Nehru on the Achievements of Subhas Bose. Taken from “Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru” edited by S. Gopal/New Delhi, 1978

Some people ask me why I am now praising Subhas Bose when I had opposed him while he was in India. I want to give a frank reply to this question. Subhas Bose and I were co-workers in the struggle for freedom for 25 years. He was younger to me by two or four or perhaps more years. Our relations with each other were marked by great affection. I used to treat him as my younger brother.
The Indian National Army fought bravely for the freedom of India and large numbers of them died in that struggle. We honour them for their fight for freedom and for their sacrifices. Yet the main lesson they teach us is not only the love for the country and freedom, but discipline and organization and the unity they forged among themselves. The communal problem that troubles us so much was solved by them in their ranks. Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs lived together as Indians, and struggled unitedly for the common cause. We honour them for this specially and we honour their great leader, Subhas Chandra Bose. Even when we differed from him in the past we respected him as a great fighter for India’s freedom. In recent years he showed himself a great organizer and, above all, a welder of different communities of India into a single body. The facts that have come out in the recent trial establish that he consistently resisted the Japanese encroachment on the freedom of the Provisional Government, which he had set up, and on the Indian National Army. This Government and this army were no puppets of the Japanese, but were moved by the passion for freedom. Repeatedly they declared that they would not serve Japanese imperialism. The situation then was difficult and required a careful handling. Subhas Bose and his colleagues proved themselves as able leaders in those moments of great crisis and difficulty. Therefore we have to learn from the Indian National Army how to build up our unity and how to organize and discipline ourselves.