Gandhi’s Appreciation of Bose . Taken from “Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi” Vol. 83 - Ahmedabad, 1981

Let me share with you the thoughts that have been crowding in my mind since yesterday. India has accorded to the released I.N.A. men a right royal welcome. They have been acclaimed as national heroes. Everybody seems to have been swept off his feet before the rising tide of popular sentiment. I must, however, frankly confess to you that I do not share this indiscriminate hero worship. I admire the ability, sacrifice and patriotism of the I.N.A. and Netaji Bose. But I cannot subscribe to the method which they adopted and which is incompatible with the one followed by the Congress for the last twenty-five years for the attainment of independence.
For me the visit to the I.N.A. men in detention was a matter of pure duty. It gave me supreme satisfaction to be able to meet them, and they on their part received me with warmth of affection which I shall always treasure. I have interpreted their welcome as a token of their recognition in me of a devoted servant of the country.
Netaji was like a son to me. I came to know him as a lieutenant, full of promise under the late Deshabandhu Das. His last message to the I.N.A. was that whilst on foreign soil they had fought with arms; on their return to India, they would have to serve the country as soldiers of non-violence under the guidance and leadership of the Congress. The message which the I.N.A. has for India is not adoption of the method of appeal to arms for settling disputes (it has been tried and found wanting) but of cultivating non-violence, unity, cohesion and organization.
Though the I.N.A. failed in their immediate objective, they have a lot to their credit of which they might well be proud. Greatest among these was to gather under one-banner men from all religions and races of India and to infuse into them a spirit of solidarity and oneness to the utter exclusion of all communal or parochial sentiment. It is an example which we should all emulate. If they did this under the glamour and romance of fighting, it was not much. It must persist in peace. It is a higher and more difficult work. We have to die performing our duty and without killing.