The
Indian National Army (
INA) or
Azad Hind Fauj ( ) was an armed force formed by
Indian nationalists in
1942 in
Southeast Asia during
World War II.
The aim of
the army was to overthrow the British
Raj in colonial India, with Japanese
assistance. Initially composed of Indian prisoners of war captured by Japan in her
Malayan campaign and at
Singapore
, it later drew large numbers of volunteers from
Indian expatriate population in
Malaya and Burma
.
Initially formed in 1942 immediately after
the fall of Singapore under
Mohan
Singh, the first INA collapsed in December that year before it
was revived under the leadership of
Subhas Chandra Bose in 1943 and
proclaimed the army of Bose's
Arzi Hukumat-e-Azad Hind (The
Provisional Government of Free India).
This second INA fought
along with the Imperial Japanese
Army against the British and commonwealth forces in the
campaigns in Burma, Imphal and Kohima, and later, against the successful
Burma Campaign of the allies.
The end of
the war saw a large number of the troops repatriated to India
where some
faced trial for treason and became a galvanising point of the
Indian Independence
movement.
After Indian independence, the ex-INA members, with some
exceptions, were refused service in the
Indian Army. However, a number of notable
members later became involved in
public
life in India and in South East Asia.
The legacy of the INA is controversial given its associations with
Imperial Japan, the course of Japanese occupations in
Burma,
Indonesia and other parts
of
Southeast Asia, her alliance with
Nazi Germany and
Fascist Italy, as well
as
Japanese war crimes and
alleged complicity of the troops of the INA in these. Also, its
relative insignificance in military terms, its obvious propaganda
value to the Japanese, as well as war time British Intelligence
propaganda of cowardice and stories that
associated INA soldiers in mistreatment of captured allied troops,
to some extent mires the history of the army. However, after the
war, the
trials of captured INA
officers in India provoked massive public outcries in support of
their efforts to fight the Raj, eventually triggering
mutinies in the British Indian forces. These
events in the twilight of the Raj are accepted to have played a
crucial role in its hasty end.
Background
Within the
Indian independence
movement, the origins of the concept of an armed force fighting
its way into India to overthrow the Raj goes back to the First World War, when the Ghadar Party in February 1915 planned to
initiate rebellion in the British
Indian Army from the Punjab through
Bengal
to Hong
Kong
with German
assistance. This plan failed after the information was
leaked to British Intelligence, but only after the Singapore
Garrison had rebelled. Further German assistance in the form of
arms, ammunition and trained cadres (both European and Indian) came
too late to make a difference.During the
Second World War, this plan found revival,
with a number of different leaders, units and movements formed over
the duration of the war. These included "liberation armies" formed
in and with the help of Italy, Germany as well as in South-east
Asia. Local movements also formed within India which
guerrilla tactics significantly hindered the
British war effort by
sabotage,
civil unrest and
propaganda.The south-east Asian theatre saw the
concept of the Indian National Army initiated by the Indian
Independence League, which came to be acted out in two phases: the
formation and subsequent disbandment of the Indian National Army
under Capt. Mohan Singh, and the formation of the Arzi
Hukumat-e-Azad Hind under
Subhash
Chandra Bose and the reformation of the INA as its army. The
concept of INA as the Azad Hind Fauj that lives in Indian Public
Memory, and indeed as it is analysed by historians, as a fighting
force is essentially the INA as the army of the Azad Hind
Government under Netaji Subhash Bose. Both these phases saw
extensive support from the Japanese Government, militarily as well
as politically.
The First INA
Japan
, as well as
South East Asia was a major refuge for Indian nationalists living
in exile before the start of World War
II who formed strong proponents of militant nationalism and
also influenced Japanese policy significantly. Although
Japanese intentions and policies with regards to
India were far from concrete at the start of the
war, Japan had
sent intelligence missions,
notably under
Major I
Fujiwara, into South Asia even before the start of the World
War II to garner support from the Malayan Sultans, overseas
Chinese, the Burmese resistance and the Indian movement.
These
missions were successful establishing contacts with Indian nationalists in exile in
Thailand
and Malaya, supporting the establishment and
organisation of the Indian
Independence League.
At the outbreak of
World War II
in South East
Asia, 70,000 Indian troops were stationed in
Malaya.
After the start of the war, Japan's
spectacular Malayan Campaign had
brought under her control considerable numbers of Indian Prisoners
of War, notably nearly 55,000 after the Fall of
Singapore
. The
conditions of service within the British Indian Army as well as the
conditions in Malaya had fed dissension among these troops. From
these troops, the
First
Indian National Army was formed under Mohan Singh and received
considerable Japanese aid and support. It was formally proclaimed
in September 1942 and declared the subordinate military wing of the
Indian Independence
League in June that year.
The unit was dissolved in December 1942 and
Mohan Singh was arrested and exiled to Pulau Ubin
after apprehensions of Japanese motives with
regards to the INA led to disagreements, distrust and subsequently
open hostility between Capt. Mohan Singh and INA leadership
on one hand, and the leagues leadership, most notable Rash Behari
Bose and the Japanese military command on the other.
A large number of the
initial volunteers chose to revert to Prisoner of War Status and
large number of these were subsequently sent to work in the
Death
Railway
or in New
Guinea
. From the end of December 1942 to February
Rash Behari Bose struggled to hold the INA together.
The Second INA
In a series of meetings between the INA leaders and the Japanese in
1943, it was decided to cede the leadership of the IIL and the INA
to
Subhash Chandra Bose, since
a number of the officers and troops who had returned to PoW camps,
or had not volunteered in the first place, made it known that they
would be willing to join the INA only on the condition that it was
led by Bose.
