Bose Out

Up to a huge temporary shed of bamboo and matting at torrid Tripuri drove an ambulance one day last week. A patient was carried into the shed and put on a cot between two big ice tanks. Lying there, sipping cooling drinks and medicines, occasionally bidding two young nieces fan his brow, the patient tried to forget a temperature of over 100 as he presided over the annual meeting of the Indian National Congress.

The sick man was Subhas Chander Bose, who last month scored a coup by engineering his own election to the Congress Presidency against Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi's wishes. But what the Congress did last week made President Bose sicker than ever. Mahatma Gandhi's prestige, having been vastly enhanced by his victorious fast (TIME, March 13) against Rajkot's ruler, which ended last week with a glass of orange juice, the Congress Working Committee voted 218-10-133 to follow the Mahatma's moderate program in the future, rather than Bose's radical one, in their fight for Indian nationalism. President Bose promptly retired to the hospital with a temperature of 105.

Two days later the patient's brother took the platform. Breaking into tears, he recalled Brother Bose's 26 years of service in the Congress. Moved by this harangue, the delegates voted to reconsider their stand. Next morning they were still bickering when news came that the sick man was on his way from the hospital. Quickly, before President Bose could reach the camp, the Congress reaffirmed its stand--all this while Saint Gandhi was still miles away at Rajkot. Once again, by doing nothing, the Mahatma had won a big victory.

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