Subhas in Mandalay Jail

( Arthur Griffith, 1871-1922) 
The connection of Subhas Bose and later Sarat Bose with the revolutionaries is not a simple matter.Subhas Bose knew and sympathized with them and wanted them to continue to work with him in the Congress and support the Swarajya Party. Even though he may have believed that eventually the British would have to be driven from India by force of arms, He did not think the time was ripe . Some of the revolutionaries were now Congressmen and did not think of returning to a life of hiding, secrecy, and violence. Others  were beginning to turn to Socialism, though the major conversations took place in the latter 1920s and the 1930s. But some others began again to prepare for revolutionary actions.They were also spurred on by the violent path and results of Irish nationalism. The Sinn Fein movement, the Easter Rebellion and the struggle of Irishmen against the Blacks -and - Tans from 1919 to 1921 were well known to the educated young men of Bengal. There were frequent development reports of Irish developments in the nationalist press ans books were beginning to appear in Bengali on the Irish struggle for freedom.  

On October 25, 1924, everything suddenly changed . As Subhas Bose,remembered the moment a few years later;
" In the early hours of the morning of October 25, 1924. I was roused from my sleep as I was wanted by some police officers. The deputy Commissioner of Police , Calcutta, on meeting me said; Mr. Bose, I have a very unpleasant duty to perform. I have a warrant for your arrest under regulation III 0f 1818.  Then he produced another warrant authorising him to search my house for arms, explosives, am munitions, etc. Since no arms, etc were forthcoming , he had to content himself with taking a pile of papers and correspondence."

No  specific charges were ever made public and Bose - along with seventeen others in this particular round up - was jailed for an indefinite term. No charges, no hearing, no right of habeas corpus,  no judge , no jury. This was the Raj's special method of dealing with those suspected of revolutionary involvement.
The Swarajists of course, were in an uproar since several of their leading members were held.
Subhas and his batch of seven detenus joined some other political prisoners as well as ordinary convicts in the jail of wooden palisades at Mandalay.
In the 1880s the British moved on Upper Burma, conquering it in 1882. Mandalay is located in a dry zone set back from the moist coastal region . Subhas Bose described the dry season in the spring in a letter to Sarat;
" Babu Jitendra Bose once described his favourite Cossipore as 'a kingdom of dust'. I am sure he has not seen the real kingdom of dust-for that is Mandalay... In Mandalay the dust is in the air - therefore you must inhale it, It is in your food, therefore you must eat it, It is on your table - your chair, your bed, therefore you must feel its soft touch. It raises storms, obscuring distant trees and hills - therefore you must see it in all its beauty."
 In time Subhas came to learn that rain-storms as well as dust-storms could houl through the palisades as he experienced the round of the year in  Mandalay.
"But dust or rain , hot season or cool seasonm , he never felt well or comfortable during almost two years there. Part of this had to do with the construction of the prison, as Subhas sketched it. the interior of a Burmese prison is somewhat different from that of an Indian prison .... the jail buildings were built not of stone nor of brick, but of wooden palisading . From thd outside and especially at  night , the inmates of these buildings appeared almost like animals prowling about behind the bars. Withinthese structures we were at the mercy of the elements . There was nothing to protect us from the biting cold of winter or the intense heat of summer or the tropical rains in Mandalay ...we had to make the best of a bad situation."