INDIAN NAVAL MUTINY OF 1946 AGAINST BRITAIN

9th February 1942 Indian National Army(Azad Hind Fauj) And Mutiny Of The Indian Royal Navy

Indian National Army

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the Second INA under Subas Chandra Bose. For the organisation under Mohan Singh, see First Indian National Army. For the modern Indian military, see Indian Armed Forces. For the army of the British Raj, seeBritish Indian Army.

Indian National Army
Soldiers of the Indian National Army
Active	August 1942 – September 1945
Country	Azad Hind
Role	Guerrilla, infantry, special operations
Size	43,000 (approximate)
Motto	Ittehad, Itmad aur Qurbani (Unity, Faith and Sacrifice inUrdu)
March	Kadam Kadam Badaye Ja
Engagements	World War II Burma Campaign Battle of Ngakyedauk Battle of Imphalففففففففكك Battle of Kohima Battle of Pokoku Battle of Central Burma
Commanders
Ceremonial chief	Subhas Chandra Bose
Insignia
Flag

The Indian National Army (INA; Azad Hind Fauj; Hindi: आज़ाद हिन्द फ़ौज; Urdu: آزاد ہند فوج‎) was an armed force formed by Indian nationalists in 1942 in Southeast Asia during World War II. The aim of the army was to secure Indian independence with Japaneseassistance. Initially composed of Indian prisoners of war captured by Japan in the Malayan campaign and at Singapore, it later drew volunteers from Indian expatriate population in Malaya and Burma. The INA was also at the forefront of women's equality, and the formation of a women's regiment, the Rani of Jhansi Regiment was formed as an all-volunteer women's unit to fight the British Raj as well as provide medical services to the INA.

Initially formed in 1942 immediately after the fall of Singapore underMohan 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 andCommonwealth forces in the campaigns in Burma, Imphal andKohima, and later, against the successful Burma Campaign of theAllies. 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.^[1]

The legacy of the INA is controversial given its associations with Imperial Japan and the other Axis powers, the course of Japanese occupations in Burma, Indonesia and other parts of Southeast Asia, as well as Japanese war crimes and the alleged complicity of the troops of the INA in these. However the INA contributed to independence for India, as after the war, the trials of captured INA officers in India provoked massive public outcries in support of their efforts to fight for Indian independence against the Raj, eventually triggering the Bombay mutiny in the British Indian forces.^[2] These events are accepted by historians to have played a crucial role in hastening the end of British rule.^[3][4]

Contents

  [hide] 

• 1 First Indian National Army
• 2 Second Indian National Army
  • 2.1 Strength
  • 2.2 Order of battle
  • 2.3 Command structure
• 3 Operations
  • 3.1 1944
  • 3.2 1945
• 4 End of the INA
  • 4.1 Repatriation to India
  • 4.2 Red Fort trials
• 5 Impact
• 6 Relations
• 7 Controversies
• 8 Post 1947
• 9 Commemorations
  • 9.1 Memorials
  • 9.2 Postage and philately
• 10 Works on the INA
  • 10.1 Literary works
  • 10.2 Visual media
  • 10.3 Cinema
• 11 See also
• 12 Notes
• 13 References
• 14 Further reading
• 15 External links

First Indian National Army[edit]

Main article: First Indian National Army

Major Iwaichi Fujiwara greets Captain Mohan Singh. Circa April 1942.

Japan and Southeast Asia were major refuges for Indian nationalists living in exile before the start of World War II. Japan had sent intelligence missions, notably underMajor Iwaichi Fujiwara, into South Asia even before the start of the war to garner support from the Malayan Sultans, overseas Chinese, the Burmese resistance and the Indian movement. These missions were successful in establishing contacts withIndian nationalists in exile in Thailand and Malaya, supporting the establishment and organisation of the Indian Independence League (IIL).^[5][6]

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, nearly 55,000 after the Fall of Singapore alone. 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.^[7]

Second Indian National Army[edit]

Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose

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 Subhas 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.^[8] Bose had, at the start of the war in Europe, escaped from house arrest^[9] to make his way to Germany, reaching Berlin on 2 April 1941. In Germany he convinced Adolf Hitler, in a series of conferences, to support the cause of Indian Independence,^[10] forming the Free India Legion and the Azad Hind Radio.^[11] 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.^[12] 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.

Indian Army

Headquarters New Delhi History and traditions Indian military history British Indian Army Indian National Army Army Day (15 January) Equipment Equipment of the Indian Army Components Regiments Personnel Chief of Army Staff Ranks and insignia This box:  view talk edit

On 15 February 1943, the Army itself was put under the command of Lt. Col. M.Z. Kiani.^[13] 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, 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 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 Khudabadi Sindhi Swarankar working as shop keepers – had no military experience joined the INA, doubled its troop strength.^[14]

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 Soviet Union, a women's regiment, the Rani of Jhansi regiment was raised as a combat force.

Strength[edit]

Military parade of the INA at the Padang on 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" disbanded, about 4,000 withdrew. The Second INA, 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 INA, it consisted of about 40,000 soldiers.^[15]

Order of battle[edit]

The Tokyo Boys at the Tokyo Imperial Military Academy

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.^[16]

Fay's account of the INA gives the following account of its organisation:

• 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 battalions.
  • The 3rd Guerrilla Regiment, or the Azad Brigade under Col. Gulzara Singh, consisting of three battalions.^[17]
  • The 4th Guerrilla Regiment, or the Nehru Brigade, later under the command of Lt. Col Gurubaksh Singh 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.

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.^[18]

• The 2nd Division under Colonel Abdul Aziz Tajik.^[19] 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 be equipped with the lion's share of the heavy armament that the INA possessed.^[20]
  • 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.

• The Rani of Jhansi Regiment, under Lakshmi Sahgal, comprised female volunteers from Malaya and Burma.

Command structure[edit]

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Operations[edit]

Main article: Battles and operations of the Indian National Army

See also: India in World War II

The British had the advance knowledge about the impending Japanese offensive on its North-eastern frontier by Bhagat Ram Talwar (codenamed "Silver"), a communist double-agent in Kabul and a confidant of Subhas Chandra Bose, after Bose unsuspectingly revealed it to him.

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 manpower.^[21] 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[edit]

See also: Battle of the Admin Box, U Go Offensive, Battle of Imphal and Battle of Kohima

Captain Malik Munawar Khan Awan ex 5 Punjab British Indian Army (later Major, 21AK Regt, Pakistan Army, recipient of Sitara e Jurat) was the commander of the most feared 2nd INA Guerrilla Regiment during Battle of Imphal

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, theSubhas Brigade was assigned under the command of the Japanese general Headquarters 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 1st Division, consisting of four Guerrilla regiments, was divided between the diversionary Ha Go offensive in Arakan1944, with one battalion reaching as far as Mowdok in Chittagong. The victory of war successfully dropped Lt. Abdul Wahab from Athiyuthu from ramanathapuram dist. A Bahadur group unit, led by Shaukat Malik, took the border enclave ofMoirang 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 Armybegan 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[edit]

See also: Battle of Pokoku and Battle of Meiktila and Mandalay

As the allied Burma campaign began the following year, 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 1st Divisiondivision and the Rani of Jhansi Regiment. Nearly 6000 troops amongst the surviving units of the INA remained in Rangoon under A. D. Loganathan surrendered as Rangoon fell, and helped keep order until the Allied forces entered the city.

The only Indian territory that the Azad Hind government 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 headquarters in Rangoon. The Japanese forces is said to have carried out torture on thousands of local inhabitants during the occupation, and some historians apportion the blame to Subhas Bose's provisional government.^[22]

End of the INA[edit]

Troops of the Indian National Army who surrendered at Mount Popa. Circa 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.^[23][24]

Repatriation to India[edit]

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.^[25]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.^[26] 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, i.e., 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 number had been shipped back to India. At the time of the 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".^[25] By December, around 600 whites were released per week. From amongst the rest, the selection for those to face trial started.^[25]

Red Fort trials[edit]

Main article: Indian National Army trials

The Red Fort, Delhi, the site of the INA trials which took place between 1945 and 1946.

Captured soldiers of the British Indian Army who refused to join the INA were executed by the Japanese.^[27]

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 face the death penalty, life imprisonment or a fine as punishment if found guilty. 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 Dhillonand Major General Shah Nawaz Khan held in a public trial at the Red Fort in Delhi. Nearly all the defendants in the first trial were charged with Waging war 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 includingJawaharlal Nehru, Bhulabhai Desai, Kailashnath Katju, Asaf Ali. 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.^[28] Those charged later only faced trial for torture and murder or abutment 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 non-cooperation and non-violent 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 tricolour 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.^[3][29] On the recommendation of Lord Mountbatten of Burma, and agreed by Jawaharlal Nehru, as a condition for independence former soldiers of the INA were not allowed to join the new Indian Armed Forces.

