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Indian National Army
The ensign of Azad Hind
Active	August 1942- September 1945
Country	India
Allegiance	Azad Hind
Branch	Infantry
Role	Infantry
Engagements	Battle of Imphal, Battle of Kohima
Commanders
Ceremonial chief	Subhash Chandra Bose
Notable commanders	Shaukat Malik, Lakshmi Sehgal.
Insignia
Identification symbol	The ensign of the springing Tiger

The Indian National Army (I.N.A) or Azad Hind Fauj was the army of the Arzi Hukumat-e-Azad Hind (The Provisional Government of Free India ) which fought along with the Japanese 15th Army during the Japanese Campaign in Burma, and in the Battle of Imphal, during the Second World War. It consisted mostly of Indian prisoners of war who, in the course of service in the Indian Army, had been captured by Axis forces, although a significant portion were recruited from Indian civilians in Japanese-controlled Malaya and Burma.

Background

The origins of the concept of an armed force fighting its way into India to break the shackles of the Raj goes back to the First World War, when the Ghadar Party and the nascent embryo of the Indian Independence League planned to intiate rebellion in the British Indian Army from the Punjab through Bengal to Hong Kong. This plan failed after the information was leaked to British Intelligence, but only after the Hong Kong Garrison had rebelled.

During the Second World War, this plan was reopened by the Indian Independence League, and came to be acted out in two phases: the formation and subsequent disbandment of the Indian National Army under Capt. Mohan Singh Deb, and the formation of the Arzi Hukumat-e-Azad Hind (The Provisional Govt. of free India) 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.

The INA was extensivley supported by the Japanese Government, both militarily as well as politically. Although the Japanese had not seriously planned on invading India themselves, ostensibly, the idea that their western boundary would be controlled by a more friendly government was attractive. It would aslo have been reconciliatory with the idea that Japanese expansion into Asia was part of an effort to support Asian government of Asia, and forming the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere .

In the same breath as the INA ought to be mentioned the Free India Legion. Formed in Europe with Indian PoWs from the battle fields of Europe and Africa, it was built as an assault force for Western Frontier of British India. However, the Free India Legion only ever saw action in Europe, fighting as a Heer unit attached to the Wehrmacht and later incorporated into Waffen SS (as were other national legions of the Wehrmacht) , especially after the Allied Invasion of France. Segments of the Free India Legion were parachuted into eastern Persia (present day Iran) to infiltrate into India through Baluchistan and commence sabotage operations against the British in preparation for the anticipated national revolt. A larger segment was also incorporated into the Indian National Army in South Asia after its formation, while segment of the Free India Legion fought British and Polish Forces in Italy in 1944.

Origin

On 17 February 1942, two days after the fall of Singapore, some 45,000 Indian prisoners-of-war (POWs), were gathered at Farrer Park where they were surrendered over to the Japanese. The intial dread of mistreatment at the hands of Japanese troops, however, gave way when the Japanese welcomed them and pledged their support for India's Independence. Capt. Mohan Singh, 1/14th Punjab Regiment, was announced as leader and he called upon the Indians to form an army to free India. Almost 20,000 soldiers immediately came forward to join what became the INA.

Earlier on, the Japanese Military Administration had encouraged various Indian nationalist groups in East Asia to form an anti-British alliance. These Indian nationalist groups then established the Indian Independence League (IIL), with its headquarters in Singapore. At the same time, the IIL looked after the welfare of Indian communities in East Asia.

In early March 1942, it had been proposed by the Japanese adivsors that the INA become the military arm of the IIL, with Rash Behari Bose as the leader of the entire movement . This was formally announced in June 1942 in Bangkok. By late 1942, however, the divisions appeared as the Indian troops increasingly felt as pawns in the hands of the Japanese. In December, Mohan Singh and other INA leaders ordered the INA to disband after severe disagreements with the Japanese. Mohan Singh was subsequently arrested by the Japanese and exiled to Pulau Ubin. Between December 1942 and February 1943, Rash Behari Bose tried but failed to keep the IIL and INA going. Thousands of INA soldiers returned to the status of POWs again and most of the IIL leaders resigned. The movement was seen to be doomed to failure. 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.

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 4 July 1943, two days after reaching Singapore, Subhas 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 comprised mainly POWs, his appeals also touched a chord with the Indian expatriates in South Asia as local civilians- ranging from barristers to plantation workers – had no military experience joined the INA, doubled its troop strength. An Officers’ Training School for INA officers and the Azad School for the civilian volunteers were set up to provide training to the recruits. A youth wing of the INA, comprised 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.

