An If of History—2

In the twilight of his life, Doctorji stood at the cusp of a transformative alliance—had fate allowed his meeting with Subhas Bose, India's freedom struggle would have been more revolutionary

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The study of the many "ifs" of history is always a fascinating journey into the twist and turns of history. What if MK Gandhi, on a visit to Belur Math in 1901, had met Swami Vivekananda? What if Swami Vivekananda had not passed away at the age of 39 in 1902?

What if Swami Vivekananda had succeeded in visiting Russia and had met the iconic Leo Tolstoy in Yasnaya Polyana. The Swami's Raja Yoga and Sri Ramakrishna's Kathamrita had profoundly impacted Tolstoy. He considered Vivekananda to be "amongst the best thinkers of the world, alongside Socrates, Rousseau, Kant etc."

What if Tagore, Einstein, Rolland and Ananda Coomaraswamy met in conversation? Tagore met each of them separately. What if Ananda Coomaraswamy had not left India for Boston in 1917 and spent three decades of his life in America?

What if Sri Aurobindo and Mahatma Gandhi had met after the latter's return from South Africa? What if Sri Aurobindo had not withdrawn from his leadership of the freedom movement and gone into exile in Pondicherry? What if Khudiram Bose had not missed his target and killed Judge Kingsford in 1908 in Muzaffarpur? What if the SS Maverick had unloaded its huge cache of arms on the coast of Balasore in 1915 and Jatindranath Mukherjee had succeeded in inciting revolt in the regiments of the British Indian Army? What if Veer Savarkar had succeeded in escaping to France when the SS Morea had docked in Marseille?

What if Lokmanya Tilak and Lala Lajpat Rai had not died in 1920 and 1928, respectively, and Bhagat Singh not hanged in 1931? What if Netaji returned to India, or his INA had succeeded in pushing through beyond Manipur into Assam? What if the whole of Bengal, along with Calcutta, had gone into Jinnah's Pakistan? What if Sardar Patel had become the first Prime Minister of India?