Impact[edit]

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 significant, despite its small numerical strength, lack of heavy weapons (it utilised captured British and Dutch arms initially). They fought alongside Japanese troops against British colonial troops. Shah Nawaz states in his personal memoirs that the INA was a very potent and motivated force. He claims the INA represented a potent force in the fight for independence. 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^[30] and in fact was significant and successful enough^[31][32] 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 defence of Manipur. These measures included imposing a complete news ban 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.^[4] It qualified itself well in the Battles in Arakan, Manipur, Imphal,^[33] and later during the withdrawal through Manipur and Burma. 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.^{[19][34][35][36][37]} 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.^[38]

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.^[39] 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.^[40] 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.^[4]

It was however, the INA trials that attracted attention in India, and coupled to the decisions to hold the first trial in public, these became a rallying point for the independence movement from Autumn 1945,^[1][3][4][2] 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.^[3] Newspaper reports around November 1945 reported executions of INA troops,^[41] 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.^[3] 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.^{[1][42][43][44]} The Raj also observed with increasing disquiet and unease the spread of pro-INA sympathies within the troops of the British Indian forces.^[43] 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 Claude 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^[45]

“

...practically all are sure that any attempt to enforce the sentence would have led to chaos in the country at large, and probably to mutiny and dissension in the Army, culminating in its dissolution

”

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".^[4] 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.^[46] 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.^[47] The Raj had every reason to fear a revival of the Quit Indian movement, especially given the Congress rhetoric preceding the elections.^[46] 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.^[4][48] Some historians cite Auchinleck's own assessment of the situation to suggest this shortened the Raj by at least fifteen to twenty years.^[48]

The political effects of the INA trials was enormous and were felt around India as late as 1948, much to the chagrin of the Indian government.^[49][50] Clement Attlee, the 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.^[51]

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.^[52]

Relations[edit]

See also: Jiffs and India in World War II

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 mobilise large numbers of Indian expatriates—including, most importantly, 40,000 of the 45,000 Indians captured by the Japanese at Singapore.^[53]

INA memorial in Singapore after demolition by Indian Army sappers.Circa September 1945.

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 a campaign to improve morale and preserve the loyalty of the Sepoy. A general news ban on reporting the INA allowed the British Indian Army to consolidate and prepare for defence 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.^[54] The author George MacDonald Fraserstated 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.

Controversies[edit]

Main article: Controversies surrounding the Indian National Army

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^[55] 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.^[56] 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 promulgation of the view that INA recruits were weak-willed and traitorous Axis collaborators motivated by selfish interests of greed and personal gain.^[57] 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.^[31][58][59]

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 theBombay Mutiny and ignore their significance in terms of rejuvenation of the independence movement and guiding the British decision to relinquish the Raj.^[60][61] Further criticisms have been made in recent years for the general hardships and apathy surrounding the conditions of ex-INA troops^[62] including, for example, the circumstances surrounding the death and funeral of Ram Singh Thakuri,a gorkha captain (and composer of azad hind fauz's anthem Quami tarana, sare jaha se acchha, kadam kadam badaye ja). 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.^[63][64][65] 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.^[66]

Post 1947[edit]

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 Jawaharlal 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 ofOperation Polo and annexation of Hyderabad.^[67] There are also mentions of some INA veterans leading Pakistani irregulars during the First Kashmir war.^[68]

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.

Mohan Singh Deb was elected to Rajya Sabha, the upper house of Indian Parliament. He strove for the recognition of the members of Indian National Army as "freedom fighters" in the cause of the nation's liberation in and out of Parliament.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 theCommunist Party of India (Marxist) and was later elected the leader of the All India Democratic Women's Association.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.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. Lakshmi Sahgal was nominated for Indian presidential election by communist parties in 2002. She was the sole opponent of A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, who emerged victorious. Subhas Bose himself was posthumously awarded Bharat Ratna in 1992 but this was later withdrawn over the controversy over thecircumstances 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.

Commemorations[edit]

Memorials[edit]

Subhas Chandra Bose laying foundation stone of INA War Memorial, Singapore on 8 July 1945.

• The INA War Memorial at Singapore to commemorate the "Unknown Warrior" of the INA. Started on 8 July 1945 the memorial was situated at theEsplanade 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 plaque erected by the National Heritage Board atEsplanade Park, marking the INA Monument site in Singapore

• 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.^[69]
• 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.^[70] 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 Subhas 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[edit]

Indian commemorative post-mark ofJai Hind

• Jai Hind, the INA's battle cry, became Independent India's first commemorative post mark on 15 August 1947.
• The first postage stamp issued by Independent India shows the Indian Flagwith the letters Jai Hind in the top right hand corner.^[71] These were a part of the Jai Hind Jai Hind series of stamps issued on 15 August 1947.^[72]
• 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.^[73]

The Indian Postal Department also includes the six unused Azad Hind Stamps in its commemorative book India's Freedom Struggle through India Postage Stamps.^[72]

Works on the INA[edit]

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[edit]

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

• Freedom's Battle by Vithalbhai K Jhaveri. (Parmanand Sugnomal:Litho Works Tardeo, Bombay Printing Press, August 1947). Large format book covering INA in Action, 1942–1945, contains some beautiful full colour type poster pages with many pages of brownish hue photographs.
• 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 theHindustan 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 ofBahadur 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 ofLakshmi 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 1984 British TV series, Jewel in the Crown The Jewel in the Crown (TV series), based on Scott's quartet, also includes the role of the INA as part of the political backdrop of the story, explicitly so especially in the 3rd episode of the series.
• 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^[74] In the book, Uma Dey is a widow and Indian Independence League activist.^[74] 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.^[74] 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.
• Flowers at Dawn by Singai Ma Elangkannan. (trans. A.R. Venkatachalapathy, Singapore: Epigram Books, 2012) War is looming when Anbarasan arrives in Singapore from Tamil Nadu in the 1940s. Stirred by charismatic Indian National Army leader Subhas Chandra Bose to take up the struggle for India’s independence, he fights alongside the Japanese against the British in Southeast Asia. In this moving novel of an early immigrant’s political and sexual awakening during World War II, "Flowers at Dawn" uncovers a little-known period of Singapore’s history with drama and realism.^[75]

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.
• DutyBound by David Miller (2014)

Visual media[edit]

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 Lakshmi and Prem Sahgal.^[76][77]

• 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.^[78]

• 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.^[52]

• Historical Journey of the Indian National Army- From the National Archives of Singapore.^[79]
• Indian National Army in East Asia-Hindustan Times.^[80]

Cinema[edit]

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.^[81]
• 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.^[82]
• 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.^[82] 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 quick march 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

• The Azad Hind Fauj Marg, in New Delhi, is named after the INA, and houses the Netaji Subhas Institute of Technologynamed after Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.

See also[edit]

• Battaglione Azad Hindoustan
• Ekla Chalo Re, a poem by Rabindranath Tagore, publicized by Subhas Chandra Bose
• Indian Legion
• Rani of Jhansi Regiment

Notes[edit]

