Subhas Chandra Bose and the Forward Bloc, 1939

In 1939, Subhas Chandra Bose won a Congress election against Gandhi’s own candidate. Within three months, he had left the party’s top post.

This lesson covers the 1939 election, the Tripuri crisis, and the birth of the Forward Bloc.

1Who was Bose, and how did he win in 1939?

Bose was a radical who had already led Congress once.

• Bose was first elected Congress President at the Haripura session in 1938.
• Haripura is in Gujarat. That term was won with Gandhi’s blessing.
• In 1939 he stood again. This time Gandhi did not support him.
• Gandhi’s chosen candidate was Pattabhi Sitaramayya.
• The vote was held on 29 January 1939.
• Bose won by 1,580 votes to 1,377.
• It was a narrow win. It was also a public defeat for Gandhi’s camp.
• Gandhi said Pattabhi’s defeat was his own defeat.
• Bose and Gandhi both wanted full independence. The Lahore Congress of 1929 had already set that goal. See Lahore Congress and the Purna Swaraj Declaration.
• They disagreed on speed and method.
• Bose wanted to press Britain harder. He saw the coming war in Europe as an opening.
• Gandhi’s circle preferred a slower, steadier path.
• Bose had also written a book on the movement, The Indian Struggle, 1920-1934.

2What happened at Tripuri?

Bose won the vote but could not run the party.

• The Congress session met at Tripuri in March 1939.
• Bose was now President. But the Working Committee was full of Gandhi’s loyalists.
• They did not cooperate with him.
• Tripuri is near Jabalpur, in the Central Provinces.
• Bose fell ill with fever before the session. He attended despite it.
• A resolution moved by Govind Ballabh Pant asked Bose to form the Working Committee according to Gandhi’s wishes.
• The resolution passed. It left Bose with little real power.
• The Working Committee stonewalled his plans. He could not form the team he wanted.
• A President without a cooperative Working Committee could do very little.
• The session showed that winning an election and leading the party were two different things.
• Bose had the votes. His opponents had the organisation.

3What caused the split?

The deadlock ended with a resignation.

• After Tripuri, the deadlock continued for weeks.
• Bose tried to work with the Working Committee. It would not move his way.
• On 29 April 1939, he resigned as Congress President.
• Rajendra Prasad was chosen to succeed him.
• The dispute was never only about one election.
• It was about two views of how to win freedom.
• Bose wanted a harder line against the British. Gandhi’s followers did not.
• In August 1939, the AICC went further. It barred Bose from holding elected Congress office for three years.
• The ban closed the door to a return through Congress.
• He was a former President who now had no formal role in the party.
• Many young radicals still admired him. He kept their support outside Congress.

4What was the Forward Bloc?

Bose built a new party for the radical camp.

• Bose founded the Forward Bloc on 3 May 1939.
• The launch was a public rally in Calcutta.
• That was only four days after his resignation.
• The new party aimed to gather radical and anti-imperialist forces.
• It wanted to pull Congress itself toward a harder line.
• It stood for complete independence and a more militant struggle.
• The Forward Bloc began inside the freedom movement as a pressure group. It was not meant to be a rival to the national cause.
• Its founding is a standard question on modern history papers.

5What was the legacy?

The split sent Bose on a path that led out of India.

• The Forward Bloc gave Bose an independent base after Congress closed its doors.
• Then came the Second World War, which began in September 1939.
• Bose saw Britain’s difficulty as India’s chance.
• In January 1941, he escaped from India and reached Kabul.
• He then worked abroad for Indian freedom.
• That story leads to the Indian National Army. See The Indian National Army and Netaji.
• For the party he left, see The Indian National Congress: Founding and the Moderate-Extremist Phase.
• Exams often ask you to compare Bose and Gandhi. Focus on method and timing, not on goals.
• Both wanted independence. They differed on how fast and how hard to push.