ROLLAND, BOSE, TAGORE

Romain Rolland was most impressed by his study of the 'Indian Struggle' and commended Subhas Chandra Bose highly for it, adding that rare it was that somebody who was in the thick of battle had the capacity for such detached, dispassionate and objective analysis of the contemporary times. Rolland was not merely effusive in his praise of Bose's literary work but was surcharged in his admiration of the personality of the Indian revolutionary. There was a tangible element of veneration for Bose in his letter of grateful thanksgiving to him for the copy of the 'Indian Struggle'. And none ought to doubt the Frenchman's sagacity in judging a great man. He was an astute observer of European politics, a historian of the highest order, an internationalist and a humanist who had all his life striven to bring the West and the East closer to each other for the solidarity of the world at large. Rolland's admiration for Subhas Chandra was genuine and full of the wisdom that came from his maturity of experience at first hand of the perfidies of the interwar years.

In summation it seems that Netaji was made of a stuff which more vigorous people than the Mahatma's men could appreciate fully although the followers of the latter knew the art of attacking the hero from all sides to near-destroy him but, Subhas being no Abhimanyu, knew the way out of the national Chakravyuha to be able to turn the tables on all and successfully lead his countrymen abroad to war against the Raj.

Even Tagore in the evening of his life came to understand the implication of Subhas' life post the perfidy at Tripuri when he adorned him with the honorific 'Deshanayak' and gave utterance to his aspiration that Subhas would emerge as the liberator of oppressed India from the foreign yoke that stifled her life. Tagore, at the onset of the Second World War, disillusioned by human barbarism and the corruption of the Congress led by the Mahatma in ousting Subhas, looked longingly to the betrayed but not beaten hero, seeking in him the deliverer of our benighted nation. The words of the poet in this regard are so poignant and prophetic that they seem to be the last word on the brightest star that had hit the Indian skies. Vande Mataram! Jai Hind!