1. ^ Jump up to:^a b c Sarkar 1983, p. 420
2. ^ Jump up to:^a b Fay 1993, pp. 496,498,499
3. ^ Jump up to:^{a b c d e} Chaudhuri 1953, p. 349
4. ^ Jump up to:^{a b c d e f} Sarkar 1983, p. 411
5. Jump up^ Lebra 1977, p. 23
6. Jump up^ Lebra 1977, p. 24
7. Jump up^ Fay 1993, p. 94
8. Jump up^ Lebra 1977, p. 27
9. Jump up^ "Subhas Chandra Bose in Nazi Germany". Sisir K. Majumdar. South Asia Forum Quarterly. 1997. pp. 10–14. Retrieved August 12, 2011.
10. Jump up^ Tojo 1943
11. Jump up^ Bose (2002). writings and speeches, 1941–1943. Calcutta: Netaji Research Bureau. p. 87. ISBN 81-7824-034-3.
12. Jump up^ "Total Mobilisation". National Archives of Singapore. Retrieved August 12, 2011.
13. Jump up^ "MZ kiani". World news. Retrieved August 12, 2011.
14. Jump up^ "Historical Journey of the Indian National Army". National Archives of Singapore. Retrieved 2007-07-07.
15. Jump up^ Fay 1993, pp. 525–6
16. Jump up^ Fay 1993, p. 556
17. Jump up^ Fay 1993, p. 263
18. Jump up^ Fay 1993, p. 297
19. ^ Jump up to:^a b Fay 1993, p. 317
20. Jump up^ Fay 1993, p. 318
21. Jump up^ Fay 1993, p. 292,298
22. Jump up^ 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
23. Jump up^ Fay 1993, pp. 372–373
24. Jump up^ Fay 1993, p. 384
25. ^ Jump up to:^a b c Fay 1993, p. 436
26. Jump up^ Fay 1993, p. 459
27. Jump up^ Aldrich, Richard J. (2000), Intelligence and the War Against Japan: Britain, America and the Politics of Secret Service, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, p. 371, ISBN 978-0-521-64186-9, retrieved 6 November2013
28. Jump up^ Stephen P. Cohen "Subhas Chandra Bose and the Indian National Army" Pacific Affairs Vol. 36, No. 4 (Winter, 1963) pp 411–429
29. Jump up^ Childs 2000, p. 28
30. Jump up^ Fay 1993, p. 410
31. ^ Jump up to:^a b Aldrich 2000, p. 163
32. Jump up^ Aldrich 2000, p. 159
33. Jump up^ Fay 1993, pp. 289–292
34. Jump up^ Fay 1993, p. 316
35. Jump up^ Fay 1993, p. 332
36. Jump up^ Slim 1961, p. 425
37. Jump up^ Fay 1993, p. 333
38. Jump up^ Fay 1993, pp. 290–292
39. Jump up^ Fay 1993, pp. 290–293
40. Jump up^ Fay 1993, p. 138
41. Jump up^ "Many INA already executed.". Hindustan Times. November 2, 1945. Retrieved 2007-09-02.
42. Jump up^ Chaudhuri 1953, p. 351
43. ^ Jump up to:^a b Sarkar 1983, p. 419
44. Jump up^ Fay 1993, p. 499
45. Jump up^ Fay 1993, p. 517
46. ^ Jump up to:^a b Sarkar 1983, p. 412
47. Jump up^ McMillan 2006, p. 155
48. ^ Jump up to:^a b Hyam 2007, p. 106
49. Jump up^ Green 1948, p. 54
50. Jump up^ Green 1948, p. 68
51. Jump up^ Bhat D. "RIN mutiny gave a jolt to the British". The Tribune. Retrieved 2007-09-02.
52. ^ Jump up to:^a b Thomson M (2004-09-23). "Hitler's secret Indian Army". bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 2007-09-02.
53. Jump up^ "Capture of INA" (Press release). Retrieved August 12,2011.
54. Jump up^ George MacDonald Fraser, Quartered Safe Out Here(1992): The Harvill Press. ISBN 0-00-272660-2
55. Jump up^ Fay 1993, p. 5
56. Jump up^ Fay 1993, p. 427
57. Jump up^ Fay 1993, p. 426
58. Jump up^ Fay 1993, pp. 423–424,453
59. Jump up^ Fay 1993, pp. 461–463
60. Jump up^ Cohen 1971, p. 132
61. Jump up^ Shaikh, Sajid (2001-10-06). "INA's soldier lives in oblivion in Vadodara". timesofindia.indiatimes.com. Retrieved2007-07-07.
62. Jump up^ Pratibha Chauhan. "INA hero gets shabby treatment.". Tribune News Service. Retrieved 2007-09-02.
63. Jump up^ "Radhakrishnan met Netaji in Moscow, says witness.". Hindustan Times. November 17, 1970. Retrieved2007-09-02.
64. Jump up^ "Gandhi, others had agreed to hand over Netaji.". Hindustan Times. January 23, 1971. Retrieved 2007-09-02.
65. Jump up^ Shahira Naim. "The Bose I knew is a memory now — Lakshmi Sahgal.". The Tribune. Retrieved 2007-09-02.
66. Jump up^ Sumit Ganguly. "Explaining India's Transition to Democracy.". Columbia University Press. Retrieved2007-09-03.
67. Jump up^ Menon, P. "The States". The Hindu. Retrieved2007-09-03.
68. Jump up^ "Taj Muhammad Khanzada. Legislators from Attock.". Provisional Assembly of The Punjab (Lahore-Pakistan). Govt of Pakistan. Archived from the original on 2007-11-01. Retrieved 2007-09-19.
69. Jump up^ "Heritage Sites and Trails in Singapore". National Heritage Board of Singapore. Archived from the originalon 2007-09-28. Retrieved 2007-07-07.
70. Jump up^ "On I-Day eve, India forgets INA memorial". Rose India. Retrieved August 12, 2011.
71. Jump up^ Ashok Kumar Bayanwala. "Art in miniature". Stamps of india. Retrieved 2011-08-11.
72. ^ Jump up to:^a b Bhaskaran, S.T. (2000-12-16). "Footprints of history". The Hindu (Chennai, India). Retrieved2007-10-16.
73. Jump up^ Healey, Beth (1989-12-03). "Pastimes; Stamps". New York Times. Retrieved 2007-10-16.
74. ^ Jump up to:^a b c Urquhart, James. (August 7, 2000) The IndependentMonday Book: A 'Doctor Zhivago' for the Far East — Review of The Glass Palace.
75. Jump up^ http://www.epigrambooks.sg/flowers-at-dawn/
76. Jump up^ Fay 1993, p. ix
77. Jump up^ "Synopses The War of The Springing Tiger". British Film Institute. Retrieved 2007-07-09.
78. Jump up^ Dutt, Nirupama. "A forgotten army marches again". Indian Express. Retrieved 2007-07-07.
79. Jump up^ "Historical Journey of the Indian National Army". National Archives of Singapore. Retrieved 2007-07-07.
80. Jump up^ Das Sitanshu. "Indian National Army in East Asia". Hindustan Times. Retrieved 2007-07-07.
81. Jump up^ Bose 2006, p. 146
82. ^ Jump up to:^a b Dhawan, M.L. "Freedom struggle through Hindi films". www.tribuneindia.com. Retrieved 2007-07-09.

• Lebra, Joyce C. (1977), Japanese trained armies in South-East Asia, New York, Columbia University Press, ISBN 0-231-03995-6
• Childs, David. (2000), Britain Since 1945: A Political History., Routledge., ISBN 0-415-24804-3
• Friedman, Irving S. (1940), Pacific Affairs, Vol. 13, No. 1., Pacific Affairs, University of British Columbia., ISSN 0030-851X
• Bose, Sugata. (2006), A Hundred Horizons: Indian Ocean in the age of Global Empire., Harvard University Press., ISBN 0-674-02157-6
• Dignan, Don. (1983), The Indian revolutionary problem in British Diplomacy,1914–1919., New Delhi, Allied Publishers.
• Kaushik, Karuna (1984), Russian Revolution (1917) and Indian nationalism: Studies of Lajpat Rai, Subhas Chandra Bose and Ram Manohar Lohia, Delhi, Chanakya Publications.
• Brown, Emily (1986), (in Book Reviews; South Asia). The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 45, No. 2., Pacific Affairs, University of British Columbia., ISSN 0030-851X.
• Hauner, Milan (1981), India in Axis Strategy. Germany, Japan and Indian Nationalists in the Second World War, Stuttgart, Klett-Cotta., ISBN 3-12-915340-3
• Lundari, Giuseppe (1989), I paracadutisti italiani 1937/45, Milan, E.M.I.
• Cohen, Stephen C. (1983), (in Book Reviews) Pacific Affairs, Vol. 56, No. 2. pp. 350–352, New York, Columbia University Press, ISBN 0-231-03995-6
• Slim, W. (1961), Defeat Into Victory., New York, David McKay.,ISBN 1-56849-077-1
• Ghosh, K.K. (1969), The Indian National Army: Second Front of the Indian Independence Movement., Meerut, Meenakshi Prakashan

References[edit]

