द इण्डियन स्ट्रगल / भारतीय स्वाधीनता संग्राम (नेताजी सुभाष चन्द्र बोस - ऐतिहासिक विश्लेषण)

68 THE INDIAN STRUGGLE pressure would be brought to bear on Parliament and the Cabinet to make peace with India. But the Mahatma gave me to understand that he did not consider that to be the means whereby the Government would be forced to come to terms with the Congress. What his real expectation was, I was unable to understand. Either he. did not want to give out all his secrets prematurely or he did not have a clear conception of the tactics whereby the hands of the Govern- ment could be forced.¹ Altogether, his reply to the second question was disappointing and his reply to the third was no better. What was to him a question of faith—namely, that Swaraj would be won within one year—was by no means clear to me and personally speaking, I was prepared to work for a much longer period. However, I had no other course but to feel thankful for what I had been able to learn after an hour's conversation. But though I tried to persuade myself at the time there must have been a lack of understanding on my part, my reason told me clearly, again and again, that there was a deplorable lack of clarity in the plan which the Mahatma had formulated and that he himself did not have a clear idea of the successive stages of the campaign which would bring India to her cherished goal of freedom. Depressed and disappointed as I was, what was I to do? The Mahatma advised me to report myself to Deshbandhu C. R. Das on reaching Calcutta. I had already written to the latter from Cambridge that I had resigned the Indian Civil Service and had decided to join the political movement. Stories had reached us in England that he had given up his princely career at the Bar and was going to devote his whole time to political work, while making a gift of his entire property to the nation. In my eagerness to meet this great man, I overcame the somewhat depressing effect of my interview with Mahatma Gandhi and I left Bombay with the same excitement and the same enthusiasm with which I had landed there. On reaching Calcutta, I went straight to the house of Deshbandhu Das. Once again I was disappointed. ¹Looking back on the incident to-day, it strikes me that possibly the Mahatma expected a 'change of heart' on the part of the British Govern- ment, leading to an acceptance of India's national demands.