It was the rainy season in South East Asia during World War Two. Allied bombers poured bombs all over. Eight operatives of the Force 136, a squad of guerrilla fighters trained by British intelligence had parachuted deep behind Japanese army strongholds. They were tasked with sabotaging Japanese support infrastructure in the sweltering jungles. All of a sudden they heard what seemed like singing and the sounds of boots hitting the rough roads. Hiding behind the thick undergrowth they were stunned by the sight of a military unit of young Indian women marching in precision strides right past them.
The women warriors carried several kilos of military gear, ammunition, and rations. They were feverishly fast and fighting fit. In their khaki uniforms, badges, and caps they were the most enthused soldiers in the Burma campaign. With the stirring ‘Kadam Kadam Bhariyeja’, on their lips, they looked invincible. They were the Rani of Jhansi Regiment of the Indian National Army, (INA - Azad Hind Fauj) - the first all-female infantry-fighting unit in military history. The unwavering woman warriors had endured exacting exercises and difficult drills. They had also sworn to destroy the Hukumat-i-Britannia (British Empire).
A mile above them Allied aircraft spotted the INA troops winding through the tortuous forests. The fighter pilots of the Hawker Hurricanes zoomed down to take them out. The Rani of Jhansi Regiment (RJR) conditioned to shelling and over-flights by enemy planes followed standard operating procedures. They raced in choreographed moves and sought cover as the sound of the aircraft propellers got closer and closer. Then came the strafing. The 20 mm rounds from the Hispano Suiza .404 canons mounted on the Hurricanes made the earth tremble. The unexpected volume of strafing from the planes was very accurate. Bullets clipped past the women soldiers as they lay flat beside the dirt tracks in the harsh wilderness.
In the life and death situation, they felt their heart race. Then the Hurricanes disappeared into the clouds after exhausting their ammunition. They left behind disorder in the swirling dust. The RJR swiftly regrouped and conducted a roll call. On hearing her name, one of the young women though badly bleeding from a head injury, stood in attention and shouted, “Jai Hind” to mark her presence. Then she collapsed. The rest of the unit rushed towards her. However, despite best efforts her life could not be saved. As the RJR streamed forward, the women warriors knew this was the life they had embraced, and they were not going to rest till India was liberated. Together they resumed singing, ‘Kadam Kadam Bhariyeja…’.
The operatives of Force 136 reported the sighting of the RJR warriors via secret communications to their headquarters in Meerut. Originally named GS1 (K) and disguised as a record-keeping unit of the British army Force 136 was headed by a WW1 vet, Colin Mackenzie. Force 136 was aware of the existence of an Indian rebel army drawn from the prisoners of war and residents of Southeast Asia condescendingly referred as JIFFs (Japanese influenced forces). The leader of this army of patriots was giving the entire South East Asia Command, the British Army’s GHQ in India, the Viceroy’s office, and even 10 Downing Street sleepless nights.
Despite their best efforts in covert warfare and even after employing assassins, they were defenseless against His Majesty’s greatest opponent. His name was Subhas Chandra Bose. Popularly known across India as Netaji, the charismatic Bose had an enviable track record. At a time when many upper-class Indians recognized the Hukumat-i-Britannia as a dispensation of the Providence, sang songs of their glory, and received knighthoods and Imperial honors, Bose was the only Indian to have resigned after qualifying for the famed Indian Civil Service. A Cambridge alumnus, he became the youngest President of the Indian National Congress.
During WW2, he was jailed but managed to audaciously escape from Calcutta (Kolkata now) evading British intelligence and reaching Germany. A man of immense courage, in February 1943, he undertook a dangerous two-stage intercontinental submarine journey, that had never been attempted before even by trained naval officers, and arrived in Japan. The Japanese leadership on encountering Bose finally met an Indian leader with firm determination and cultural refinement. They named him an ‘Indian Samurai’.
On 21 October 1943, Bose created history and announced the formation of the Arzi Hakumat-i-Azad Hind, (Azad Hind Government), a provisional government-in-exile in Singapore. Nine countries, Japan; Germany; Burma; Philippines; Croatia; China and Manchukuo; Italy, and Thailand recognised the new regime. Bose moved at stupendous speed. Within months, Azad Hind had its own civil code, court, bank, and national anthem ‘Subh Sukh Chain’ (later became Jan Gan Man). The provisional government functioned from Singapore with eleven ministers and eight representatives from the INA.