• Chaudhuri, Niradh C. (1953), Subhas Chandra Bose-His Legacy and Legend, Pacific Affairs, Vol. 26, No. 4. (Dec., 1953), pp. 349–357
• Thompson, Peter (2005), The Battle For Singapore — The True Story of the Greatest Catastrophe of World War II., Portraits Books., ISBN 0-7499-5085-4
• Chand, Hukam (2005), History of modern India: (1885 A.D.-1947 A.D.), Anmol publications, New Delhi., ISBN 81-261-2283-8
• Sarkar, Sumit (1983), Modern India, 1885–1947, Delhi:Macmillan, ISBN 978-0-333-90425-1
• Lundari, Giuseppe (1989), I paracadutisti italiani 1937/45, Milan, E.M.I.
• McMillan, R (2006), The British Occupation of Indonesia: 1945–1946 Britain, The Netherlands and the Indonesian Revolution., Routledge., ISBN 0-415-35551-6
• Tojo, Hideki (Premier) . (1943), Axis War Makes Easier Task of Indians. Chandra Bose's Berlin Speech. Syonan Simbun, Domei
• Littlejohn, Davis (1987), Foreign Legions of the Third Reich, Vol 4: Poland, the Ukraine, Bulgaria, Romania, Free India, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland and Russia, San Jose, Bender Publishing., ISBN 0-912138-36-X
• Kurowski, Franz (1997), The Brandenburgers Global Mission., Fedorowicz (J.J.),Canada., ISBN 0-921991-38-X
• Munoz, Antonio J. (2002), The East Came West: Muslim, Hindu & Buddhist Volunteers in the German Armed Forces, 1941–1945., Axis Europa Books., ISBN 1-891227-39-4
• Fay, Peter W. (1993), The Forgotten Army: India's Armed Struggle for Independence, 1942–1945., Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press., ISBN 0-472-08342-2
• Moreman, T.R. (2005), The Jungle, the Japanese and the British Commonwealth Armies at War 1941–1945: Fighting Methods, Doctrine and Training for Jungle Warfare., London and New York: Frank Cass., ISBN 0-7146-4970-8
• Allen, L. (1971), (in Reviews) Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1. (1971)pp. 89–92., Cambridge University Press.
• Green, L.C. (1948), The Indian National Army Trials. The Modern Law Review, Vol. 11, No. 1. (Jan., 1948), pp. 47–69., London, Blackwell.
• Hyam, Ronald (2007), Britain's Declining Empire: The Road to Decolonisation 1918–1968., Cambridge University Press.,ISBN 0-521-86649-9

Further reading[edit]

• 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 978-0-7195-6576-2
• 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[edit]

• From Banglapedia
• Article on Bose
• Website on Netaji and the I.N.A.
• 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
• Mystery behind Netaji's Disappearance – 2
• 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 World War II
• 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
• (Kadam Kadam Bhadaye Jaa.. (Every Step, Forward..)) Band of INA
• Kadam kadam bhadaye ja – The INA song on YouTube

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Sunday, July 13, 2008

INDIAN NAVAL MUTINY OF 1946 AGAINST BRITAIN

 

 

 

INDIAN NAVY REVOLTED AGAINST BRITAIN IN 1946 AND FORCED IT TO GIVE FREEDOM TO INDIA IN 1947

The RIN Mutiny: a brief history:-Royal Indian Navy Mutiny

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Indian_Navy_Mutiny



HMIS Talwar at Bombay Harbour.

HMIS Talwar at Bombay Harbour.

The RIN Mutiny started as a strike by ratings of the Royal Indian Navy on 18 February in protest against general conditions. The immediate issue of the mutiny was conditions and food, but there were more fundamental matters such as racist behaviour by Royal Navy personnel towards Indian sailors, and disciplinary measures being taken against anyone demonstrating pro-nationalist sympathies. By dusk on 19 February, a Naval Central Strike committee was elected. Leading Signalman M.S Khan and Petty Officer Telegraphist Madan Singh were unanimously elected President and Vice-President respectively. The strike found immense support among the Indian population, already gripped by the stories of the Indian National Army. { read about I.N.A.:-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_National_Army}   The actions of the mutineers was supported by demonstrations which included a one-day general strike in Bombay. The strike spread to other cities, and was joined by the Royal Indian Air Force and local police forces. Naval officers and men began calling themselves the "Indian National Navy" and offered left-handed salutes to British officers. At some places, NCOs in the British Indian Army ignored and defied orders from British superiors. In Madras and Pune, the British garrisons had to face revolts within the ranks of the Indian Army. Widespread rioting took place from Karachi to Calcutta. Notably, the mutinying ships hoisted three flags tied together — those of the Congress, Muslim League, and the Red Flag of the Communist Party of India (CPI), signifying the unity and demarginalisation of communal issues among the mutineers.
The mutiny was called off following a meeting between the President of the Naval Central Strike Committee (NCSC), M. S. Khan, and Vallab Bhai Patel

of the Congress, who had been sent to Bombay to settle the crisis. Patel issued a statement calling on the strikers to end their action, which was later echoed by a statement issued in Calcutta by Mohammed Ali Jinnah

on behalf of the Muslim League. Under these considerable pressures, the strikers gave way. However, despite assurances of the good services of the Congress and the Muslim League widespread arrests were made. These were followed up by courts martial and large scale dismissals from the service. None of those dismissed were reinstated into either of the Indian or Pakistani navies after independence.

Events of the Mutiny:-
After the Second World War, three officers of the Indian National Army (I.N.A.), General Shah Nawaz Khan, http://indianindependancemovementphotos.blogspot.com/2009/07/shah-nawaz-khan-general-indian-freedom.html

Colonel Prem Sehgal

and Colonel Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon

Freedom fighter, Indian National Army colonel and Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose's close associate G S Dhillon, in Delhi on December 22, 1950.

were put on trial at the Red Fort in Delhi

for "waging war against the King Emperor", i.e. the British sovereign personifying British rule. The three defendants were defended at the trial by Jawaharlal Nehru,

Bhulabhai Desai

and others. Outside the court, the trials inspired protests and discontent among the Indian population, who came to view the defendants as revolutionaries who had fought for their country.READ ABOUT THE TRIALS:-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INA_trials

HMIS Hindustan at Bombay Harbour after the war


HMIS Hindustan at Bombay Harbour after the war.
The mutiny was initiated by the ratings of Indian Navy on 18 February 1946. It was a reaction to the treatment meted out to ratings in general and the lack of service facilities in particular. On 16 January 1946, a contingent of 67 ratings of various branches arrived at Castle Barracks, Mint Road, in Fort BOMBAY(Mumbai). This contingent had arrived from the basic training establishment, HMIS Akbar, located at Thane, a suburb of Bombay, at 1600 in the evening. One of them Syed Maqsood Bokhari went to the officer on duty informed him about the galley (kitchen) staff of this arrival. The sailors were that evening alleged to have been served sub-standard food. Only 17 ratings took the meal, the rest of the contingent went ashore to eat in an open act of defiance. It has since been said that such acts of neglect were fairly regular, and when reported to senior officers present practically evoked no response, which certainly was a factor in the buildup of discontent. The ratings of the communication branch in the shore establishment, HMIS Talwar, drawn from a relatively higher strata, harboured a high level of revulsion towards the authorities, having complained of neglect of their facilities fruitlessly.
The INA trials, the stories of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose

, as well as the stories of INA's fight during the Siege of Imphal and in Burma were seeping into the glaring public-eye at the time. These, received through the wireless sets and the media, fed discontent and ultimately inspired the sailors to strike. In Karachi, mutiny broke out on board the Royal Indian Navy ship, HMIS Hindustan off Manora Island. The ship, as well as shore establishments were taken over by mutineers. Later, it spread to the HMIS Bahadur


Line-up of ships of the RIN on the Bombay dockyard breakwater during the mutiny.
. A naval central strike committee was formed on 19 February 1946, led by M. S. Khan and Madan Singh. The next day, ratings from Castle and Fort Barracks in Bombay, joined in the mutiny when rumours (which were untrue) spread that HMIS Talwar's ratings had been fired upon. Ratings left their posts and went around Bombay in lorries, holding aloft flags containing the picture of Subhash Chandra Bose. Several Indian naval officers who opposed the strike and sided with the British were thrown off the ship by ratings. Soon, the mutineers were joined by thousands of disgruntled ratings from Bombay, Karachi, Cochin and Vizag. Communication between the various mutinies was maintained through the wireless communication sets available in HMIS Talwar. Thus, the entire revolt was coordinated.

Victims of police firing on a crowd that had demonstrated in support of the mutiny.

