942. [8]
Obviously, as Shri M.K. Gandhi rejected it, the Cripps’ Mission failed.
NETAJI SUBHAS BOSE’S ROLE
Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose had reached Berlin on April 2, 1941, with an Italian passport in the name of Mr. Orlando Mazzota, and was watching calmly and quietly the changes in the world due to the War and also the activities of the British government and those of the Indian National Congress. But after the fall of Singapore, he came out with his own identity, abandoning his cover name Orlando Mazzota, and started broadcasting from Azad Hind Radio.
Even before Sir Stafford Cripps left London for India, in his radio broadcast from Germany on March 19, 1942, Netaji rejected the British Government’s proposed offer.[9]
MAULANA ABUL KALAM AZAD’S OBSERVATION
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad was the Congress President for six years since March 1940. Reproduced below are his observations about Gandhiji’s opinion of that period (1942):
“THERE WAS ANOTHER POINT ON WHICH MY READING OF THE SITUATION DIFFERED FROM GANDHIJI’S. GANDHIJI BY NOW INCLINED MORE AND MORE TO THE VIEW THAT THE ALLIES COULD NOT WIN THE WAR. HE FEARED THAT IT MIGHT END IN THE TRIUMPH OF GERMANY AND JAPAN, OR AT THE BEST THERE MIGHT BE A STALEMATE.
“GANDHIJI DID NOT EXPRESS THIS OPINION ABOUT THE OUTCOME OF THE WAR IN CLEAR-CUT TERMS BUT IN DISCUSSIONS WITH HIM I FELT THAT HE WAS BECOMING MORE AND MORE DOUBTFUL ABOUT AN ALLIED VICTORY. I SAW THAT SUBHAS BOSE’S ESCAPE TO GERMANY HAD MADE A GREAT IMPRESSION ON GANDHIJI. He had not formerly approved many of Bose’s actions, but now I found a change in his outlook. MANY OF HIS REMARKS CONVINCED ME THAT HE ADMIRED THE COURAGE AND RESOURCEFULNESS SUBHAS BOSE HAD DISPLAYED IN MAKING HIS ESCAPE FROM INDIA. HIS ADMIRATION FOR SUBHAS BOSE UNCONSCIOUSLY COLOURED HIS VIEWS ABOUT THE WHOLE WAR SITUATION.
“THIS ADMIRATION WAS ALSO ONE OF THE FACTORS WHICH CLOUDED THE DISCUSSIONS DURING THE CRIPPS MISSION TO INDIA. I shall discuss the proposal brought by Cripps and the reasons why we rejected it in greater detail in a later chapter, but here I WOULD LIKE TO MENTION A REPORT WHICH WAS CIRCULATED ABOUT THE TIME OF CRIPPS ARRIVAL. THERE WAS A NEWS FLASH THAT SUBHAS BOSE HAD DIED IN AN AIR CRASH. THIS CREATED A SENSATION IN INDIA AND GANDHIJI, AMONG OTHERS, WAS DEEPLY MOVED. HE SENT A MESSAGE OF CONDOLENCE TO SUBHAS BOSE’S MOTHER IN WHICH HE SPOKE IN GLOWING TERMS ABOUT HER SON AND HIS SERVICES TO INDIA. LATER ON IT TURNED OUT THAT THE REPORT WAS FALSE. CRIPPS , HOWEVER, COMPLAINED TO ME THAT HE HAD NOT EXPECTED A MAN LIKE GANDHIJI TO SPEAK IN SUCH GLOWING TERMS ABOUT SUBHAS BOSE. Gandhiji was a confirmed believer in non-violence, while Subhas Bose had openly sided with the Axis powers and was carrying on vigorous propaganda for the defeat of the Allies on the battlefield.” [10]
MORE ABOUT THE FALSE REPORT OF AIRCRASH DEATH OF NETAJI IN MARCH 1942
When the British news agencies falsely reported in the fourth week of March 1942 that Subhas Bose was killed in an aircrash , Netaji came forward to broadcast from Azad Hind Radio, Germany, on March 25, 1942, and said: “This is Subhas Chandra Bose, who is still alive, speaking to you over the Azad Hind Radio. British news agencies have spread all over the world the report that I died in an aeroplane crash on my way to Tokyo to attend an important conference there. … The latest report about my death is perhaps an instance of wishful thinking.” The rest of the speech was criticism of Sir Stafford Cripps’ proposal. [11]