Bose had, at the start of the war in Europe,
escaped from house arrest to
make his way to Germany
, reaching Berlin on 2 April 1941. In Germany
he convinced Hitler, in a series of conferences, to support the
cause of Indian Independence, forming the
Free India Legion and the
Azad Hind Radio By early 1943, Bose had
turned his attention to Southeast Asia. With its large overseas
Indian population, it was recognised that the region was fertile
ground for establishing an anti-colonial force to fight the Raj. In
January 1943, the Japanese invited Bose to lead the Indian
nationalist movement in East Asia. He accepted and left Germany on
8 February. After a three-month journey
by submarine, and a short stop in Singapore, he reached Tokyo on 11
May 1943, where he made a number of radio broadcasts to the Indian
communities, exhorting them to join in the fight for India’s
Independence.
On 15 February 1943, the Army itself was put under the command of
Lt. Col. M.Z. Kiani. The former ranks and badges were revived. A
policy forming body was formed with the Director of the Military
Bureau, Lt. Col Bhonsle, in charge and clearly placed under the
authority of the IIL. Under Bhonsle served Lt. Col.
Shah Nawaz Khan as Chief of General Staff,
Major
P.K. Sahgal as Military Secretary, Major
Habib Ur Rahman as commandant of the
Officers' Training School and Lt. Col.
A.C. Chatterji
(later Major A.D. Jahangir) as head of enlightenment and
culture.
On 4 July 1943, two days after reaching Singapore, Subhash Chandra
Bose assumed the leadership of the IIL and the INA in a ceremony at
Cathay Building. Bose's influence was notable. His appeal not only
re-invigorated the fledgling INA, which previously consisted mainly
of POWs, his appeals also touched a chord with the Indian
expatriates in South Asia as local civilians, without caste, creed
and religion- ranging from barristers, traders to plantation
workers, including
Sindhi swarankar
and Shop keepers – had no military experience joined the INA,
doubled its troop strength.
An Officers’ Training School for INA officers, led by
Habib Ur Rahman, and the Azad School for the
civilian volunteers were set up to provide training to the
recruits. A youth wing of the INA, composed of 45 Young Indians
personally chosen by Bose and affectionately known as the
Tokyo Boys, were also sent to Japan’s Imperial
Military Academy to train as fighter pilots.
Also, possibly the
first time in Asia, and even the only time outside the USSR
, a women's
regiment, the Rani of Jhansi
regiment was raised as a combat force.
Troop strength
[[File:INA Parade.jpg|thumb|right|Military parade of the INA at the
Padangon 5 July 1943.]]Although there are slight variations in
estimates, the INA is considered to have comprised about 40,000
troops when it was disbanded. The following is an estimate
attributed to Lt. Colonel G.D. Anderson of British
intelligence:
There were 45,000 Indian troops from Malaya captured and assembled
in Singapore when the Japanese captured it. Of these, about 5,000
refused to join the
First INA. The INA at
this time had 40,000 recruits. The Japanese were prepared to arm
16,000. When the "first INA" collapsed, about 4,000 withdrew. The
Second INA, commanded by Subhash Chandra Bose, started with 12,000
troops. Further recruitment of ex-Indian army personnel added about
8,000-10,000. About 18,000 Indian civilians enlisted during this
time. In 1945, at the end of the INA, it consisted of about 40,000
soldiers.
Order of Battle
The exact organisation of the INA and its troop strength is not
known, as Fay notes, since its records were destroyed by the
withdrawing
Azad Hind
Government before
Rangoon fell.
Fay's account of the INA gives the following account.
- The 1st Division was under Mohammed Zaman Kiyani. It drew a large
number of ex-Indian army PoWs who had joined Mohan Singh's first
INA. In addition, it also drew PoWs who had not joined in 1942. The
1st division consisted of
- The 2nd Guerrilla regiment, or the Gandhi Brigade under Col. Inayat
Kiani, consisting of two infantry battalions.
- The 3rd Guerrilla regiment, or the Azad
Brigade under Col. Gulzara Singh, consisting of three
battalions.
- The 4th Guerrilla regiment, or the Nehru Brigade. This unit was later under the
command of Lt. Col
G S Dhillon.
- The 1st Guerrilla regiment, or the Subhas Brigade under Col. Shah Nawaz Khan,
consisting of three infantry battalions. This unit was the first
and the major commitment of the INA to the U Go Offensive.
A soldier of the Rani of Jhansi
Regiment in training, c 1940s.
The 1st Division was lightly armed. Each battalion was composed of
five Companies of infantry. The individual companies were armed
with six
antitank rifles, six
Bren guns and six
Vickers machine guns. Some NCOs carried
hand grenades, while men going forward
on duty were issued British stocks of hand grenades by senior
officer of the Bahadur groups attached to each unit. Mortars were
available, but Fay points out these were not available at battalion
level.
- The 2nd Division under Aziz Ahmed. The 2nd division was formed
to a large extent after the Imphal
offensive had started, and drew a large remnant of the Hindustan Field Force of the First INA. The 2nd Division consisted of.
- The 1st Infantry Regiment, later to be merged with the 5th
Guerrilla regiment to form the 2nd Infantry Regiment. The 1st
Infantry drew a large number of civilian volunteers from Burma and
Malaya, and came to ve equipped with the lions share of the heavy
armament that the INA possessed.
- The 5th Guerilla regiment, later to be renamed the 2nd Infantry
Regiment under Col Prem Sahgal. This unit drew a large number of
the remnants of the Hindustan
Field Force.
- An additional 3rd Division of the INA was composed chiefly of
local volunteers in Malaya and Singapore. This unit disbanded
before Japan Surrendered. There was also a motor transport
division, but this did not have a significant capability or
resources.