The strike by the Naval ratings soon took serious proportions. Hundreds of strikers from the sloops, minesweepers and shore establishments in Bombay demonstrated for 2 hours along Hornby Road near VT (now the very busy D.N. Road near CST). British personnel of the Defence forces were singled out for attacks by the strikers who were armed with hammers, crowbars and hockey sticks. The White Ensign was lowered from the ships.
Signs of liberation started to occur in Flora Fountain. Vehicles carrying mail were stopped and the mail burnt. British men and women going in cars and victorias were made to get down and shout "Jai Hind" (Victory to India). Guns were trained on the Taj Mahal Hotel, the Yacht Club and other buildings from morning till evening.
1000 RIAF men from the Marine Drive and Andheri Camps also joined in sympathy. By the end of the day Gurkhas in Karachi

had refused to fire on striking sailors.
The strike soon spread to other parts of India. The ratings in Calcutta, Madras, Karachi and Vizag also went on strike with the slogans "Strike for Bombay", "Release 11,000 INA prisoners" and "Jai Hind".

Victims of police firing on a crowd that had demonstrated in support of the mutiny.
On 19 February, the Tricolour 

was hoisted by the ratings on most of the ships and establishments. By 20 February, the third day, armed British destroyers had positioned themselves off the Gateway of India. The RIN Mutiny had become a serious crisis for the British government. An alarmed Clement Attlee,
 the British Prime Minister, ordered the Royal Navy to put down the revolt. Admiral J.H. Godfrey, the Flag Officer commanding the RIN, went on air with his order to "Submit or perish". The movement had, by this time, inspired by the patriotic fervour sweeping the country, started taking a political turn.
The naval ratings’ strike committee decided, in a confused manner, that the HMIS Kumaon

HMIS Kumaon  

had to leave Bombay harbour while HMIS Kathiawar was already in the Arabian Sea under the control of mutineering ratings. At about 1030 Kumaon suddenly let go the shore ropes, without even removing the ships’ gangway while officers were discussing the law and order situation on the outer breakwater jetty. However, within two hours fresh instructions were received from the strikers’ control room and the ship returned to the same berth.
The situation was changing fast and rumours spread that Australian and Canadian armed battalions had been stationed outside the Lion gate and the Gungate to encircle the dockyard where most ships were berthed. However, by this time, all the armouries of the ships and establishments had been seized by the striking ratings. The clerks, cleaning hands, cooks and wireless operators of the striking ship armed themselves with whatever weapon was available to resist the British Destroyers that had sailed from Trincomalee in Ceylon (Sri Lanka).
The third day dawned charged with fresh emotions. The Royal Air Force flew a squadron of bombers low over Bombay harbour in a show of force, as Admiral Rattray, Flag Officer, Bombay, RIN,{Admiral Sir Arthur Rullion Rattray (1891–10 August 1966)} issued an ultimatum asking the ratings to raise black flags and surrender unconditionally.
In Karachi, by this time, realising that little hope or trust could be put on the Indian troops, the 2nd Battalion of the Black Watch had been called from their barracks. The first priority was to deal with the mutiny on Manora Island.

A couple of abandoned ships at ManoraIsland

 

Ratings holding the Hindustan opened fire when attempts were made to board the ship. At midnight, the 2nd Battalion was ordered to proceed to Manora, expecting resistance from the Indian naval ratings who had taken over the shore establishments HMIS Bahadur, Chamak and Himalaya and from the Royal Naval Anti-Aircraft School on the island. The Battalion was ferried silently across in launches and landing craft. D company was the first across, and they immediately proceeded to the southern end of the island to Chamak. The remainder of the Battalion stayed at the southern end of the Island. By the morning, the British soldiers had secured the island.
The decision was made to confront the Indian naval ratings on board the destroyer Hindustan, armed with 4-in. guns. During the morning three guns (caliber unknown) from the Royal Artillery C. Troop arrived on the island. The Royal Artillery positioned the battery within point blank range of the Hindustan on the dockside. An ultimatum was delivered to the mutineers aboard Hindustan, stating that if they did not the leave the ship and put down their weapons by 10:30 they would have to face the consequences. The deadline came and went and there was no message from the ship or any movement. Orders were given to open fire at 10:33. The gunners' first round was on target. On board the Hindustan the Indian naval ratings began to return gunfire and several shells whistled over the Royal Artillery guns. Most of the shells fired by the Indian ratings went harmlessly overhead and fell on Karachi itself. They had not been primed so there were no casualties. However, the mutineers could not hold on. At 10:51 the white flag was raised. British naval personnel boarded the ship to remove casualties and the remainder of the mutinous crew. Extensive damage had been done to Hindustan's superstructure and there were many casualties among the Indian sailors.
HMIS Bahadur was still under the control of mutineers. Several Indian naval officers who had attempted or argued in favour of putting down the mutiny were thrown off the ship by ratings. The 2nd Battalion was ordered to storm the Bahadur and then proceed to storm the shore establishments on Manora island. By the evening D company was in possession of the A A school and Chamak, B company had taken the Himalaya, while the rest of the Battalion had secured Bahadur. The mutiny in Karachi had been put down.
In Bombay, the guncrew of a 25-pounder gun fitted in an old ship had by the end of the day fired salvos towards the Castle barracks. Patel had been negotiating ferevently, and his assurances did improve matters considerably However, it was clear that the mutiny was fast developing into a spontaneous movement with its own momentum. By this time the British destroyers fromTrincomalee had positioned themselves off the Gateway of India. The negotiations moved fast, keeping in view the extreme sensitivity of the situation and on the fourth day most of the demands of the strikers were conceded in principle.
Immediate steps were taken to improve the quality of food served in the ratings’ kitchen and their living conditions. The national leaders also assured that favourable consideration would be accorded to the release of all the prisoners of the Indian National Army. A very grave situation was tackled in a very timely manner and a real disaster was averted by the prudent action both by the strikers and the country’s leadership.
The mutiny caused a great deal of panic in the British Government. The connections of this mutiny with the popular perceptions and changing attitudes with the activities of the INA and Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose was taken note of and its resemblance of the revolt of 1857 also caused alarm among the British administration of the time. The fact that the mutiny of 1857 sparked off from a seemingly trivial and unexpected issue of greased cartridges, and that later historical analysis had revealed deep seated resentment among the then subjects of the East India Companyled to fears that an identical situation was developing in India.

The Controversy: Political abandonment of the Mutineers

Surprisingly for events of the magnitude and reach that the mutinies came to be, the mutineers in the armed forces got no support from the national leaders and was largely leaderless. Mahatma Gandhi, in fact, condemned the riots and the ratings’ mutiny, his statement on 3 March 1946 criticised the strikers for mutinying without the call of a "prepared revolutionary party" and without the "guidance and intervention" of "political leaders of their choice". He further criticised the local Indian National Congress leader Aruna Asaf Ali, who was one of the few prominent political leaders of the time to offer her support for the mutineers, stating she would rather unite Hindus and Muslims on the barricades than on the constitutional front. Gandhi's criticism also belies the submissions to the looming reality of Partition of India, having stated "If the union at the barricade is honest then there must be union also at the constitutional front" The Muslim League issued similar statements which essentially argued that the unrest of the sailors was not best expressed on the streets, however serious the grievance may be. Legitimacy could only, probably, be conferred by a recognised political leadership as the head of any kind of movement. Spontaneous and unregulated upsurges, as the RIN strikers were viewed, could only disrupt and, at worst, destroy consensus at the political level. This may be Gandhi's (and the Congress's) conclusions from the Quit India Movement in 1942 when central control quickly dissolved under the impact of British repression, and localised actions, including widespread acts of sabotage, continued well into 1943. It may have been the conclusion that the rapid emergence of militant mass demonstrations in support of the sailors would erode central political authority if and when transfer of power occurred. The Muslim League had observed passive support for the "Quit India" campaign among its supporters and, devoid of communal clashes despite the fact that it was opposed by the then collaborationist Muslim League. It is possible that the League also realised the likelihood of a destabilised authority as and when power was transferred. This certainly is reflected on the opinion of the sailors who participated in the strike It has been concluded by later historians that the discomfiture of the Mainstream political parties was because the public outpourings indicated their weakening hold over the masses at a time when they could show no success in reaching agreement with the British Indian government.

Naval Uprising Statue, Colaba
The only political party to give unconditional support to the revolt was the Bolshevik-Leninist Party of India, Ceylon and Burma (BLPI). As soon as it got news of the revolt it came out with a call for a Hartal in support of the mutineers. BLPI members Prabhakar More and Lakshman Jadhav led the textile workers out on strike. Barricades were set up and held for three days. However, attempts to contact the mutineers were foiled by British troops.
Possibly the only major political segment that still mentions the mutiny it is the Communist Party of India. The literature of the communist party, certainly see the RIN Mutiny as a spontaneous nationalist uprising that was one of the few episodes at the time that had the potential to prevent the partition of India, and one that was essentially betrayed by the leaders of the nationalist movement However, at the time, the CPI attempted to diffuse the situation, co-operating with the Congress and the Muslim League in trying to keep the peace.
More recently, the RIN Mutiny has been renamed the Naval Uprising and the mutineers honoured for the part they played in India's Freedom. In addition to the statue which stands in Mumbai opposite the sprawling Taj Wellingdon Mews, two prominent mutineers, Madan Singh and B.C Dutt, have each had ships named after them by the Indian Navy.