M.K. GANDHI’S REACTION TO THE SO-CALLED ‘DEATH’ OF NETAJI
Here, below, is the text of the telegram “TELEGRAM TO PRABHAVATIDEVI BOSE”, mother of Subhas Chandra Bose, sent by Shri M.K. Gandhi [12]:
“NEW DELHI,
March 29, 1942
“THE WHOLE NATION MOURNS WITH YOU THE DEATH OF YOUR AND HER BRAVE SON. I SHARE YOUR SORROW TO THE FULL. MAY GOD GIVE YOU COURAGE TO BEAR THE UNEXPECTED LOSS. GANDHI”
The Bombay Chronicle, 30-3-1942M.K. Gandhi had to issue a corrective telegram to Smt. Prabhabati Debi on the next day when he wrote [13]:
TELEGRAM TO PRABHAVATIDEVI BOSE
“NEW DELHI,
March 30, 1942“THANK GOD WHAT PURPORTED AUTHENTIC HAS PROVED WRONG. WE CONGRATULATE YOU AND NATION.”
JAPAN HAD NO EXPANSIONIST GOAL
However, Japan had no aggressive designs towards India and did not advance further toward India. If they had any such intention, they would have advanced in the early months of 1942 itself. Commonsense said that Japan did not have the manpower; an invasion to occupy the entire India was not militarily feasible. Japan’s Prime Minister, General Tojo, made a couple of historic pronouncements in the Japanese Diet (parliament) that “India was for Indians” and “Without the liberation of India, there can be no real mutual prosperity in Greater East Asia.” All the rumours were of the British propagandists. “They are shouting from the house tops, ‘See what the Japanese have done in China.’ ” [14]
SRI AUROBINDO’S ATTEMPTED INTERVENTION
It is not widely known that Sri Aurobindo was in favour of accepting the Cripp’s proposal. Despite being in the spiritual field, Sri Aurobindo closely followed the events concerning India’s freedom struggle. Sri Aurobindo listened to Sir Stafford Cripps’ radio broadcast of March 30, 1942, in which the offer was announced. Sri Aurobindo was so elated that he sent Sir Stafford Cripps a telegram on March 31, 1942, expressing his appreciation to Sir Cripps for that offer and hoping that this offer would be accepted and ‘the right use made of it putting aside all discords and divisions.’ Sri Aurobindo concluded his telegram by offering his pubic adhesion ‘in case it can be of any help in your work.’ [15] Sri Aurobindo did not stop there and sent personal messages to C. Rajagopalachari, one of the members of the Congress High Command, and to B.S. Moonje, leader of the Hindu Mahasabha, and sent his lawyer-disciple Shri S. Duraiswamy Iyer to the Congress Working Committee members at Delhi. Shri S. Duraiswamy Iyer was a disciple of Sri Aurobindo and a distinguished Madras lawyer and a friend of C. Rajagopalachari, one of the prominent Cogress leaders from Madras province.
GANDHI’S MYSTERIOUS COMMENT TO SRI AUROBINDO’S EMISSARY
In the introductory note given to Mr. Duraiswamy Iyer for the Congress Working Committee members, Sri Aurobindo wrote: “In view of the urgency of the situation I am sending Mr. Duraiswamy Iyer to convey my views on the present negotiations and my reasons for pressing on Indian leaders the need of a settlement. He is accredited to speak for me.” [16]
After renouncing politics and taking up ascetic life in Pondichery in April 1910, this was probably the only overt attempt by Sri Aurobindo to intercede with Indian independence movement. In an article, Prof. Samar Guha has written that Sri Aurobindo also sent a special messenger [Duraiswami] to Gandhiji urging him to accept the Cripps proposals. DECLINING THE REQUEST OF A GREAT SOUL LIKE SRI AUROBINDO, GANDHIJI SAID TO MR. DURAISWAMI: “THIS MEANS I HAVE TO FIGHT SUBHAS!”