The anti-British feeling on the island of Sri Lanka was high, especially after the imprisonment of the leaders of the independence movement, the Lanka Sama Samaja Party in 1941. The Japanese were in secret contact with two junior Sri Lankan politicians, JR Jayawardene and Dudley Senanayake. In 1942, the Ceylon Garrison Artillery in the Cocos Islands mutinied, with the aim of handing the islands over to the Japanese, in emulation of their Indian cousins on Christmas Island, However, the Cocos Islands Mutiny failed. Sri Lankans in Singapore and Malaya formed the 'Lanka Regiment' of the Indian National Army. An abortive plan was made to land these troops in Sri Lanka by submarine.

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 clarion call of the INA was "Jai Hind" (meaning Victory to India) and "Give me blood and I will give you freedom".

Japanese Army assigned to advising at Indian Army at officer Hideo Iwakuro and Major-General Isoda during wartimes.

Rise and Fall of the INA

Although Japanese troops saw much of the combat in India against the British, the INA was certainly by itself an effective combat force, having faced British and allied troops and making their mark in the Battle of Imphal, as well as the battles of Arakan and Burma . On 18 April , 1944 the suicide squads led by Col. Shaukat Malik broke through the British defence and captured Moirang in Manipur. The Azad Hind administration took control of the this independent Indian territory.. Following Moirang, the advancing INA breached the Kohima road, posing a threat to the British positions in both Silchar and Kohima. Col. Gulzara Singh's column had penetrated 250 miles into India. The Azad Brigade advanced, by outflanking the Anglo-American positions. However, INA's most serious, and ultimately fatal, limitaltions were the reliance on Japanese logistics and supplies and the total air-dominance of the allies, which, along with a supply line deluged by torrential rain, frustrated the INA's and the Japanese bid to take Imphal.

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. After the war, three officers of the I.N.A., General Shah Nawaz Khan, Colonel Prem Sehgal and Colonel Gurbux Singh Dhillon were put to trial at the Red Fort in Delhi for "waging war against the King Emperor", i.e. the British sovereign. The three defendants were defended by Jawaharlal Nehru, Bhulabhai Desai and others based on the defence that they should be treated as prisoners of war as they were not paid merceneraries 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 .

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 on-going 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 forced Claude Auchinleck, Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army, to release all three defendants. Most of the I.N.A. soldiers were set free after cashiering and forfeiture of pay and allowance . On the recommendation of Lord Mountbatten, and agreed by Nehru, as a precondition for Independence the I.N.A. soldiers were not reinducted into the Indian Army.

Independent India's attitude to the I.N.A. was somewhat confused: on one hand, following the recommendations of Lord Mountbatten, the I.N.A. soldiers were not permitted to re-enroll in the Indian Army; on the other, members of the I.N.A. received an Indian state pension as freedom fighters which Indian volunteers for the British Indian Army during World War II did not.

Consequences of the I.N.A. Trials

Whether a measure of the pain that the allies had suffered in Imphal and Burma, as an act of vengeance, Lord Mountbatten, Head of Southeast Asia Command, ordered the INA Memorial to its fallen soldiers destroyed when the Singapore was recaptured in 1945. It has been suggested later that Mountbatten's actions may have been to erase completely the records of INA's existence, to prevent the seeds of the idea of a revolutionary socialist liberation force from spreading into the vestiges of it's colonies amidst the spectre of cold-war politics already taking shape at the time, and had haunted the Colonial powers before the war.

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 forbid the BBC from broadcasting their story.. However, if this was the last ditch attempt to preserve the Raj, it certainly failed miserably. The stories of the trials at the Red Fort filtered through. Newspapers reported at the time of the trials that some of the INA soldiers held at Red Fort had been executed, which only succeeded in causing further protests.

During the trial, mutiny broke out in the Royal Indian Navy, incorporating ships and shore establishements of the RIN throughout India, from Karachi to Bombay and from Vizag to Calcutta. The most significant, if disconcerting factor for the Raj, was the significant militant public support that it received.. 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. This was suppressed by force, including the use of the bayonet by British troops. 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. While the participants of the Naval Mutiny were given the freedom fighters' pension, the Jabalpur mutineers got nothing. They even lost their service pension.