Legacy and assessments of the effects of the Mutiny
The most significant factor of this mutiny, with hind-sight, came to be that Hindus and Muslims united to resist the British, even at a time that saw the peak of the movement for Pakistan. This critical assessment starts from events at the time of the mutiny. The mutiny came to receive widespread militant support, even for the short period that it lasted, not only in Bombay, but also inKarachi and Calcutta on 23 February, in Ahmedabad, Madras and Trichinopoly on the 25th, at Kanpur on the 26th, and at Madurai and several places in Assam on the 26th. The agitations, mass strikes, demonstrations and consequently support for the mutineers, therefore continued several days even after the mutiny had been called off. Along with this,


the assessment may be made that it described in crystal clear terms to the government that the British Indian Armed forces could no longer be universally relied upon for support in crisis, and even more it was more likely itself to be the source of the sparks that would ignite trouble in a country fast slipping out of the scenario of political settlement. It is therefore arguable that the mutiny, had it continued and confronted the threat of the RIN commander Admiral Godfrey to destroy the fleet, would have put the British Raj on the path of a maelstrom of popular movement which would have seen British exit from south-east Asia under very different circumstances than eventually happened. Certainly, the forces at Godfrey's disposal was sufficient for him to carry out his threat of destroying the RIN. However, to control the result of those actions, compounded by the outpourings of the INA trials was beyond the capabilities of the British Indian forces on whom any British General or politician (including Indian leaders) could reliably trust. The navy itself was marginal in terms of state power; Indian service personnel were at this time being swept by a wave of nationalist sentiments, as would be proved by the mutinies that occurred in the Royal Indian Air Force. In the after-effect of the mutiny, a Weekly intelligence summary issued on 25 March 1946 admitted that the Indian army, navy and air force units were no longer trust worthy, and, for the army, "only day to day estimates of steadiness could be made". It came to the situation where, if wide-scale public unrest took shape, the armed forces could not be relied upon to support counter-insurgency operations as they had been during the "Quit India" movement of 1942. The mutiny has been thus been deemed "Point of No Return"
Also, the USA's historic hostility towards Imperialism certainly made it unlikely that Atlee's government would have sought solution by force. The involvement of the Communist Party also cast a very red tinge to this ultimately mass movement that, if confronted, had the potential to have been the flashpoint for the post-war powers, as was seen in Vietnam.
However, probably just as important remains the question as to what the implications would have been for India's internal politics had the mutiny continued. This had become a movement characterised by a significant amount of inter-communal co-operation. The Indian nationalist leaders, most notably Gandhi and the Congress leadership apparently had been concerned that the mutiny would compromise the strategy of a negotiated and constitutional settlement, but they sought to negotiate with the British and not within the two prominent symbols of respective nationalism—-the Congress and the Muslim League.. By March 1947, the Congress had limited partition to only Punjab and Bengal (thus Jinnah’s famous moth-eaten Pakistan remark).
In the after-effect of the mutiny, Weekly intelligence summary issued on the 25th of March, 1946 admitted that the Indian army, navy and air force units were no longer trust worthy, and, for the army, "only day to day estimates of steadiness could be made". . It was decided that; if wide-scale public unrest took shape, the armed forces (including the airforce- for Quit India had shown how it could turn violent) could not be relied upon to support counter-insurgency operations as they had been during the Quit India movement of 1942, and drawing from experiences of the Tiger Legion and the INA, their actions could not be predicted from their oath to the King emperor .
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: 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 realize 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; these events and views held in 1946 by the administrations of the Raj would suggest to the reader that, contrary to the usual narrative of India's independence struggle, (which generally focuses 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.
In the same breath, whether awarded any credit for India's independence or not, the events at the time show that the strategy of Azad Hind (derived from the embryo of the Free India Legion) of achieving independence from Britain by fermenting revolts and public unrests - although a militarily a failure

 The Royal Indian Navy Mutiny RIN MutineerS Memorial In  COLABA Mumbai 

 

 

                                                                    Thursday, February 25, 1999

Hero’s honour for Royal mutineer

by Reeta Sharma

TOMORROW will be a historic day in the life of this self-respecting Punjabi from Siar village, near Ludhiana. He would be presiding over the "induction ceremony" of ‘INS Madan Singh’, named after him in recognition of his role in India’s struggle for freedom from colonial rule. The honour has come his way 52 years late. An incredible optimist he laughs off the delayed honour and grins: "It did appear like a mirage all these years but it’s better late than never."
Mr Madan Singh held his head high for all these 52 years despite the tag of having been dismissed from service after a ‘Commission of Enquiry’ set up by the British Colonial rulers found him guilty. He was charged with leading the historic ‘Royal Indian Naval mutiny’ of 1946. Although India became Independent in August 1947, no review of or rethinking about the mutineers was ever done all these years.
Nobody knows what happened to hundreds of mutineers who were dismissed from service. However the two main leaders, former leading telegraphist B.C. Dutt and telegraphist Madan Singh are still around. While Mr Dutt settled in Maharashtra, Mr Madan Singh worked in several parts of the world after dismissal. But eventually he came back to settle in his own country, "as that is what I always yearned for". 
Here is a follow up on his life, packed with events which are gripping.
Mr Madan Singh continues to assert that "The mutiny in the Navy was the immediate cause of India’s freedom. The British rulers were simply shaken. Nevertheless, the role of the mutineers has been ignored and they were denied due recognition."
He vividly remembers even the minutest detail of the mutiny. "The roots of the mutiny in the Royal Indian Navy (RIN) lay in the British themselves who indulged in blatant racial discrimination over the years. The simmering discontent over ill-treatment, poor service conditions, lack of a redressal forum, humiliating of our Indian political leaders, etc pushed us to the wall and then to the mutiny. However the immediate cause was the arrest of B.C. Dutt who was put under detention. His crime was that he had painted slogans like, "Jai Hind".
"After the outbreak of the mutiny, the first thing that we did was to free B.C. Dutt. Then we took possession of Bucher Island (where the entire ammunition meant for Bombay Presidency was stocked) and telephone and wireless equipment, including transmitters at Kirki near Pune. Our quick actions ensured that all naval ships were fully under our command."
"Simultaneously we the Indians ratings at RIN had formed a ‘Naval Central Strike Committee’ (NCSC) to coordinate and direct the activities of the various units outside the HMIS Talwar. Leading Signalman M.S. Khan and I were unanimously elected President and Vice-President, respectively.
There is another crucial point to be recalled today. You see, next to the Castle Barracks there was an ‘iron gate’ closer to the town hall of Bombay. It was cleverly wired to the system so that in the event of an enemy trying to capture Bombay, a press of the switch would blow up the whole of Greater Bombay. This was the scorched earth policy of the then British government.
"Fortunately for us, this ‘iron gate was heavily manned by Indians who obviously obeyed our command when General Lockheart attempted to capture it. When he tried to advance towards the gate, the NCSC ordered firing which led to many casualties among the British sailors."
Sadly hundreds of mutineers were arrested and imprisoned either with the prisoners of world war or in solitary confinement as was the case with both Mr Madan Singh and Mr B.C. Dutt. The ‘Commission of Enquiry’ dismissed all of them from service. The national leadership, according to the various accounts and statements, seemed to be divided on the role of the mutineers. No wonder they were forgotten for good.
Mr Madan Singh had an extremely hard life after his dismissal in July 1946. "I went to my village Siar. I felt hurt when I overheard my father telling someone that I have come to see him only to take money from him. I left my village penniless and joined as a reporter with the Bombay daily, Free Press Journal. The great Sadanand was the proprietor and Natarajan was the Chief Editor at that time. Within a year I got disgusted at a majority of journalists reporting on the basis of handouts issued by the British authorities. The final blow was struck when I was an eyewitness like other journalists to the shooting of a leader of mill workers at point blank range. But my report was not carried. All papers carried the handout released by the British government with no mention at all of the killing of the leader. Crushed by agony and humiliation, I confronted Natarajan who directed me to meet Sadanand. I had always revered this illustrious old man who treated Churchill and Sardar Patel in the same way. When I barged into his room he very calmly said: "Your report was absolutely correct but I am sorry to have disappointed you. I hope you will one day understand my turmoil. My 18 ventures of newspapers have one by one been banned by the British. By keeping this one alive, even at such a cost like not using your report, we are at least able to point out some misdeeds of the British and motivate our people to eventually rise against the slavery". "I understood him fully but I still resigned because I knew that I won’t be able to swallow it day in and day out. Sadanand gave me the warmest ever send off in Free Press Journal. I reached Calcutta with only Rs 6. On the third day of my stay on the streets of Calcutta I got a job on a salary of Rs 150 a month with Dalmia Jain Airways. When I raised the issue of my petty salary, they rebuked me in the most humiliating manner. I walked back like a whipped dog, swallowing my pride for I could not afford to let this job go".
But Mr Madan Singh was an extraordinary worker with a brilliant brain and expertise in his line. No wonder then that by the seventh week of his job with Dalmias, the company raised his salary by five times. By 1952 he got admission into a regular course run by BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation), in International License in Radio Electronics nowadays known as AVIONICS. "These were the most stressful three years of my life. Minimum pass marks were 75 per cent, whereas in London University one was required to secure only 45 per cent." Mr Madan Singh not only passed out with 83 per cent, which was rare for even an Englishman, but also was the first ever Indian to make it. BOAC handpicked him and he worked in their foreign service wing.
By 1990 he came back to lead a retired life in India. Rear Admiral (retd.) Satyinder Singh wrote him five letters requesting him to apply for the status of a freedom fighter. "But I wrote back that if it is such a thing which one can get for the asking, it is not worth having it." However when Beant Singh former Chief Minister met Mr Madan Singh his childhood friend he was aghast on learning the fate of mutineers. He personally approached the Ministry of Home in Delhi in this regard. "So finally I have received a letter from Commodore Dina Bandhu Jena, VSM inviting me to the ‘Induction Ceremony’ on February 26, 1999 at Bombay."
His face was embossed with the serenity of the sea shore at sun set.