PROF. SAMAR GUHA HAD OPINED THAT THIS REMARK OF GANDHIJI WAS INCONCEIVABLE, ASTONISHING – EXTREMELY SIGNIFICANT AND FULL OF IMPLICATION. [17]
SHRI M.K. GANDHI’S AMBIVALANCE
Gandhi was very guarded about his real feelings about Subhas Chandra Bose. Even to his close sidekicks he did not fully reveal himself or divulge his feelings. Moreover, he changed his public stance very often. Furthermore, Shri Gandhi was afflicted by the British propaganda.
In an interview to the prominent Congressmen of Bombay and Gujarat, [ the INTERVIEW TO BOMBAY SUBURBAN AND GUJARAT CONGRESSMEN] on May 15, 1942, and in reply to a question by Shri B.G. Kher, Shri M.K. Gandhi said the following:
“B. G. KHER: But will such a mass civil disobedience not mean direct help to the Japanese? “
Answer: “OH, NO! WE ARE DRIVING THE BRITISH. WE DO NOT INVITE THE JAPANESE. NO, I DISAGREE WITH THOSE WHO THINK THEM LIBERATORS. CHINESE HISTORY POINTS THAT OUT. IN FACT I ADVISED CHIANG KAISHEK WHEN HE CAME HERE TO FIGHT THE JAPS MY WAY. IN FACT I BELIEVE THAT SUBHAS BOSE WILL HAVE TO BE RESISTED BY US. I HAVE NO PROOF, BUT I HAVE AN IDEA THAT THE FORWARD BLOC HAS A TREMENDOUS ORGANIZATION IN INDIA. WELL, SUBHAS HAS RISKED MUCH FOR US; BUT IF HE MEANS TO SET UP A GOVERNMENT IN INDIA, UNDER THE JAPANESE, HE WILL BE RESISTED BY US. AND I FEAR THE FORWARD BLOC PEOPLE WILL TRY THEIR UTMOST TO DO SO. AND AGAIN, AS I SAID, WE LAUNCH OUR MOVEMENT ONLY AGAINST THE BRITISH. THE JAPS CAN EXPECT US TO SIGN A NEUTRALITY PACT WITH THEM. AND WHY NOT? WHY SHOULD THEY INVADE US? BUT IF THEY DO WE SHALL RESIST.” [18]
And M.K. Gandhi wrote the following in reply to a question in the Harijan of 21 June 1942 [19]:
Q. You do not hear the radio messages. I do most assiduously. They interpret your writings as if your leanings were in favour of the Axis powers and you had now veered round to Subhas Babu’s views about receiving outside help to overthrow the British rule. I would like you to clear your position in this matter. Misinterpretation of your known views has reached a dangerous point.
A. I am glad you have asked the question. I have no desire whatsoever to woo any power to help India in her endeavour to free herself from the foreign yoke. I have no desire to exchange the British for any other rule. Better the enemy I know than the one I do not. I have never attached the slightest importance or weight to the friendly professions of the Axis powers. If they come to India they will come not as deliverers but as sharers in the spoil. There can therefore be no question of my approval of Subhas Babu’s policy. The old difference of opinion between us persists. This does not mean that I doubt his sacrifice or his patriotism. But my appreciation of his patriotism and sacrifice cannot blind me to the fact that he is misguided and that his way can never lead to India’s deliverance. If I am impatient of the British yoke I am so because India’s sullenness and suppressed delight of the man in the street over British reverses are dangerous symptoms which may lead to the success of Japanese designs upon India, if they are not dealt with in the proper manner; whereas India finding herself in possession of complete freedom will never want the Japanese to enter India. India’s sullenness and discontent will be changed as if by magic into joyful and hearty co-operation with the Allies in consolidating and preserving her liberty from any and every evil design. [SEVAGRAM, June 12, 1942 Harijan, 21-6-1942] [19]
CONCLUSION
As I have already written, Shri M.K. Gandhi was very reserved. So, it is not possible to correctly tell what he actually thought of Subhas Chandra Bose then. However, Shri Gandhi made rampant false accusations against Subhas Chandra Bose in the past. He revealed his innate antagonism towards Subhas Chandra Bose on several occasions. To name a couple of such calumnies: (i) on August 24, 1929, Shri Gandhi wrote in a letter that “Subhas Babu will never pardon the loin-cloth.” (ii) Gandhi Maharaj told Viceroy Lord Irwin on February 18, 1931, “He (Subhas Bose) is my opponent”, etc. He went to the extent of writing on January 15, 1940, that “I feel that Subhas is behaving like a spoilt child of the family.” However, we never found Subhas Bose to be disrespectful to Shri M.K. Gandhi, who was elder to him by more than 27 years.