Command structure
The INA in operation
As the Japanese offensive opened, the INA sent its first forces
into battle. The INA's own strategy was to avoid set-piece battles
for which it lacked arms, armament as well as man-power. Initially,
it sought to obtain arms as well as increase its ranks from British
Indian soldiers expected to defect to patriotic cause. Once the
Japanese forces were able to break the British defences at Imphal,
the INA would cross the hills of
North-East India into the
Gangetic plain, where it was to work as a
guerrilla army and expected to live off the land, garner support,
supplies, and ranks from amongst the local populace to ultimately
touch off a revolution.
Prem Kumar Sahgal, an officer of the INA once Military secretary to
Subhas Bose and later tried in the first
Red Fort trials, explained that although the war itself hung in
balance and nobody was sure if the Japanese would win, initiating a
popular revolution with grass-root support within India would
ensure that even if Japan lost the war ultimately, Britain would
not be in a position to re-assert its colonial authority, which was
ultimately the aim of the INA and
Azad
Hind.
1944
The plans decided between Bose and Kawabe envisaged the INA was to
be assigned an independent sector of its own in the
U Go offensive and no INA unit was to operate
less than a battalion strength.For operational purposes, the
Subhas Brigade was assigned under the
command of the Japanese general Head Quarters in Burma. Advance
parties of the
Bahadur Group also went
forward with the advanced Japanese units early during the
offensive.
As Japan opened its offensive towards India,
the INA's first division, consisting of four Guerrilla regiments,
was divided between the diversionary Ha Go offensive in
Arakan 1944, with one battalion reaching as
far as Mowdok in Chittagong
. A Bahadur group unit, led by Shaukat Malik, took the border enclave of
Moirang
in early April. The main body of the
first division was however committed to the U Go Offensive directed towards Manipur
, initially successfully protecting the Japanese
flanks against Chin and Kashin guerrillas as the Mutaguchi's three
divisions crossed the Chindwin river
and the Naga Hills
, and later directed towards the main offensive
through Tamu in the direction of
Imphal and Kohima. However, by the time Khan's forces left
Tamu, the offensive had been held, and the troops were redirected
to Kohima. By the time Khan's forces reached Ukhrul in the vicinity
of Kohima, Japanese forces had begun their withdrawal from Kohima.
The first division suffered the same fate as did Mutaguchi's Army
when the siege of Imphal was broken. With little or no supplies and
supply lines deluged by the Monsoon, harassed by Allied
air-dominance and local Burmese irregulars, the INA began
withdrawing when the 15th Army and
Burma
Area Army began withdrawing, and suffer the same terrible fate
as wounded, starved and diseased men succumbed during the hasty
withdrawal into Burma. The INA lost a substantial amount of men and
materiel in the retreat, and a number of units were disbanded or
used to feed the newly formed units of the second division.
1945
As the allied
Burma campaign began
the following year, however, the INA remained committed to the
defence of Burma, and was a part of the Japanese defensive
deployments. The second division, tasked with the defence of
Irrawaddy and the adjoining areas around
Nangyu, was instrumental in opposing Messervy's 7th Indian Division
when it attempted to cross the river at Pagan and Nyangyu during
Irrawaddy
operations.
Later, during the Battles of Meiktila and
Mandalay, the 2nd division was instrumental in denying the
British 17th Division the area around Mount Popa
that would have exposed the Flank of Kimura's
forces attempting to retake Meiktila and Nyangyu. Ultimately
however, the division was obliterated.
As the Japanese
situation became precarious, Azad Hind
withdrew from Rangoon
with Ba Maw's government and
the Japanese forces for Singapore along with the remnants of the
first division and the Rani of
Jhansi Regiment. Nearly 6000 troops amongst the surviving
units of the Army remained in Rangoon under A.D Loganathan
surrendered as Rangoon fell, and helped keep order till the allied
forces entered the city.The only Indian territory that the
Azad Hind govt controlled were the Indian
territories that fell during the Imphal offensive, and the islands
of
Andaman and
Nicobar. However, the latter two were bases for the
Japanese Navy, and the navy never really fully relinquished
control. Enraged with the lack of administrative control, the Azad
Hind Governor, Lt. Col Loganathan later relinquished his authority
to return to the Government's head quarters in Rangoon. The
Japanese forces is said to have carried out torture on thousands of
local inhabitants during the occupation, and some historians
inexplicably apportion the blame to Subhas Bose's provisional
government.
End of the INA
Troops of the Indian National Army who
surrendered at Mount Popa, April 1945.
As the Japanese withdrawal from Burma progressed, the other
remnants began a long march over land and on foot towards Bangkok,
along with Subhas Chandra Bose. The withdrawing forces regularly
suffered casualties from allied airplanes strafing them, clashes
with
Aung San's Burmese resistance, as well
as Chinese guerrillas who harassed the Japanese troops.
At the
time of Japan's surrender in September 1945, Bose left for Manchuria to attempt to contact the advancing
Soviet
troops
, and was reported to have died in an air crash near
Taiwan.
Repatriation to India
Even before the end of the war in South Asia, the INA prisoners who
were falling into allied hands were being evaluated by forward
intelligence units for potential trials. A small number had fallen
into Allied hands in 1943 around the time of the Imphal campaign
and subsequent withdrawal, while larger numbers surrendered or were
captured during the 14th Army's Burma Campaign. A total of 16,000
of the INA's 43,000 recruits were ever captured, of whom around
11,000 were interrogated. The number of prisoners necessitated this
selective policy which envisaged trials of those with the strongest
commitment to Bose' ideologies, while those with less strong views
and other extenuating circumstance may be dealt with more
leniently, with the punishment proportional to their commitment or
war crimes. For this purpose, the field intelligence units
designated the captured troops as
Blacks with strongest
commitment to Azad Hind,
Greys with varying commitment but
also with enticing circumstances that led them to join the INA, and
Whites, ie, those who pressured into joining the INA under
the circumstances but with no commitment to Azad Hind, INA, or
Bose.