 

      ANOTHER STORY ABOUT THE REVOLT -{FROM INTERNET} -WRITTEN BY A MARXIST IDEOLOGIST:-

The 1946 rebellion of the sailors of the British Indian Navy

Written by Lal Khan Monday, 15 September 2003

One of the most spectacular episodes of the intense revolt against the British Raj was the uprising of the sailors of the British Indian Navy in 1946. On February 18 of that year the sailors and shipmen of the British Indian Navy battleship HMS "Talwaar" went on strike. They invited  the masses of Bombay to join in the struggle they had started. As a result, anti- British imperialist sentiments started to spread like wildfire throughout the region. One of the most spectacular episodes of the intense revolt against the British Raj was the uprising of the sailors of the British Indian Navy in 1946. On February 18 of that year the sailors and shipmen of the British Indian Navy battleship HMS "Talwaar", who were at the time posted to the Bombay harbour, went on strike. They were protesting against the bad food and adverse conditions.
Although on the first day it was limited to a peaceful hunger strike, the signs of an imminent and much bigger rebellion against the British rulers were evident. On February 19, the sailors announced the strike to the Naval personnel stationed in the fortress and to those in the Naval Barracks. They took over the Naval trucks, boarded them, hoisted red flags on them and started patrolling the city of Bombay. They were inviting the masses of the city to join in the struggle they had started. As a result, anti British imperialist sentiments started to spread like wildfire throughout the region.
On the eve of February 19 1946, much wider layers of the Naval personnel had joined in this revolt. The union jacks on most of the ships of the Royal Indian Navy in the Bombay harbour were torn down and the rebel sailors hoisted red flags along with the flags of the political parties that were involved in the struggle for independence.
Within 48 hours the British imperialists were faced with the largest revolt ever of their Naval units. The message of this rebellion started to spread by word of mouth and then over the radio (the radio station had been taken over by the rebels) to military garrisons and barracks across India. Some of the leaders of the sailors broadcast the message of the uprising and revolutionary songs and poetry were also broadcast round the clock. The revolt spread to 74 ships, 20 fleets and 22 units of the Navy along the coast. It involved Bombay, Calcutta, Karachi, Madras, Cochin and Vishapatam. On February 20 only 10 ships and 2 naval stations were not in complete revolt.
In the beginning this revolt was considered to be spontaneous but that is not completely true. On the eve of February 19 a strike committee had been formally set-up. Signalman M.S Khan and petty officer telegraph operator Madan Singh were elected unanimously to the positions of president and vice president of the committee. Both of them were under the age of 25. One was a Muslim and the other a Sikh, and this was a conscious act to reject the religious divide being injected into the liberation movement by the native bourgeois leaders and their British masters.
Apart from the other tasks charted out for the strike committee, one of the important objectives agreed upon was to involve the political parties in this movement and gain their support. Tragically the Communist Party of India (CPI) had lost the leadership of the independence movement due to its disastrous policy of supporting the British imperialists under the so-called "anti fascist front" policy dictated by the Stalinist elite in the Kremlin. This had led to a rapid diminishing of support for the CPI in the liberation movement. The nascent Indian bourgeoisie and their leaders were at that time negotiating a settlement with the British. They were as hostile as the British to any revolutionary upsurge at this delicate juncture in the history of the subcontinent.
Gandhi reflected this by openly condemning the uprising of the sailors. The CPI leaders once again lost the opportunity to link up with the revolutionary masses. They did nothing to connect the Naval revolt with the strikes which were taking place in the textile industry, on the railways and in other sectors throughout India. Even leaders like Subhash Chandra Bose were unable to connect this movement with the revolt taking place in the British Indian army. He was rather more involved in an adventurist binge and had gone too far in launching the INA (Indian National Army) to fight British forces, under the auspices of the reactionary Japanese regime!
Congress and the Muslim League were not prepared to back the revolt for they feared the penetration of revolutionary and class struggle ideas into the movement which they had done so much to tear apart along religious lines with cunning and deception. In spite of this betrayal and contemptuous attitude of the national bourgeois leaders, the revolutionary momentum of the uprising gave it an impetus of its own. Revolutionary zeal, sentiment and passion were booming. The whole country was filled with the echoes of the slogan, "long live the revolution".
These slogans electrified the whole of Bombay. One of the poets of the era, Josh Malihabadi wrote enthralling verses an example of which was,
My task is my growth; my name is martyr
My slogan is revolution, revolution revolution.
On the February 21 the British shock troops opened fire with live ammunition on the sailors as they came out of their barracks in the Bombay fortress. This provocation changed a peaceful uprising into an armed rebellion. There were armed clashes between the British elite troops and the rebellious sailors throughout the day. On the first day one death was reported in Bombay, but on the second day 14 sailors were martyred in Karachi. The industrial workers who had joined the revolt with the sailors were subjected to brutal attacks by the British forces.
On February 22 and 23, 250 sailors and workers were slaughtered by the imperialist forces. According to various eyewitnesses interviewed, on February 21 it seemed that the oppressed masses of the whole subcontinent had risen up in a revolutionary movement against British rule. In these events the revolutionary strike committee had shifted its command to the "Narba" fleet. The sailors had now aimed the barrels of their guns on the ships and were now targeting the British Naval installations and command centres on the coast. Sirens were being sounded from all the ship decks. They were announcing through the loud speakers that to defend their comrades in the cities and in the harbour they would destroy the British military bases and installations if they dared to attack.
The British government in London was in shock. The British Labour Prime Minister Clement Atlee, in sheer desperation ordered the uprising to be crushed through brute military force. The commander of the British Indian Navy, admiral Godfrey threatened the rebellious sailors with "surrender or be perished". The so-called leader of the independence movement and one of the stalwarts of the Indian National Congress, Sardar Vallabhbai Patel, openly came out on the side of the British. He denounced the uprising and supported the imperialists' ultimatum. In this uprising the national leadership of India, both Hindu and Muslim, became allies of the British imperialists. This exposed their real class character and their collaborationist role in the saga of transition from British to native rule to independence.
Meanwhile the British fighter aircraft were carrying out threatening sorties over the rebellious fleet. In such conditions Sardar Patel gave the following infamous statement: "Only a small band of insolent, hot headed and insane youngsters are trying to get involved in politics through these acts, when they have nothing to do with politics".
Isolated, disillusioned and desperate after the treacherous role and attitude displayed by the "national leadership" towards the uprising, M.S. Khan put before the strike committee, the proposal of surrender. But the 36-member committee rejected this plea. Several tense hours passed. The mainstream "national leadership" intensified its efforts to isolate the Naval uprising from the mass movement for independence that was surging across the subcontinent. Demoralization was setting in amongst the members of the strike committee.
Another session of the committee commenced in the early hours of February 24 on the battleship HMS Talwaar. Now it had become more evident that there was no option but to surrender and lay down arms. At 0600 hrs on February 24, 1946 black flags were raised from the deck to announce surrender. In its last session the strike committee passed a resolution that was the last message of the revolutionary sailors to the toiling masses of the South Asian subcontinent. The resolution stated, "Our uprising was an important historical event in the lives of our people. For the first time the blood of uniformed and non-uniformed workers flowed in one current for the same collective cause. We the workers in uniform shall never forget this. We also know that you, our proletarian brothers and sisters shall also never forget this. The coming generations, learning its lessons shall accomplish what we have not been able to achieve. Long live the working masses. Long live the Revolution".
After the surrender most leaders and activists of this uprising were prosecuted incarcerated and executed inspite of their surrender. The nationalist bourgeois leaders refused to raise any protest. Not a squeak not a whimper came out from these nationalist parties masquerading as the stalwarts of independence.
However, this episode stands as one of the greatest chapters in the story of the struggle for independence from British rule. In spite of the fact that this uprising was defeated the movement showed the British what was in store for them in the future. One of the effects of this uprising was that the British Prime Minister Clement Atlee was forced to announce that the British would leave India before June 1948. Such was the blow inflicted upon the confidence of the British rulers by this naval uprising that they were forced to beat a retreat. The British, in connivance with the native bourgeois leaders, hastened the process of partition along ethnic and religious lines. After this episode they manoeuvred in such a way as not to leave the subcontinent united in any form whatsoever, either as a confederation or whatever political superstructure they may have envisaged before these revolutionary events.
The policy of divide and rule, that the British had learned from the emperors of Rome, now came into full play. The living body of a culture that was thousands of years old was cut in half and the blood of 2.7 million innocent souls was shed.
There is a criminal silence and elusiveness about the details of this glorious episode in the education syllabi in both India and Pakistan. Several other similar events and great episodes have yet to see the light of the day. Still, the memory of that naval uprising haunts the echelons of power from London to Islamabad to Delhi. The task of learning and carrying out the message and the aspirations of the sailors' strike committee of the February 1946 falls to today's rising generation of youth and workers. This can only be accomplished by carrying out a successful Socialist Revolution in any of the present day countries of the subcontinent. A socialist victory in any of these states would inevitably lead to the formation of a voluntary Socialist Federation of the South Asian Subcontinent.