Anyway, I have every right to make a guess as to what was bothering Shri Mohandas Gandhi in 1942. During their one-to-one meeting on June 20, 1940, in Sevagram, Subhas Chandra Bose had a talk with Shri Mohandas Gandhi for the last time. Subhas Chandra Bose wrote: “However, at the end of a long and hearty talk, he [M.K. GANDHI] told the writer that if his (the writer’s) efforts to win freedom for India succeeded – then his (Gandhi’s) telegram of congratulation would be the first that the writer would receive. [20]
That Subhas Bose did not tell a lie was revealed in March 1978 when Volume 72 of the Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi was published. This volume contained an article Shri Gandhi wrote, dated Sevagram, on July 9, 1940, which was reportedly published in the Harijan of July 13, 1940. Gandhi’s article was titled “Subhas Babu” wherein he wrote: “He told me in the friendliest manner that he would do what the Working Committee has failed to do. He was impatient of delay. I told him that, if at the end of his plan there was swaraj during my lifetime, mine would be the first telegram of congratulation he would receive. If while he was conducting his campaign I became a convert, I should whole-heartedly acclaim him as my leader and enlist under his banner. But I warned him that his way was wrong.” [21]
I think because Shri Gandhi who was so full of himself, he was afraid in 1942 that he would have to congratulate Subhas Chandra Bose for liberating India from British imperialism.
FOOTNOTE
[1] Shri M.K. Gandhi was a man of compromise. He has written in his autobiography: “But all my life through, the very insistence on truth has taught me to appreciate the beauty of compromise.” [vide the penultimate paragraph of Chapter XIII of Part II / at Page 123, ‘An Autobiography or The Story of my experiments with Truth’ by M.K. Gandhi, 1927, Reprint of April 2000]. Moreover, in June 1942, M.K. Gandhi told the American journalist and author Louis Fischer: “I am essentially a man of compromise, because I am not sure I am right.” [Page 110, ‘The Great Challenge’ by Louis Fischer; Duell, Sloan and Pearce, New York; 1946].
[2] Subhas Chandra Bose presided over an All-India Anti-Compromise Conference at Ramgarh, Bihar, on March 19, 1940. In his presidential address that day, he sent out a warning to both the British Imperialism and its Indian allies. He pronounced: “The success of this Conference should mean the death-knell of compromise with Imperialism. Later, on 26.11.1940, he wrote from the Presidency Jail in Calcutta: “To my countrymen I say, ‘Forget not that the greatest curse for a man is to remain a slave. Forget not that the grossest crime is to compromise with injustice and wrong.’ ”
[3] The War in Europe was anticipated much ahead of its start in early September 1939 and there was an apprehension that it would spread elsewhere too, like World War I. The All India Congress Committee had declared as early in May 1939 that Congress would oppose all attempts to impose a war on India without the consent of the Indian people. The Congress Party reiterated their decision not to get involved in the war on August 10, 1939, with Shri M.K. Gandhi’s full support. However, within hours after the United Kingdom declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939, the then Viceroy, Lord Linlithgow, announced that India was also at war. On receiving a telegram from the Viceroy, Shri M.K. Gandhi proceeded to Simla without caring to consult the Congress Working Committee and informed the Viceroy in Simla on September 4, 1939, that he was in favour of rendering unconditional support to Great Britain in the prosecution of the War. He even shed tears in front of Lord Linlithgow visualizing the possibility of bombs falling on Westminster Abbey and the House of Parliament, London.