By July 1945, a large numbers had been shipped back to India. At
the time of fall of Japan, the remaining captured troops were
transported to India via Rangoon. Large numbers of local Malay and
Burmese volunteers including the recruits to the Rani of Jhansi
regiment returned to civilian life and were not identified.
Those
repatriated passed through transit camps in Chittagong and Calcutta
to be held at detention camps all over India
including Jhingergacha and Nilganj near Calcutta, Kirkee outside
Pune, Attock
, Multan
and at
Bahadurgarh near Delhi. Bahadurgarh also held prisoners of
the
Indische Legion. By November,
around 12,000 INA prisoners were held in these camps, from which
they were released according to the "colours". By December, around
600 whites were released per week. From amongst the rest, the
selection for those to face trial started.
The Red Fort trial
At the conclusion of the war, the government of British India
brought some of the captured INA soldiers to trial on treason
charges. The prisoners would potentially face the death penalty,
life imprisonment or a fine as punishment if found guilty. It was
initially believed by Auchinleck that no less than twenty death
penalties were likely to be confirmed. Between November 1945 and
May 1946, approximately ten courts-martial were held.
The first of these,
and the most celebrated one, was the joint court-martial of
Colonel Prem Sahgal, Colonel Gurubaksh Singh
Dhillon and Major
General Shah Nawaz Khan held in a public trial at Red Fort
. The then
Advocate General of India, Sir
Naushirwan P Engineer was appointed the counsel for the
prosecution. Nearly all the defendants in the first trial were
charged with
Waging against the King-Emperor (the charge
of
treason did not exist in the
Indian Army Act, 1911) as well as
torture,
murder and
abettment to murder. The three defendants were defended by the
INA Defence Committee formed
by the
Congress and include
legal luminaries of India of the time including
Jawaharlal Nehru,
Bhulabhai Desai,
Kailashnath Katju and others. The trials
covered arguments based on
Military
Law,
Constitutional Law,
International Law, and
Politics and much of the initial defence was based
on the argument that they should be treated as prisoners of war as
they were not paid mercenaries but
bona
fide soldiers of a legal government, the Provisional
Government of Free India, or the
Arzi Hukumate Azad Hind, "however
misinformed or otherwise they had been in their notion of patriotic
duty towards their country" and as such they recognized the free
Indian state as their sovereign and not the British sovereign.
Those charged later only faced trial for torture and murder or
abettment of murder.
These trials attracted much publicity, and public sympathy for the
defendants who were perceived as patriots in India. The
Indian National Congress and the
Muslim League both made the release of
the three defendants an important political issue during the
agitation for independence of 1945-6. Beyond the concurrent
campaigns of noncooperation and nonviolent protest, this spread to
include mutinies and wavering support within the British Indian
Army. This movement marked the last major campaign in which the
forces of the Congress and the Muslim League aligned together; the
Congress
tricolor and the green flag of the
League were flown together at protests. In spite of this aggressive
and widespread opposition, the
court
martial was carried out, and all three defendants were
sentenced to deportation for life. This sentence, however, was
never carried out, as the immense public pressure of the
demonstrations and riots forced
Claude
Auchinleck,
Commander-in-Chief of the Indian
Army, to release all three defendants. Within three months,
11,000 soldiers of the INA were released after
cashiering and forfeiture of pay and allowance.
On the recommendation of
Lord
Mountbatten of Burma, and agreed by
Nehru,
as a precondition for
Independence the
INA soldiers were not re-inducted into the Indian Army.
Post 1947
Within India, the INA continued to have a strong hold over the
public psyche and the sentiments of the armed forces till as late
as 1947. Some have said that Shah Nawaz Khan was instrumental in
organising INA troops to train Congress volunteers on
Nehru's request in late 1946 and early 1947. After
1947,some accounts suggest that the INA-veterans were involved in
training civilian resistance forces against the
Nizam's
Razakars
prior to the execution of
Operation
Polo and annexation of Hyderabad.There are also mentions of
some INA veterans leading Pakistani irregulars during the
First Kashmir war.
INA-veterans were not allowed to join the
Indian Army after India's independence in August
1947.
However, a few ex-INA members, notably the
most prominent members or those closely associated with Subhas Bose or with the INA trials later have seen prominent public life
or held important positions in independent India.
Shah Nawaz Khan served as
a Minister of State for
Rail in the
First Indian cabinet.
Lakshmi Sahgal, Minister for Women's
affairs in the
Azad Hind govt,is a
well known and widely respected public figure in India. In 1971,
she joined the
Communist Party of India
and was later elected the leader of the
All India Democratic
Women's Association. In 2002, she was also nominated by the
Communist bloc's for the post of
President of India, when she lost to the
candidature of
Abdul Kalam.
Abid Hasan, Subhas Bose's sole Indian companion
in the U-Boat from Germany to South-east Asia, joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1948 and
served as the Indian Ambassador to a number of countries including
Egypt
and Denmark
. Mohan Singh served for two terms in the
Rajya Sabha of the
Indian Parliament as a member of the
Indian National Congress.
Ram Singh Thakur, composer of a
number of songs including the INA's regimental march
Kadam Kadam Badaye Ja, later composed
the tune for the
Indian National
Anthem.