Sunday, February 24, 2002		Article

The lesser-known MutinyTrilochan Singh Trewn

Line-up of Indian Naval ships on Mumbai dockyard breakwater during the crucial three days of the Rin Mutiny.

THE trauma experienced during those four days of the Rin Mutiny in February, 1946 was a source of tension. In fact the situation was more sensitive than the one that arose from the actual combat condition prevailing in the north Arabian sea during the India-Pakistan conflict in 1971.

The mutiny was initiated by the ratings of Indian Navy during early 1946. It was a reaction against the treatment meted to ratings in general and the lack of service facilities in particular. On January 16, 1946, a contingent of 67 ratings of various branches arrived at Castle Barracks, Mint Road, in Fort Mumbai. This contingent had arrived from the basic training establishment, HMIS Akbar, located at Thane a suburb of Mumbai at 1600 in the evening. The officer on duty informed the galley (kitchen) staff of this arrival. Quite casually, the duty cook, without winking an eyelid, took out 20 loaves of bread from the large cupboard and added three litres of tap water to the mutton curry as well as the gram dal which was lying already cooked before as per the morning strength of the ratings. Every one associated with each wing of administration in those days had such a mindset that no one bothered. Nothing more was required to be done in such cases. On that day, only 17 ratings ate the watery, tasteless meals while the rest went ashore and ate. Such daily cases of neglect, when reported to senior officers present, practically evoked no response and the discontentment continued to build up. The better educated ratings of communication branch in the shore establishment, HMIS Talwar, located in Mumbai had been complaining of neglect of their facilities and harboured a high level of revulsion towards the authorities.

The adventures of Indian National Army and the stories of glory of Netaji Subhas Chander Bose received through the wireless sets and the media inspired them. A naval central strike committee was formed. It was led by a naval rating M.S Khan. Soon, thousands of disgruntled ratings from Mumbai, Karachi, Cochin and Vishakhapatnam joined them. They communicated with each other through the wireless communication sets available in HMIS Talwar. Thus, the entire revolt was coordinated. The unrest spread to ships too. Admiral Godfrey in Mumbai took a stubborn stand towards the demands of the strikers. Demands by now had come to include the release of INA prisoners too. This was early February, 1946. Inspired by the patriotic fervour sweeping the country, the movement started taking a political turn. During the second week of February, 1946, my ship was alongside the outer breakwater. One fine early morning, I noticed about 20 junior ratings surrounding the main duty- free canteen located close to the smithy shop inside the naval dockyard in Mumbai. This large canteen was a part of an international chain of canteens run by the royal navy and was well-stocked with choicest brands of foreign liquor, cheeses, caviar, cigarettes etc mostly imported. About four ratings forced themselves into the store and came out with cartons of cigarettes, cameras and electric irons etc. It was followed by another rush of ratings who now were holding boxes of scotch whisky in both hands and sported imported umbrellas slinging on their shoulders. Soon the canteen staff also arrived but was helpless and terrified as some of the ratings carried arms. As if this was not enough, another batch of ratings brought some steel bars from the closeby smithy shop and dismantled the steel safe from its seat. Efforts were being made to drag the locked safe to nowhere when I left the scene. I then came across some cooks holding fully-loaded automatic weapons in their hands and pointing those towards the direction of Gateway of India where the British destroyers from Trincomalee were expected to arrive. Just then Captain (E) T.N. Kochhar, then an engineer officer of HMIS Narmada, sped past me and told me that the strike committee had broadcast a message that Indian officers would not be harmed if they did not interfere, while Admiral Godfrey required all officers to be in their place of duty and ensure that no violent action or damage to equipment and property took place and that the agitation remained peaceful. In the evening, a news item was received stating that a Gurkha regiment in Karachi had refused to fire at an agitated group of naval ratings. This was day one. The next day morning, the tricolour was hoisted by the ratings on mastheads of most of the ships and establishments. There was a general feeling of anxiety and tension everywhere. The ships deck and lavatories had not been cleaned for past two days. Officers and ratings’ kitchens were out of use. The canteens in every ship were forced open and eatables consumed in lieu of cooked food. The morning news on the radio indicated that fully-armed destroyers of British Navy had already steamed out of Trincomalee harbour and were heading towards Mumbai to quell the Mutiny. The naval ratings’ strike committee decided, in a confused manner, the HMIS Kumaon had to leave Mumbai harbour while HMIS Kathiawar was already in the Arabian Sea under the command of a striking rating. At about 10.30 HIMS Kumaon suddenly let go the shore ropes, without even removing the ships’ gangway while officers were discussing the law and order situation on the outer breakwater jetty. So the wooden gangway, six-metre-long was protruding out of the ship’s starboard waist when the ship moved away from the jetty under command of a revolver bearing senior rating. However, within two hours fresh instructions were received from the strikers’ control room and the ship returned to the same berth. The situation was changing fast and rumours spread that Australian and Canadian armed battalions had been stationed outside the Lion gate and the Gungate to encircle the dockyard where most ships were berthed. Unfortunately, by now all the armouries of the ships and establishments had been seized by the striking ratings. The real danger was that the sophisticated arms with the ammunition were being handled casually by unscrupulous ships clerks, cleaning hands, cooks and wireless operators who had never handled these before. The third day dawned charged with fresh emotions. Sardar Patel’s statement of assurance did improve matters considerably. However, an unruly guncrew of a 25 pounder gun fitted in an old ship, without orders from the strikers, fired a salvo towards the Castle barracks and blew off a large branch of an old banyan tree. It was clear that those bearing arms had started acting on their own without taking orders from their central striking command. The negotiations moved fast, keeping in view the extreme sensitivity of the situation and on the fourth day most of the demands of the strikers were conceded in principle. Immediate steps were taken to improve the quality of food served in the ratings’ kitchen and their living conditions. The national leaders also assured that favourable consideration will be accorded to release of all the prisoners of the Indian National Army. By this time the British destroyers fully armed to go into action arrived and had positioned themselves off the Gateway of Indian Mumbai. Luckily a very grave situation was tackled in a very timely manner and a real disaster was averted by the prudent action both by the strikers and the country’s leadership.

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