Netaji, Nehru, and Their 'Ideological' Friendship

On Netaji's 128th birth anniversary, Praveen Davar writes about his ideological affinity & personal bond with Nehru.

Subhas Chandra Bose (right) with Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi.

(Photo Courtesy: Netaji.org)

Shaheed Bhagat Singh, who, besides being a revolutionary, was a political thinker and prolific writer, wrote in June 1928 – a couple of years before he was hanged:

"The martyrs of 1914-15 had separated religion from politics. Some Indian leaders also wish to separate religion from politics. We feel that true well-wishers of India would follow these principles and save India from the suicidal path it is on present. The most important young leaders in the present scenario are Bengal's Subhas Chandra Bose and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru."

On the occasion of Netaji's 128th birth anniversary, on 23 January 2025, let us recall the ideological bond between these two stalwarts of freedom struggle that inspired not only the revolutionaries like Bhagat Singh, but the entire youth of India.

As historian Rudrangshu Mukherjee writes in Nehru & Bose: Parallel Lives,

"It is remarkable how closely, on parallel lives, the lives of Jawaharlal and Subhas moved; both were born to relative affluence; both went to Cambridge; both gave up what could have been lucrative careers and joined the Indian movement under the leadership of Gandhi; both were aware of what was happening in Europe and in Asia, and their exposure to these developments radicalised their own ideas; both saw themselves as men of the left and were attracted to socialism."

Nehru with Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.

(Photo Courtesy: Nehru Memorial Museum & Library)

Nehru's Election to Congress Presidentship

In 1928, the Nehru Report, prepared by Motilal Nehru, who headed a committee of an all-parties conference to prepare a draft for the Constitution of free India, was made public. The report was presented on the assumption that the new Constitution would be based on Dominion Status. This was opposed by the young radical group of the Congress headed by Jawaharlal and Subhas who formed the India Independence League, propagating full independence.

However, when it came to the choice of the president of the Congress session at Calcutta (now Kolkata), Bose not only supported Motilal Nehru but went to the extent of saying nobody else would be acceptable. He wrote to the elder Nehru on 28 July 1928:

“I cannot tell you how disappointed the whole of Bengal will feel if for any reason you decline the Congress presidentship. I will not refer to any other provinces, but I am almost sure when the final nomination is made, the whole of India will stand unanimously in your favour. We can think of nobody else who can rise to the occasion.”

Similar sentiments were expressed by JM Sengupta, who though a rival of Bose in Bengal politics and considered close to the Mahatma, wrote to Motilal Nehru: “Bengal is unanimous about you because we cannot do without you.”

Touched by their words, Motilal wrote back in a joint letter to Bose and Sengupta: “I am sure Mahatmaji will come to the right decision, and I am perfectly willing to abide by his decision.”

Gandhiji soon made the decision: Motilal Nehru was unanimously elected president of the Calcutta session.

Jawaharlal was elected the president of the next session at Lahore where, as per his and Bose’s wishes, and the demand of the youth, the historic resolution for ‘complete independence’ was passed – and 26 January (later Republic Day) was declared as Independence Day.

No two leaders were as close to each other than Nehru and Bose till the latter fell out with Gandhi affecting their relations with each other.

Both Nehru and Bose had their vision of India lit up by the idea of socialism. They both, therefore, laid strong emphasis on centralised planning, heavy industry, and state ownership of key industries. They both were staunch secularists who believed that all citizens of India had equal rights irrespective of their religion, caste, and creed.

The deep ideological affinity they shared also turned into a strong personal relationship between the two men.

The Growing Attachment Between Bose, Nehru

When Kamala Nehru died in Lausanne in February 1936, Bose, already in Europe, reached there before she breathed her last and helped Jawaharlal make the funeral arrangements. In 1935, he had written to Nehru who was in jail: 'If I could be of any service to you in your present trouble, I hope you will not hesitate to send for me.”

Before Kamala died, the presidentship of the 1936 Congress session at Lucknow had been offered to Jawaharlal. But he was hesitant, preoccupied as he was with his wife’s illness.

But within a few days of her death, Bose wrote to him on 6 March 1936 from Austria: "Among the front-rank leaders of today, you are the only one to whom we can look up to for leading the Congress in a progressive direction. Moreover, your position is unique, and I think even Mahatma Gandhi will be more accommodating towards you than towards anybody else. I earnestly hope you will fully utilise the strength of your public position."

In April 1936, Bose returned to India from Europe where he had been permitted to go for medical treatment. But no sooner had he arrived, he was arrested and put under house arrest in Darjeeling.