Amongst the very few ex-INA members who joined the
Indian Armed Forces after 1947 was
R S Benegal, a member of the
Tokyo Boys who was allowed to join the
Indian Air Force in 1952 and later rose to
be an
Air Commodore. Benegal saw
action in both the
1965 and
1971 Indo-Pak war, earning a
Maha Vir Chakra, India's second highest
award for valour.
A few members, including
Gurubaksh Singh Dhillon and
Lakshmi Sahgal were later awarded civilian
honours of
Padma Vibhushan by the
Indian Government in the 1990s.
Subhas Bose himself was posthumously
awarded
Bharat Ratna in 1992 but this
was later withdrawn over the controversy over
the circumstances of his
death.
Outside India, the
Malaysian
Indian Congress was founded in 1946 by, amongst others, notable
members of the INA and of which
John
Thivy was the founding president.
Janaky Athi Nahappan,
Second in Command of the
Rani of Jhansi Regiment was also a
founding member of the MIC, and later was to become a noted welfare
activist and a distinguished senator in the
Dewan Negara of the
Malaysian Parliament.
Rasammah Bhupalan, also of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment, later
became a noted welfare-activist and a widely respected champion for
Women's Rights in Malaysia
.
Impact
The INA's impact on the war and on British India after the war has
been analysed in detail. The INA's role in military terms is
considered to be relatively insignificant, given its small
numerical strength, lack of heavy weapons (it utilised captured
British and Dutch arms initially), relative dependence on Japanese
logistics and planning as well as its lack of independent planning.
Shah Nawaz claims in his personal memoirs that the INA was a very
potent and motivated force. Fay however, reinforces the argument
that the INA was relatively less significant in military terms. Its
special services group played a significant part in halting the
First Arakan Offensive while
still under Mohan Singh's command. The propaganda threat of the
INA, coupled with the lack of concrete intelligence on the unit
early after the fall of Singapore made it a potent threat to Allied
war plans in South East Asia. It threatened to destroy the
Sepoy's loyalty in the
British Indian Army and in fact was
significant and successful enough during the
First Arakan Offensive for the
British intelligence to begin the
Jiffs
campaign as well as engage in campaign to improve morale and
preserve the loyalty of the sepoy to consolidate and prepare for
defense of Manipur. These measures included imposing newsban on
Bose and the INA that was not lifted till four days after the fall
of Rangoon two years later.
Later, during the Japanese U-GO offensive towards Manipur in 1944,
it played a crucial and successful role in the diversionary attacks
in Arakan as well as in the Manipur Basin itself where it fought
with Mutaguchi's 15th Army. It qualified itself well in the Battles
in Arakan, Manipur, Imphal, and later during the withdrawal through
Manipur and Burma. The commanders like L.S. Mishra, Raturi,
Mansukhlal, M.Z. Kiyani, and others attracted the attention of the
Japanese as well as the British forces . Later, during the Burma
Campaign, it did play a notable role in the Battles of
Irrawaddy and
Meiktilla especially in the latter,
supporting the Japanese offensive and tying down British troops.
Fay also notes the published accounts of several veterans,
including that of
William Slim that
portrays INA-troops as incapable fighters and untrustworthy, and
points out the inconsistencies and conflicts between the different
accounts to conclude that intelligence propaganda as well as
institutional bias may have played a significant part in the
portrayed opinions.
It is however noted that the INA did indeed suffer a number of
notable incidences of desertion. Fay notes the significant ones
amongst these were not during the offensives into Manipur and the
subsequent retreat through Burma, when incidences of desertion did
occur but at a far smaller numbers than the fourteenth army told
its troops. The significant desertions, Fay notes, occurred around
the Battles at Irrawaddy and later around Popa. During the fall of
Rangoon, 6000 INA troops manned the city to maintain order before
allied troops entered the city. Nevertheless, Fay argues, the INA
was not significant enough to militarily beat the British Indian
Army, and was moreover aware of this and formulated its own
strategy of avoiding set-piece battles, garnering local and popular
support within India and instigating revolt within the British
Indian army to overthrow the Raj. Moreover, the
Forward Bloc underground within India had been
crushed well before the offensives opened in the Burma-Manipur
theatre, depriving the army of any organised internal
support.
It was however, the INA trials that attracted more attention in
India than the war time activities of the unit, and coupled to the
decisions to hold the first trial in public, these became a
rallying point for the independence movement from Autumn 1945, so
much so that the release of INA prisoners and suspension of the
trials came to be the dominant political campaign in precedence
over the campaign for Freedom. Newspaper reports around November
1945 reported executions of INA troops, which deteriorated already
volatile situations. Opposition to the trial of the officers for
treason became a major public and political campaign, and the very
opening of the first trial saw violence and series of riots in a
scale later described as sensational. It also saw a campaign that
defied communal barriers.
Increasingly violent confrontations broke out between the police
and the mass rallies being held all over India, culminating in
public riotings in support of the INA men. The Raj also observed
with increasing disquiet and unease the spread of pro-INA
sympathies within the troops of the British Indian forces.
In
February 1946, while the trials were still going on, a general
strike ratings of the Royal Indian Navy rapidly deteriorated into a mutiny, incorporating
ships and shore establishments of the RIN throughout India, from
Karachi
to Bombay
and from
Vizag
to Calcutta. Amongst the rallying cries of the ratings
the central one was the INA trials and slogans invoking Subhas
Bose. Significantly, the mutiny received massive militant public
support. At some places, NCOs in the
British Indian Army started ignoring
orders from British superiors.
