Bose, the Father of India?

Bose or Gandhi - Who Got Her Freedom?
Author: Maj Gen (Dr) GD Bakshi SM, VSM (Rtd) (2019)

Viewers who have seen the good Major General in action during his interviews agree that he is pretty passionate about war. Hailing from a Pashtun Hindu family with a strong tradition in the military, there is no denying that he is a nationalist by every means. 

This book results from detailed research of recently declassified sensitive correspondence documents of the British Foreign Office. Many of the communications happened between the local British officers and their superiors in London. The critical decision-makers involved here are Field Marshall Sir Claude Auchinleck (Commander-in-Chief in India), Field Marshall Archibald Percival (Viceroy of India), Lord Pethick-Lawrence (Secretary of State of India) and Lord Clement Attlee (Prime Minister). Included in the analysis were the many field reports from Provincial Governors to their bosses on their assessment of sentiments of the Indian crowd in the ground. 

From our history books, we came back with their idea that India's Independence was won unilaterally by the undying efforts of Gandhi and his band of politicians in the Congress Party. Slowly, as more and more truth surfaces, the world now realises that probably that narration was put up by the colonial masters. They wanted to portray an image of passing the baton to the natives on a platter with altruistic intentions.

Did Gandhi's satyagraha actually win India its Independence? This book vehemently disagrees. 

After India first resistance towards colonisation in the Sepoy Mutiny in 1857, the British moved on to attack Indians psychologically instead. They devised a 'divide and rule' strategy. They went on to dismantle the local ancient but advanced educational structure to brainwash Indians into thinking highly of the colonial master's way of life and education. 

With a tiny army, the British managed to keep the rest of Indian in check by appointing local sepoys and baboos to be at their beck and call to do their dirty job as well as maintain the master-slave arrangement. The loyalty of the native Indian sepoy to the British colonial enterprise is the bulwark of their occupation. It worked well until the call of self-rule came again in the early 20th century. Individual revolutionaries sprung here and there but were quickly curtailed by the British. The Congress Party demanded swaraj (self-rule) and later led passive resistance (satyagraha) towards this end. The British did not mind this. It was easier bulldozing unretaliating marches.

The Indians thought that the British would be moved to offer dominion status by volunteering in World War 1. The Indians later realised they were taken for a ride. Things were just getting worse. The call for self-rule grew louder. Even as late as 1942, when Clement Atlee was the War Minister, Britain agreed that Indian Independence was out of the question on both sides of British politics. Churchill and his band of pompous politicians had no intentions of honouring whatever promises they had given the Indians.

All India Forward Bloc, 
a faction within the Indian National Congress
in 1939, led by Subhas Chandra Bose.

It is a combination of loss of respect amongst the native, terrible post-war debts and the most important of all, the increase of post-WW2 nationalism in India.

Chandra Bose, who rose in the Congress Party to hold President's post in 1938, resigned following disagreements with Gandhi the next year. Bose had wanted to advocate force against the British, but Gandhi's manoeuvring of the Party ensured Bose could not.

Bose left to form a breakaway bloc to fight India's way to Independence. He made trips to the UK and specifically to Germany to form a pact with Hitler. Unfortunately, Bose found the Germans not so forthcoming. He received news that the Japanese could help. A dangerous trip via submarines took him to an audience with Emperor Hirohito and the Japanese military chieftains. In exile in Singapore, Bose formed a de-facto Indian government and created the Indian National Army from the captured British Indian Army personnel and thousands of ethnic Indian volunteers from Malaya and Singapore, including the first All-Women regiment named Jhansi Rani regiment in 1942.

Timing is all-important in military attacks. The Japanese invasion of the British forces at the India-Burma was done at the time when the Americans had moved in, and the Western front was somewhat under control in 1944. The INA fared poorly at Imphal and Kohima. 

Japanese PM with Subhas Chandra Bose Municipal Building (City Hall), Singapore. 6 July 1943.

What happened next plays the most crucial role in stirring nationalistic spirit amongst Indians that sent the British packing back to their cocoon. The decision of the British authorities to try the leaders of the captured INA leaders for treason against the Crown alerted the average Indian of double standardness. At a time of the suppression of information, this much-broadcasted trial in the iconic Red Fort in New Delhi just broadcasted to the whole of India of the sacrifice of a group of dedicated soldiers towards the nation's Independence and the injustice meted upon them. Even Gandhi hailed them as heroes.

The declassified documents just proved this fact. They cautioned the British officials of high tension arising amongst their subjects of that trial. 

The coup de grace must have been the mutiny by the officers of the Royal Indian Navy and soldiers of the British Indian Army. They openly defied the orders of their superiors. Due to mounting public pressure, charges were dropped, but they lost their pensions.

The British cut their losses, threw in the towel and fled the scene. Whilst the whole country was jubilant rejoicing around their bonfire, the British had their bonfire. They were burning up their highly classified documents before it got to the wrong side of history. 

Bose in Singapore.

History has made closet Anglophiles Gandhi

and Nehru as the heroes.

