Sisir Kumar Bose - Subhas Chandra Bose- Congress President: Speeches, Articles, and Letters January 1938–May 1939

Netaji: Collected Works
Volume 9

CONGRESS PRESIDENT

Speeches, Articles and Letters
January 1938May 1939

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Netaji Collected Works Volume 9

CONGRESS PRESIDENT

Speeches, Articles,
and Letters
January 1938May 1939

Subhas Chandra Bose

edited by
Sisir Kumar Bose and Sugata Bose

Congress President: Speeches, Articles, and Letters January 1938May 1939

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Copyright NETAJI RESEARCH BUREAU 1995
First published in 1995
First paperback printing 2004
Second impression 2016

eISBN 978-81-7824-562-1

e-edition: First Published 2018

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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests write to the publisher.

Photographs

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Professor Krishna Bose and Professor Leonard A. Gordon for editorial advice, Mr Kartic Chakraborty for secretarial assistance and Mr Naga Sundaram for archival support. We wish also to record our gratitude to Oxford University Press for their efficient handling of the publication process.

SISIR KUMAR BOSE
SUGATA BOSE

Editors Introduction

My personal view today, Subhas Chandra Bose said in an interview to Rajani Palme Dutt in January 1938, is that the Indian National Congress should be organised on the broadest anti-imperialist front, and should have the two-fold objective of winning political freedom and the establishment of a socialist regime. Bose arrived back in India on 23 January 1938, his 41st birthday, and during his tenure as Congress President worked towards the two-fold objective he had set himself.

This key volume of Boses Collected Works brings together his speeches, writings and letters from January 1938 until just after his resignation as Congress President on 29 April 1939. In these he deals with the themes of imperialism and nationalism, socialism, national planning, science, constitutional issues, Hindu-Muslim relations, the role of women, European politics, etc. Perhaps the single most important document included in this volume is the famous Presidential Address delivered at Haripura in February 1938. Written in a day at his Calcutta home on the eve of his departure for Haripura, the speech provided an incisive analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the worldwide structure of British imperialism and an egalitarian vision of the socioeconomic reconstruction of free India. It was marked by a remarkable lack of rancour towards the colonial masters whom he challenged to transform the empire into a federation of free nations. Quoting Lenin on how reaction in Britain [wa]s strengthened and fed by the enslavement of a number of nations, Bose claimed:

We who are fighting for the political freedom of India and other enslaved countries of the British empire are incidentally fighting for the economic emancipation of the British people as well... once we have real self-determination, there is no reason why we should not enter into the most cordial relations with the British people.

While sounding a note of warning against accepting colonial constitutional devices designed to divide and deflect the anticolonial movement, Bose could see that the policy of divide and rule was by no means an unmixed blessing for the ruling power. Bose saw the principle of partition ingrained in the juxtaposition of autocratic princes and democratically elected representatives of British India, and called for uncompromising opposition to the federal part of the Government of India Act of 1935. If that scheme got rejected, Bose feared that the British would seek some other constitutional device for partitioning India and thereby neutralising the transference of power to the Indian people. But equally Bose could see Britain getting caught in the meshes of her own political dualism resulting from divisive policies, whether in India, Palestine, Egypt, Iraq or Ireland. He, therefore, resolved to urgently address the minorities question in India, advocating a policy of live and let live in matters religious and an understanding in matters economic and political. He also wanted justice done to the so-called depressed classes. While promoting cultural auto nomy for the different linguistic areas, Bose urged the acceptance of Hindustani (a mixture of Hindi and Urdu) in the Roman script as lingua franca. The objective of unifying India through a strong central government would have to be balanced by the imperative to put all the minority communities as well as the provinces at their ease, by allowing them a large measure of autonomy in cultural as well as governmental affairs.

Convinced of the need to be prepared for independence, Bose outlined his long-period programme for a Free India. The first problem to tackle, according to him, was increasing population. He was probably the first among Indias political leaders to articulate a policy of population control. As regards reconstruction, the principal problem would be how to eradicate poverty from our country. That would require a radical reform of our land system, including the abolition of landlordism. Agricultural indebtedness would have to be liquidated and provision made for cheap credit for the rural population. But to solve the economic problem agricultural improvement would not be enough and an ambitious plan for state-directed industrial development would be necessary. However much we may dislike modern industrialism and condemn the evils which follow in its train, Bose declared, we cannot go back to the pre-industrial era, even if we desire to do so. The state in independent India would, on the advice of a planning commission, have to adopt a comprehensive scheme for gradually socialising our entire agricultural and industrial system in the spheres of both production and appropriation.

Bose believed in 1938 that the Congress party could not be asked to wither away but, on the contrary, had a key role to play in the work of national reconstruction after independence. The existence of multiple parties and the democratic basis of the Congress Party, he trusted, would prevent the future Indian state becoming a totalitarian one. Inner-party democracy would also ensure that leaders are not thrust upon the people from above, but elected from below. Subsequent developments were soon to show that Boses views regarding the Congress partys commitment to internal democracy were overly optimistic. His opinions in favour of the Congresss granting collective affiliation to peasants and workers organizations, and being poised to take advantage of the international situation were not shared by several of his colleagues within the Congress.