In Madras
and Pune
, the British
garrisons had to face revolts within the ranks of the British
Indian Army. Another Army mutiny took place at Jabalpur
during the last week of February 1946, soon after the Navy mutiny
at Bombay. British troops suppressed this by force, using bayonets.
It lasted about two weeks. After the mutiny, about 45 persons were
tried by court martial. 41 were sentenced to varying terms of
imprisonment or dismissal. In addition, a large number were
discharged on administrative grounds. Fay records
Auchinleck as having sent a "Personal and
Secret" letter to all senior British officers as having explained
the remissions of the sentences in the first trial as
Later historians have pointed out that the INA trials and its after
effects brought the decisive shift in British policy. The viceroy's
journal describes the autumn and Winter 1945-45 as "The Edge of a
Volcano". Intelligence reports at the time noted widespread public
interest and sympathy that turned into what has been described as
"Patriotic Fury" that was beyond the communal barriers in India at
the time. Particularly disturbing for the British, was the overt
and public support for the INA by the soldiers of the Indian army.
In
addition, the use of Indian troops for the restoration of Dutch and
French rule in Vietnam
and Indonesia
also fed growing resentment within the
forces. The Raj had every reason to fear a revival of the
Quit Indian movement, especially given
the Congress rhetoric preceding the elections. and rapidly realised
that the Indian army, unlike in 1942, could not be used to suppress
such a movement owing largely to nationalistic and political
consciousness in the forces which was ascribed to the INA. Some
historians cite Auchinleck's own assessment of the situation to
suggest this shortened the Raj by at least fifteen to twenty
years.
The political effects of the INA trials was enormous and were felt
around India as late as 1948, much to the chagrin of the then
Indian government.
Clement Atlee, the
then British Prime Minister, reflecting on the factors that guided
the British decision to relinquish the Raj in India, is said to
have cited the effects of the INA and Bose's activities on the
British Indian Army and the
Bombay Mutiny as being the most
important.
After the war ended, the story of the INA and the Free India Legion
was seen as so inflammatory that, fearing mass revolts and
uprisings—not just in India, but across its empire—the British
Government forbade the
BBC from broadcasting
their story.
Relations
The army's relationship to the Japanese was an uncomfortable one.
Bose wished to establish his political independence from the regime
that sponsored him (he had, in fact, led protests against the
Japanese expansion into
Manchuria, and
supported
Chiang Kai-shek during the
1930s), but his complete dependence on them for arms and resources
made this difficult.
On the Japanese side, members of the high
command had been personally impressed by Bose, and were thus
willing to grant him some latitude; more importantly, the Japanese
were interested in maintaining the support of a man who had been
able to mobilize large numbers of Indian expatriates—including,
most importantly, 40,000 of the 45,000 Indians captured by the
Japanese at Singapore.
The INA's interactions with the
British Indian Army occurred over two
distinct phases. The first of these was December 1942-March 1943,
during the
First Arakan
offensive at a time that the morale of the sepoy was low and
the knowledge about the INA was minimal. The INA's Special Services
agents led a successful operation during this time in encouraging
the Indian troops to defect to the INA, while those who returned to
India beaten in the field took back horrific if unbelievable
stories of Japanese troops using their parachutes not only to drop
from the skies, but to go back up again. The threat of the INA at
this time was significant and successful enough for the British
intelligence to begin the
Jiffs campaign as
well as engage in campaign to improve morale and preserve the
loyalty of the sepoy. General newsban on reporting the INA allowed
the British Indian Army to consolidate and prepare for defense of
Manipur, which it successfully did. By the end of March 1945, the
sepoy of the British Indian Army was reinvigorated and perceived
the men of the INA little more than savage turncoats and cowards.
Bayly and Harper mentions that a number of times, the sepoys in the
field units shot captured or wounded INA men, relieving their
British officers of the complex task of formulating a formal plan
for captured men. Writing about his experiences in the infantry
during the Burma Campaign, the author
George MacDonald Fraser stated that
INA prisoners had to be guarded by British troops to prevent them
from being shot by British Indians. After Singapore was retaken,
Mountbatten ordered the INA's war memorial to its fallen soldiers
to be blown up.
However, the INA's most significant interaction with the British
Indian Army occurred not in the battle field, but after the end of
the war. The lifting of the newsban after the fall of Rangoon led
to the INA story breaking in India which, within a matter of months
if not weeks, had captured the public imagination within India.
This nationalistic euphoria swept through the armed forces as well,
generally destabilising the Sepoy's loyalty to both the Raj and his
regiments. Fay notes that even before Japan surrendered
preparations were underway for the trial of selected INA men. The
predominant feeling in the Indian officer corps at this time was a
resentment was that so
few were being tried. This changed
dramatically over the following months as the further information
on the INA began emerging in the press and its true extent, as well
as the stories of its campaigns came to be known. The general
feeling within the British Indian army at this time is described by
some is that of guilt for having fought for the British and against
the INA. The revolts and mutinies within the armed forces in early
1946, during the trial and in a situation of volatile nationalist
public mood, are held to be a significant factor in precipitating
the end of the Raj.
Although the British Indian Army remained the largest volunteer
force during the World War II and saw action from the theatres of
North-Africa to Europe and New Guinea to Manipur, in India today,
the stories of the INA form a much more prominent aspect of both
appreciation as well as analysis of her role in
World War II.
Controversies
A number
of different views and controversies surround the history and
records of the Indian National Army, borne especially by its
integral associations with Imperial Japan, and the course and history of Japanese
occupation of South-East Asia during
the War. These include views especially among British
troops that the recruits were traitors, that they were
Axis Collaborators, as well as allegations
that INA troops engaged in or were complicit in widespread torture
of Allied and Indian prisoners of war. Fay concludes in his 1993
history of the army that the allegations were largely products of
the
British propaganda campaign and points out
that the allegations were not borne out by the charges against the
defendants in the
Red Fort trials.