Reflecting on the factors that guided the British decision to relinquish the Raj in India, Clement Attlee, the then British prime minister, cited several reasons, the most important of which were the INA activities of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, which weakened the Indian Army - the foundation of the British Empire in India- and the RIN Mutiny that made the British realise that the Indian armed forces could no longer be trusted to prop up the Raj. . Although Britain had made, at the time of the Cripps' mission in 1942, a commitment to grant dominion status to India after the war this suggests that, contrary to the usual narrative of India's independence struggle, (which generally focusses on Congress and Mahatma Gandhi), the INA and the revolts, mutinies, and public resentment it germinated were an important factor in the complete withdrawal of the Raj from India.

Why would, however, the story of the INA and the Free India Legion be forbidden from public broadcast and archived beyond public reach? . In 1946, with Britain attempting to hold on to its declining empire, it is certainly imaginable what inspiration the story of Bose and his revolutionary army would have been to the rising nationalism in Africa and Asia. One only needs to analyse the examples of the charismatic legends of Chairman Mao and the Chinese uprisings on Korea and Vietnam to understand what proportions the INA's legend would have reached and how that, in the hands of revolutionary nationalists would have destabillised what would remain of the British Empire after they left India. The mutinies and movements mentioned above proves this in the context of India. However, that still does not answer why these stories have been ignored or even actively suppressed by the Indian government after Independence.

Troop Strength

Although there are slight variations in estimates, the I.N.A. 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 I.N.A. The I.N.A. at this time had 40,000 recruits.

The Japanese were prepared to arm 16,000. When the "first I.N.A." collapsed, about 4,000 withdrew.

The "second I.N.A.", commanded by Subhas 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 I.N.A., it consisted of about 40,000 soldiers .

Azad Hind decoration

An "Azad Hind" (Free India) decoration was also instituted by Bose for the Indian Legion fighting alongside Germany. Both Indians and Germans were eligible for the decorations.

• Grand Star: "Sher-e-Hind" (Tiger of India)
• 1st Class Star: "Sardar-e-Jang" (Leader of Battle)
• 2nd Class Star: "Vir-e-Hind" (Hero of India)
• Shahid-e-Bharat: (Martyr of the Motherland)

See also

• Centro I, a unit of the Raggruppamento Centri Militari formed in Fascist Italy of sympathetic Indian PoWs and headed by Iqbal Shedai- an Indian resident in Rome. A section of the Centro I went to form the Battaglione Azad Hindostan Before being disbanded.
• Legion Freies Indien (also known as the Azad Hind Legion or the Indian Infantry Regiment 950), predecessor to the INA, formed in Nazi Germany of Rommell's Indian PoWs from North Africa and realisation of Bose's first ideas of a Revolutionary Socialst Army .
• Invasion to Andaman islands,March 1942
• Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon

References

1. Freedom Depends on Nippon Victory.The Syonan Sinbun, 26 January 1943
2. Davis, Flags of the Third Reich 2: Waffen SS, pp. 22
3. Weale, Renegades, p. 137-138.
4. ibid
5. Historical Journey of the Indian National Army. Birth and Early Years. National Archives of Singapore. http://www.s1942.org.sg/indian_national_army/birth.htm. URL accessed on 20 Aug 06.
6. Axis War Makes Easier Task of Indians. Chandra Bose's Berlin Speech. Syonan Sinbun, 26 January 1943.
7. Journey of the Indian National Army. Revival. National Archives of Singapore. http://www.s1942.org.sg/indian_national_army/revival.htm. URL accessed on 20 Aug 06.
8. The Hindustan Times.http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/specials/Netaji/enlisting9.htm
9. Stephen P. Cohen "Subhas Chandra Bose and the Indian National Army" Pacific Affairs Vol. 36, No. 4 (Winter, 1963) pp 411-429
10. Nirad C. Chaudhuri "Subhas Chandra Bose-His Legacy and Legend" Pacific Affairs Vol. 26, No. 4 (Dec. 1953), pp. 349-350
11. Historical Journey of the Indian National Army. INA war Memorial in Singapore. National Archive of Singapopre URL accessed on 20 Aug 06
12. Lebra, Joyce C., Jungle Alliance: Japan and the Indian National Army, Singapore, Asia Pacific Library
13. Borra R. Subhash Chandra Bose. Journal of Historical Review, 3, no. 4 (Winter 1982), pp. 407-439
14. Hitler's Secret Indian Army Last Section: Mutinies URL accessed on 08-Aug-06
15. Many I.N.A. men already executed, Lucknow . The Hindustan Times, November 2, 1945. URL Accessed 11-Aug-06
16. Misplaced Pages entry on The RIN mutiny URL accessed on 9-Aug-06.
17. Dhanjaya Bhat, Writing in The Tribune, Sunday, February 12, 2006. Spectrum Suppl. Which phase of our freedom struggle won for us Independence? http://www.tribuneindia.com/2006/20060212/spectrum/main2.htm.URL accessed on 17-Jul-2006
18. Judith Brown Modern India. The making of an Asian Democracy (Oxford University Press) 1999 (2nd Edition) pp328-330
19. James L. Raj; Making and unmaking of British India. Abacus. 1997. p557
20. BBC, Hitler's Secret Indian Army URL accessed 09-Aug-06
21. Radhakrishnan met Netaji in Moscow, says witness.The Hindustan Times, November 17, 1970. URL Accessed on 11-Aug-06. Source URL
22. Gandhi, others had agreed to hand over Netaji. Hindustan Times, January 23, 1971. URL Accessed on 11-Aug-06
23. Interview with Capt. Lakshmi Sahgal.The Tribune India, Spectrum Suppl Sunday, June 12, 2005 URL accessed 09-Aug-06
24. Peter Ward Fay The Forgotten Army. India's Armed Struggle for Independence 1941-45 (Ann Arbor) 1993 pp525-6