The Atlantic Charter, an 8-point declaration of principles outlining the aims of the United States and the United Kingdom for the postwar world, was issued by President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the USA and Prime Minister Winston Churchill of UK on August 14, 1941.
Japan joined the World War much later with a surprise attack on the American fleet in Pearl Harbour, Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941, and USA declared war on Japan the following day. USA declared war on Germany and Italy on December 11, 1941, after these two countries declared war on USA.
[4] Pages 200 – 208, ‘India’s War : World War II and the Making of Modern South Asia’ by Srinath Raghavan, Basic Books, 2016.’
5 Sir Stafford Cripps (b. 24 April 1889 – d. 21 April 1952) was son of a wealthy Labour Lord, attended exclusive schools, and became a Barrister. Sir Stafford Cripps was ‘a man of great personal austerity, a vegetarian, a teetotaler a devout practicing Christian.’ He was a friend of India. Before joining the War Cabinet of the wartime coalition government in March 1942, he served as the Ambassador to the USSR from May 1940 to January 1942.
He had previously come to India in December 1939 and spent eighteen days in India then. During that time he met Mr. Jinnah, Viceroy Linlithgow, Poet Rabindranath Tagore, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, and others. He also stayed as a guest with Jawaharlal Nehru at Allahabad during that visit. He was of the same age and became a friend of Jawaharlal Nehru (b. 14 November 1889). That time Sir Cripps also went to the Wardha Ashram for a day and met Shri M.K. Gandhi on December 19, 1939.
Sir Stafford Cripps did come to India again in 1946 as part of the Cabinet Mission.
(b) The visit of Sir Stafford Cripps to India in March 1942 as an envoy of the British Government marked an important era in the constitutional history of India. That Sir Stafford Cripps and party arrived at Karachi [India] by plane on March 22, 1942, is recorded in ‘The Indian Annual Register January – June, 1942, Volume I’. Whether he reached New Delhi on the same day is however not mentioned there. He did a press conference on March 23, 1942, at New Delhi. According to some historians, he arrived in Delhi on March 22 itself, while some others have written that he and his party arrived in Delhi on March 23, 1942. I think that Sir Stafford Cripps and his team reached Delhi on March 23, 1942. I drew this conclusion from the following sentence recorded in ‘The Indian Annual Register January – June, 1942, Volume I’ wherein the editor Mr. Nripendra Nath Mitra wrote under the Heading “Cripps at Delhi Press Conference”: “At a Press Conference in New Delhi on March 23, shortly after his arrival at the Imperial Captal, Sir Stafford Cripps said, …]”
[6] Page 448, The Life of Mahatma Gandhi by Louis Fischer, HarperCollins Publishers, Second Impression 2007 [First published in India by HarperCollins in 2006]
[7] According to Dr. Pattabhi Sitaramayya, Mahatma Gandhi did not say this. According to him it was an imputation made to Gandhi by Mr. Leopold Stennett Amery, a British Conservative Party politician and the Secretary of State for India and Burma during World War II (1940 – 1945). Dr. Sitaramayya had traced the origin of the phrase “post-dated cheque on a crashing bank” to have been coined by the “Roy’s Weekly (Delhi)” where it assumed the form of “a postdated cheque on a falling bank”. [vide page 434, ‘The History of the Indian National Congress, Volume II’, by Dr. Pattabhi Sitaramayya; Padma Publications Ltd., Bombay, 1947]. However, it appears that Shri M.K. Gandhi gave currency to the phrase. According to Srinath Raghavan, “Gandhi urged the Congress Working Committee to reject ‘the post-dated cheque’ ” [Page 234, ‘India’s War : World War II and the Making of Modern South Asia’ by Srinath Raghavan, Basic Book, 2006]. When Dr. Asoke Kumar Majumdar saw Lord Pathick-Lawrence in 1960, the latter was somewhat emotionally moved as he recalled that phrase which he attributed to M.K. Gandhi and remarked: “It was a very cruel thing to say when we were fighting with our back to the wall, very cruel. Everybody thought we would be defeated only we never lost faith in victory. But for Gandhi to have said so was very cruel.” [Page 183, End Note No. 40, ‘Advent of Independence’ by A.K. Majumdar, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1963.]