Fay also points out that war-time press releases as well as the
field counter-intelligence directed at the sepoy portrayed the INA
as a small group and attributes to the Jiffs campaign the
promalgamation of the view that INA recruits were weak-willed and
traitorous Axis collaborators motivated by selfish interests of
greed and personal gain. He further notes over the records of Shah
Nawaz Khan's trial that officers of the INA had described to their
men the possibility of having to fight the Japanese after having
fought the British in order to prevent Japan from exploiting
India.
Controversy also exists in India with regards to the treatment of
the ex-INA soldiers by the post-independence government of India
and of historical records of the period leading up to Indian
independence in 1947, with some alleging that official histories of
the independence movement largely omit events surrounding the INA
especially the
Red Fort trials and
the
Bombay Mutiny and ignore their
significance in terms of rejuvenation of the independence movement
and guiding the British decision to relinquish the Raj. Further
criticisms have been made in recent years for the general hardships
and apathy surrounding the conditions of ex-INA troops including,
for example, the circumstances surrounding the death and funeral of
Ram Singh Thakur. These have been
compounded by a number of conspiracy-theories and news reports in
the past on agreements between the Indian political leadership to
hand over its leader
Subhas Chandra
Bose as a
War Criminal if he was
found to be alive. Later historians have, however, argued that
given the political aim and nature of the entire Azad Hind movement
especially the Indian National Army, Nehru's decisions may have
been to prevent politicisation of the army and assert civilian
authority over the military.
Commemorations
Memorials
- The
INA War Memorial at Singapore
to commemorate the "Unknown Warrior" of
the INA. Started on 8 July 1945 the memorial was
situated at the Esplanade
Park
. It was destroyed on Mountbatten's
orders when allied troops reoccupied the city. The words inscribed
upon the War Memorial were the motto of the INA: Ittefaq
(Unity), Etmad (Faith) and Kurbani
(Sacrifice).
- The Former
Indian National Army Monument (Chinese: 印度国民军纪念碑), was established in
1995 by the National Heritage Board of Singapore at the site where
the old memorial stood with financial donations from the Indian
community in Singapore. The site is now officially one of the
Historical sites in Singapore.
- The
Indian National Army Memorial at Moirang, Manipur commemorates the place where the flag of Azad Hind was raised by Col. Shaukat Hayat
Malik. Moirang was the first Indian territory captured by
the INA. The memorial suffered damage in an insurgent attack in
2004 when the Statue of the Springing Tiger on the entrance was
blown up.
- Swatantrata Sainani Smarak
(Memorial to the soldiers of the Independence Army) is an Indian
National Army (INA) memorial at the Salimgarh Fort
, at Delhi
, adjacent
to the Red
Fort, on the banks of the Yamuna
. The
site has been neglected for a number of years now and fallen into
disrepair. Its exhibits include the Indian National Army uniform
worn by Colonel Prem Sahgal, riding boots and coat buttons of
Colonel Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon, photographs of Subhash Chandra
Bose. In addition, a separate gallery also holds material and
photographs from excavations carried out by the Archaeological Survey of
India inside the fort in 1995.
Postage and philately
Right
These were a part of the
Jai Hind series of stamps issued
on 15 August 1947.
- Commemorative postage stamps were issued by
the Indian government in 1968
and 1993 respectively to commemorate the 25th and the 50th
anniversaries of the establishment of Azad
Hind at Singapore.
The
Indian Postal Department also
includes the six unused
Azad Hind
Stamps in its commemorative book
India's Freedom Struggle
through India Postage Stamps.
Works on the INA
The Indian National Army, from the time it came into public
perception in India around the time of the Red Fort Trials, and
from the time it found its way into the works of military
historians around the world, has been the subject of a number of
projects, both of academic, historical and of popular nature. Some
of these are critical of the army, some-especially of the ex-INA
men are biographical or auto-biographical, while still others
historical and political works, that tell the story of the INA. A
large number of these give a large analysis of
Subhas Chandra Bose and his work with
the INA.
Literary works
The first literary works on the INA were published as early as
1946.Some were works of fiction with the INA as the central theme
and subject, others the records of the INA that the authors were
able to obtain from the ex-servicemen, or from what information was
available from the trials and from what the British Intelligence
possessed and that the authors had access to. Some of the
literature focussed on the first INA trial itself. The notable work
on INA include
- Two Historic Trials at Red Fort by Moti Ram. (New
Delhi:Roxy Printing Press,1946). This was one of the first
published account of any sort of the INA and describes the Trial of
Major General Shah Nawaz Khan, Col Prem Sahgal, and Col G.S.
Dhillon that took place between November and December, 1946. Moti
Ram was the staff correspondent of the Hindustan Times at the first Red Fort Trial
and wrote his book on what information was available at the trial,
and from interviews with the defendants, Sahgal, Khan and Dhillon.
The book also provides an account of the 1858 trial of Bahadur Shah Zafar.
- Jai Hind, the Diary of a Rebel Daughter of India.
Bombay, 1945 (fiction) by Amritlal Seth. The book is a
work of fiction narrating the story of a recruit of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment. It is
believed to be loosely based on the story of Lakshmi Sahgal.
- The Day of the
Scorpion and The
Towers of Silence, second and third respectively of
Paul Scott's Raj Quartet that mentions Jiffs in the political and social context in
which the term found use in the Eastern Army during the
war.