From there he wrote to Nehru on June 1936: "From the papers I gathered that you were overworking yourself and I was concerned about your health. I can appreciate how difficult it is for you to avoid overworking. I do hope you that you will not strain yourself too much. It will not help anyone if you have a breakdown."

For the first time, Bose ended the letter with ‘love’. This shows the attachment between the leaders was growing stronger.

After Bose was elected president of the Congress in 1938 for its 51st session in Haripura, Nehru – after a strenuous election campaign tour of the country – left for Europe where he propagated India’s case and got the opportunity to acquaint himself with the situation that was inevitably leading to the Second World War. On 19 October 1938, Bose wrote to him:

"You cannot imagine how I have missed you all these months... you have been able to do such valuable work during your stay in Europe. Several problems will await solution till you are back."

The newly elected Congress president who had offered Jawaharlal the chairmanship of the proposed National Planning Committee repeated the offer: “I hope you will accept the chairmanship of the committee. You must if it is to be (a) success.”

Jawaharlal Nehru not only accepted it but carried forward the idea in Independent India by setting up a Planning Commission which made five-year plans for the country till it was wound up in 2014 by the present government.

The relations between Nehru and Bose continued to be cordial even after the latter was re-elected the Congress president in 1939 by defeating Pattabhi Sitaramayya, the nominee of Mahatma Gandhi, in a straight contest.

Mahatma and Subhas

When differences arose between the Mahatma and Bose on the constitution of the ‘Cabinet’ – as the Congress Working Committee (CWC) was then called – the latter sought Jawaharlal’s advice and wrote to him on 15 April 1939: “Will it be possible for you to run up here for a few hours? We could then have a talk, and I could have your advice as to how to proceed next?”

Jawaharlal not only travelled from Allahabad to Manbhum in Bihar to meet Bose, who was bedridden, but also wrote to Gandhi on 17 April:

“I think now, as I thought in Delhi, that you should accept Subhas as president. To try and push him out seems to be an exceedingly wrong step.”

But despite Jawaharlal’s best efforts, the differences between the Mahatma and Bose could not be sorted out. It had become difficult for Gandhi, in the circumstances of the time, to reject the advice of his other colleagues in the right wing, led by Sardar Patel, who were determined not to compromise with Bose.

Ultimately, Bose resigned from the presidentship in April 1939 and formed his own party, the Forward Bloc, within the Congress, to rally all the radical and progressive forces under one banner. Bose and prominent leaders of the Forward Bloc were arrested in July 1940 after they launched a civil disobedience campaign during the National Week (6-13 April – the anniversary of Jallianwala Bagh massacre).

But before being imprisoned, Bose had long meetings with Muhammad Ali Jinnah, president of the Muslim League, and Veer Savarkar, president of the Hindu Mahasabha.

He records in his autobiography:

"Mr Jinnah was then thinking only of how to realise his plan of Pakistan. Mr Savarkar seemed to be oblivious of the international situation, and was only thinking of how Hindus could secure military training by entering Britain's army in India. From these interviews, the writer was forced to the conclusion that nothing could be expected from either the Muslim League or the Hindu Mahasabha."

Bose considered both these parties as pro-British.

In an article for a German periodical after his 'great escape', Bose counters the British propaganda against nationalist Muslims.

He wrote: "The fact is that in the nationalist movement, there is a large percentage of Mohammedans. The president of the Indian National Congress today is Maulana Azad, a Mohammedan. The vast majority of the Indian Mohammedans are anti-British and want to see India free. There is no doubt pro-British parties among both Mohammedans and Hindus which are organised as religious parties."

He was obviously referring to the Muslim League and the Hindu Mahasabha. Way back in 1923, he had called the Hindu Mahasabha a 'communal organisation' of the Hindus which had started sangathan and shuddhi movements amongst the Hindus.

The Friendship Lived on...

When Bose took over the command of the Azad Hind Fauj, he named one of the brigades as the Nehru Brigade. The other brigades were named after Gandhi, Azad, and Bose – with one all-woman unit named as the Rani Jhansi Regiment.

After he died in an air crash on 18 August 1945, Jawaharlal Nehru ensured that his widow, Emilie, was given life-long financial assistance by the Congress Party. Her daughter, Anita Bose, also received monetary aid from the Government of India till she got married in 1965. Unfortunately, her repeated appeals to the government to bring back the ashes of her father from Japan have not been heeded, even after it has been conclusively established that Netaji did die in the air crash two years before Independence.

(The writer is a retired army officer and author of Freedom Struggle and Beyond. This is an opinion piece, and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)