• Japanese-trained armies in Southeast Asia : independence and volunteer forces in World War II / Joyce C. Lebra, New York : Columbia University Press, 1977
• Jungle alliance, Japan and the Indian National Army / Joyce C. Lebra, Singapore, Donald Moore for Asia Pacific Press,1971
• Brothers Against the Raj --- A biography of Indian Nationalists Sarat and Subhas Chandra Bose / Leonard A. Gordon, Princeton University Press, 1990
• Lost hero : a biography of Subhas Bose / Mihir Bose, Quartet Books, London ; 1982
• Democracy Indian style : Subhas Chandra Bose and the creation of India's political culture / Anton Pelinka ; translated by Renée Schell, New Brunswick, NJ : Transaction Publishers (Rutgers University Press), 2003
• Subhas Chandra Bose : a biography / Marshall J. Getz, Jefferson, N.C. : McFarland & Co., USA, 2002
• Netaji and India's freedom : proceedings of the International Netaji Seminar, 1973 / edited by Sisir K. Bose. International Netaji Seminar (1973 : Calcutta, India), Netaji Research Bureau, Calcutta, India, 1973
• 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
• 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 (a novel which has a large section on the Burma front which describes the motivations of those Indian officers who joined the INA and those who did not)
• The Forgotten Army / Fay, Peter Ward : University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 1995 ISBN 0472083422
• Arsecularatne, SN, Sinhalese immigrants in Malaysia & Singapore, 1860-1990: History through recollections, KVG de Silva & Sons, Colombo, 1991
• Crusz, Noel, The Cocos Islands Mutiny, Fremantle Arts Centre Press, Fremantle, WA, 2001
• Sundaram, C.S., "A Paper Tiger: the Indian National Army in Battle, 1944-1945", in War & Society, vol. 13, no. 1, May 1995, pp. 35-59.

External links

• From Banglapedia
• Article on Bose
• Website on Netaji and the I.N.A.
• Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose & India's Independence
• Speeches of Netaji
• The Last Straw
• Why the I.N.A. withdrew
• Centre of South Asian Studies, University of Cambridge
• Centre of South Asian Studies, University of Wisconsin
• Indian political personalities
• Mystery behind Netaji's Disappearance - 1
• Mystery behind Netaji's Disappearance - 2
• Mystery behind Netaji's Disappearance - 3
• Free Indian Legion
• BBC Report: Hitler's secret Indian army
• BBC Radio programme HITLER'S INDIAN ARMY Part of the Document Series, listen via RealPlayer. Incl. interview with the last living member of the I.N.A.
• Stand at East BBC Radio series on the British Indian Army especially the War against the Japanese, listen via RealPlayer.
• BBC report about the Indian Army fighting the Japanese during WW2
• 'The Bombay Mutiny, 1946', Beyond the Broadcast, BBC
• Indische Freiwilligen Legion der Waffen-SS/Indian SS volunteer Legion
• Infanterie-Regiment 950 indische Legion Freies Indien
• Battaglione Azad Hindostan; Indian Volunteer forces between Italian Army

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• Indian National Army
• National liberation movements
• National liberation armies