- The Glass Palace by Amitav
Ghosh chronicles the fictional life of a Rangoon Teak trader
and describes the occupation of Rangoon and the Indian perspectives
and efforts In the book, Uma Dey is a widow and Indian Independence
League activist. Her appearance in the later half of the book is
used as a device to characterize the post-colonial divisions for
the remainder of the novel. The novel describes the Burma front in
some detail, examining the motivations of those Indian officers who
joined the INA and those who did not.
Historical literary works on the INA includes
- My memories of I.N.A. & its Netaji' by
Shah Nawaz Khan.
- The Indian National Army-Second Front of the Indian
Independence Movement by Kalyan Ghosh.
- Jungle Alliance: Japan and the Indian National Army.
by Joyce C Lebra.
- The Forgotten Army: India's Armed Struggle for
Independence, 1942-1945. by Peter
Fay.
Visual Media
Notable works on the INA in the visual and electronic media include
- The War of The Springing Tiger (1984)- made by Granada
Television for Channel 4. It examines the
role of the Indian National Army during the Second World War. The
documentary focuses on a number of aspects, including why the PoWs
chose to join the INA, its role in the Burma and Imphal Campaign,
as well as exploring its role in the independence movement. The
documentary took contributions from Lakhsmi and Prem
Sahgal.
- The Forgotten Army- (1999)- Film India. This was a
documentary directed by Kabir Khan and
produced by Akhil Bakshi following their famous Azad Hind
Expedition in 1994-95. The expedition retraced the route taken by
the troops of the INA from Singapore to Imphal
and ends at
Red
Fort, where the famous trial of the officers were
held. The expedition team had among its members Col G.S. Dhillon who himself was one of the
famous accused in the first trial, Captain Lakshmi Sahgal, who commanded the
Rani of Jhansi Regiment and
was also the minister in Charge of Women's affairs in the Azad Hind Govt and Captain S.S. Yadava, an
INA veteran and once the general secretary of All India INA
Committee, as well as prominent members of the Indian Parliament. The expedition met, and
honoured, a number of INA veterans residing in South East Asia. The then Indian Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao sent through the
expedition team goodwill messages to the heads of state of the
countries it went through. The documentary went on to win the Grand
Jury Prize at the Film South Asia festival in 1999.
- Hitler's secret Indian army (2004)-BBC- By Mike Thomson. This traces briefly the story of
Bose's Azad Hind Legion in Europe, but does not attempt to distinguish or
explain the differences between the Legion and the INA.
- Historical Journey of the Indian National Army- From
the National Archives of Singapore.
- Indian National Army in East Asia-Hindustan Times.
Cinema
INA has also been the source of or a significant context of a
number of
movies in a number of
Indian languages. Notable amongst
these include
- Pahla Admi, a 1950 film by Bimal
Roy and INA veteran Nazir Ahmed.
- Samadhi, a 1950 Hindi
film by Ramesh Saigal. The movie was a
fictional drama set in Singapore around the time the second INA was rising.
The lead character of Shekhar, played by Ashok Kumar, is a young recruit to the INA.
- Indian, a 1996 Tamil film directed by
S. Shankar. The
plot describes one of the main character, Senapathy, as an
ex-soldier in the INA.
- Netaji: The Forgotten
Hero, a 2004 movie by Shyam
Benegal, traces the last five years of Subhas Chandra Bose, who was the Supreme
Commander of the second INA and was instrumental in reorganising
it. The film describes the story of the INA but focuses on its
leader. The film was also widely noted for A
R Rahman's music.
In music,
Kadam Kadam Badaye
Ja..., the INA's marching song, has since become a famous
patriotic song in India. Today, it is in use as the Regimental
quickmarch of the
Indian Army as well as
its
Para Regiments.
The music
was composed by Ram Singh Thakur,
from whose composition was later derived the tune for India's national
anthem Jana Gana Mana.
Other mentions of the INA in popular culture abound through India,
including
See also
Appendix
Notes and references
- Jayant Dasgupta Japanese in Andaman & Nicobar Islands. Red
Sun over Black Water (Delhi: Manas Publications) 2002 pp67, 87,
91-5; L.P. Mathur Kala Pani. History of the Andaman & Nicobar
Islands with a study of India's Freedom Struggle (Delhi: Eastern
Book Corporation) 1985 pp249-51
- Stephen P. Cohen "Subhas Chandra Bose and the Indian National
Army" Pacific Affairs Vol. 36, No. 4 (Winter, 1963) pp
411-429
- George MacDonald Fraser, Quartered Safe Out Here
(1992): The Harvill Press. ISBN 0002726602
- Urquhart, James. (August 7, 2000) The Independent
Monday Book: A 'Doctor Zhivago' for the Far East - Review of
The Glass Palace.
Further reading
- The Springing Tiger:A study of a Revolutionary by Hugh
Toye
- Jungle alliance, Japan and the Indian National Army /
Joyce C. Lebra, Singapore, Donald Moore for Asia Pacific
Press,1971
- Burma: The Forgotten War, Jon
Latimer, London: John Murray, 2004. ISBN 978-0719565762
- Japan's Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere in World War
II: selected readings and documents / edited and introduced by
Joyce C. Lebra, Kuala Lumpur; New York: Oxford University Press,
1975
- Brothers Against the Raj --- A biography of Indian
Nationalists Sarat and Subhas Chandra Bose / Leonard A.
Gordon, Princeton University Press, 1990
- A Concise History of India / Barbara D. Metcalf and
Thomas R. Metcalf
- A History of India / Hermann Kulke and Dietmar
Rothermund
- The Glass Palace / Amitav Ghosh, London:
HarperCollins, 2001
External links
, is named after the INA, and houses the Netaji
Subhas Institute of Technology
named after Netaji Subhash Chandra
Bose.
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