[8] Pages 156 & 157; “The Transfer of Power 1942 –7, Volume II”, Editor-in-Chief : Nicholas Mansergh; Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, London, 1971.
[9] Netaji, inter alia, said: “The British Prime Minister, Mr. Churchill, has in his recent utterance before Parliament promised Dominion Status to India as soon as possible after the war is over. Under his mandate, Sir Stafford Cripps is to visit India in order to bring about an agreement between the different sections of the people, and to decide what political concessions should be granted at present. Only one who lives in a fool’s paradise could imagine that India still cares for Dominion Status within the Empire, and that a single Indian could be found who still has the least faith in British promises which are to be redeemed after the termination of the war. People in India know full well that the much advertised and so-called dissensions are an artificial creation, and that as long as the British remain in India they will continue their nefarious policy of ‘divide and rule’. Mr. Churchill and his Cabinet will soon realize that political promises thrown at the Indian people from Westminster will not bring them over to the British side. The British Empire is going the way of all other Empires of the past, and out of its ashes will rise a free and united India. The visit of Sir Stafford Cripps or of any other British politician at this late hour is, therefore, of no consequence to India, and will not arouse interest in that country.” Source: Page 7, Testament of Subhas Bose : Being a complete and authentic record of Netaji’s Broadcast speeches, Press statements, etc. 1942 – 1945” Compiled and Edited by ‘Arun’; Rajkamal Publications, 1946.
[10] Page 41,’ India Wins Freedom : An Autobiographical Narrative’ by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Orient Longmans, January 1959.
[11] Page 95, ‘Selected Speeches of Subhas Chandra Bose’ Edited by Nitima Shiv Charan, Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, Second Reprint 2013 (first published in 1964).
[12] Page 443, Vol. 75, The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, The Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, 1979. According to the CWMG, it was taken from The Bombay Chronicle of 30-3-1942.
[13] Page 445, Vol. 75, The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, The Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, 1979. As indicated in a footnote, this was taken by the compilers of CWMG from The Bombay Chronicle of 31-3-1942.
[14] Page 105 and Pages 107 – 109, “Selected Speeches of Subhas Chandra Bose” Edited by Nitima Shiv Charan, Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India. (Netaji’s radio broadcasts from Germany dated April 23, 1942, and May 1, 1942.)
[15] Sir Stafford Cripps telegraphically replied to Sri Aurobindo on April 1, 1942, stating: “I am most touched and gratified by your kind message allowing me to inform India that you who occupy unique position in imagination of Indian youth are convinced that declaration of his Majesty’s government substantially confers that freedom for which Indian nationalism has so long struggled.” Source: Page 31, “Sri Aurobindo & the Cripps Mission” edited by Sunayana Panda, First Feature Ltd., London, 2012.
[16] Page 39, ibid
[17] Pages 151, Jayasree Heerak Jayanti Grantha (Diamond Jubilee Volume), January 1992. The article is entitled “Bharat Chharo Aandolon : Baiplobik tatporjyo”. Unfortunately, Netaji was a persona non grata for the Pondicherry Ashram of Sri Aurobindo and this conversation of Gandhiji with Mr. S. Duraiswamy Iyer is not there in the book of Sunayana Panda.
[18] Pages 109 – 110, Vol. 76, The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, The Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, 1979 .
[19] Page 216, ibid.
[20] Page 384, “The Indian Struggle 1920 – 42 by Subhas Chandra Bose”, Netaji Collected Works, Volume 2, Netaji Research Bureau & Oxford University Press, Thirteenth impression 2014 (First Published 1997)
.
[21] Page 260, Volume 72, The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, The Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, March 1978.