At the end of the day, it was not Gandhi's non-violence and gentle approach that had little to contribute towards Independence. It was, after all, in the end, good old fashioned violence and threat of more extensive brutality that sounded the death knell of the mighty British Raj.

Atlee, in 1956 was asked about Gandhi's role in the British's decision to quit India. He sarcastically smiled and said, "minimal!" He reiterated that the violence generated by the INA trials and its impact on the loyalty of the native Indians and the mutinies it created made them scamper in such a hurry.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

The story of the fallen

The Forgotten Army, Azaadi Ki Liye
(For Freedom, Hindi; 2020)
Amazon Prime.

26,000 Indians had died under the banner of Indian National Army (INA) while fighting for Independence of India. Their actions triggered the Royal Indian Navy mutiny, which nailed the coffin of the British occupancy in India. The plea for Independence and the spirit of Indianness were supported by the diaspora outside India just to be sizzled out by the historical turn of events. They say that history is written by the victors. This is one clear proof of this statement. History had vilified the efforts of INA and had labelled them as traitors. Their agitations had been marked, not as nationalism but as treason.

Flag of Azad Hind

Their rebel yell, Dilli Chalo (Let's go Delhi), was not in keeping with the narrative of the day then, as dictated by the Father of India and supported by the Congress Party. These people wanted India to be a British dominion to be given crumbs by their colonial masters. As such, Gandhi et al. decreed that Indian should be fighting for the cause of the Allied Forces to stay loyal to their master's path.

Subash Chandra Bose wanted full Independence from the British, not being a protectorate of Britain. He definitely did not believe that Gandhi's non-violent path would lead to self-rule. He managed to garner support from all the enemies of the British and the Allied Forces. At a time when India, being the subject of the British, was expected to fight for against the Axis Alliance, Bose lobbied for an Army to march with the Japanese against British in their Burmese campaigns. Indian National Army (Azad Hind Fauj) was his brainchild, armed by the Japanese Imperial Army and financed by contributions expatriate Indian civilian volunteers of Malaya and Singapore. Hence, he was labelled as a traitor and enemy of the state.

      Even though the operatives eventually turned out to be a dangerous one and had to be abandoned due to logistics as the Japanese found the whole exercise an uphill task, the INA did leave its mark. They stirred Indian nationalism. They were instrumental in initiating the Royal Indian Navy mutiny which expedited the British exit from the subcontinent. They were also the first Army (after Russia) to recruit a whole regiment comprising women -The Jhansi Regiment. For that time, the act of Indian women donning pants itself was revolutionary.

History never really gave the INA its befitting place. They were never given credence as free fighters, only tried as traitors.  The 13,000 odd INA soldiers who were apprehended were never given due recognition for their sacrifices and never remunerations reserved for freedom fighters. Their activities actually roused the nation and stirred political consciousness in British colonies. Their soldiers later initiated left-wing and union movements in Malaya, Singapore and even Indonesia. They began to think of Independence. In Malaya, after Merdeka, their members continued carrying education reforms and women empowerment movements at the local and national levels.

This 5-part miniseries brings its viewers through a nostalgic journey into the past. Using the spruced-up colonial buildings of Singapore, the rubber estates in Malaysia and the jungles of Thailand as backdrops, the director managed to narrate the genesis of INA. Starting with prisoners-of-war of Indian descent serving the British Indian Army, the Japanese riled up patriotism to recruit more volunteers to serve at the Burmese-Indian border in their encounter with the British.

Using characters with names of known figures who had participated in the mission, the storyteller managed to create a love drama of soldiers as they scaled the treacherous terrains of the Arakan and the perilous battles in Manipur. 

Janaki is the story refers to Janaki Athi Nahappan who went on to establish Malayan Indian Congress with John Thivy. She continued her social work until her demise in 2014. 

Rasammah Naomi Navarednam

Rasamma here refers to Mrs FR Bhuphalan, a Malaysian educationist and social activist, the 95-years lady of steel who appears in the media annually during the Merdeka month. The character Lakshmi denotes Dr Lakshmi Swaminathan @ Lakshmi Sahgal @ Captain Lakshmi, who gave up her medical practice in Singapore to join INA in the Azadi movement. She later became a Minister in the defunct Azad Hind Government. After the war, she settled in Kanpur, continued her medical practice, entered politics under the Communist Party banners and passed away at the ripe age of 97 in 2012.

A lovely miniseries that educates the ignoramus on the side of history as narrated by the fallen. Excellent cinematography and prudent use of computer graphic imaging (CGI) to recreate the feel of a real war and fairly credible combat scenes. We are relieved of the typical gravity-defying acrobatic battle encounters typified by Bollywood. Worth the watch.

The plaque erected by the
National Heritage Board at Esplanade Park,
marking the INA Monument site in Singapore.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Liaison with the devil?

This is an interesting documentary about the life and times of Netaji Subash Chandra Bose and his army of freedom fighters in the Indian National Army. RS would be interested to note that Sikh soldiers were a hit amongst the German girls. There is a story of a Indo-Austrian child and a mysterious death which intrigues many conspiracy theorists. He is said to be the mysterious leader who had no qualms to shake hands with the devil for Independence of India.