The INA’s motto was, ‘Ittehad, Itmad aur Qurbani’ (unity, faith, and sacrifice), and its national greeting was ‘Jai Hind’. There was a fire in the eyes of Bose as he urged the INA to march to Delhi ‘Delhi Chalo’ and unfurl the flag on the ramparts of the Red Fort. It was this fire and his patriotic fervor that inspired countless brave women and men to sacrifice everything for the freedom of their land. In admiration of Bose, thousands of Indians in South East Asia cutting through the age-old barriers of caste, religion, and gender rushed to volunteer for the INA.
To an extent that no other Indian but the man himself could have thought possible, Bose achieved his vision of a future India in the INA with a true spirit of one India. For his followers more than any other Indian leader he was a man of destiny and his dedication to the cause of India’s freedom were matchless. His undertakings also gave a new impetus to the struggle for independence at a time when the entire Congress leadership was jailed after the Quit India movement. With shells blasting, guns blazing, and blood flowing, Bose was the only Indian nationalist to confront the Hukumat-i-Britannia on the battlefield.
On 7 January 1944, Bose along with Captain Laxmi Swaminathan, head of the Rani Jhansi Regiment, a few Cabinet Ministers of Azad Hind Government, and the Cabinet Secretary Anand Mohan Sahay met with Lieutenant General Masakazu Kawabe Commander-in-Chief of the Japanese Army in Rangoon. Sahay speaking in fluent Japanese acted as the interpreter and Kawabe informed the group that some units of the INA had been dispatched to the front. Bose told Kawabe, “I pray to God only one thing, and that is, that we may go to the front and be able to shed our blood for the Motherland at the earliest.”
Now it was for the INA to transform Bose’s slogan of ‘Delhi Chalo’, into reality. Holding the Tricolor with the emblem of the Leaping Tiger on it and the war cry, ‘Delhi Chalo’ on their lips, the fearless INA soldiers led by Colonel Shaukat Hayat Malik, raised the INA flag at Moirang on Indian soil on 14 April 1944. Malik was bestowed the decoration of 'Sardar e-Jung' while commanding the Bahadur Group (Special Task Brigade).
Later on 22 June 1944, Kawabe met Bose again in Rangoon and recorded in his diary, “He (Bose) described the situation at the front as he saw it on the occasion of his recent inspection tour of the forward area. He stated in no uncertain terms his desire to fight to the last. He also proposed to go to the front again. I argued very hard with him against this, but he did not say ‘all right’. Impressed by his enthusiasm, I promised him to reconsider his proposal. Besides this, he emphasized as before, to order advance of the rest of the INA, including even the Women’s Unit, to the front. It seems Indians will not lose their fighting spirit, no matter how long the war may continue. They will gladly face all sufferings as long as they do not accomplish their great objective - independence.”
The extremely arduous Battle of Imphal and Kohima where Bose’s INA won its battle honors and lost its soldiers is now considered the greatest battle of WWII. Historian Robert Lyman has stated, “Great things were at stake in a war with the toughest enemy any British army has had to fight… This was the last real battle of the British Empire and the first battle of the new India.” The victory of the Allied Forces in Kohima along with Midway, El Alamein, and Stalingrad were the turning points of WW2. Subsequently, Bose wrote a letter from Rangoon to Lt Colonel Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon who was stationed on the frontline.
It read “Whatever happens to us individually in the course of this heroic struggle, there is no power on earth that can keep India enslaved any longer. Whether we live and work or whether we die fighting, we must, under all circumstances have complete confidence that the cause for which we are striving is bound to triumph. It is the finger of God that is pointing the way towards India’s freedom…”.
WW2 ended in August 1945 with the detonation of two atomic bombs and the capitulation of Japan. Yet at the INA headquarters, the indomitable Bose was determined to triumph over impossible odds. Even after the surrender of Japan, he decided to continue his fight against imperialism. His dream to unfurl the Indian tricolor on the ramparts of the Red Fort in Delhi was intact. Bose announced, “The roads to Delhi are many and Delhi remains our goal”. Eventually as prophesied by Bose the INA did reach the Red Fort in Delhi but as prisoners of war. In November 1945, parallel to the Nuremberg trials, the victorious British colonialists framed the sensational INA trials at the Red Fort in Delhi.
The newspapers were suddenly filled with captivating stories of the INA and the women warriors who rose to wage a war for India’s freedom. The trial of the three former British Army – now INA officers - Captain (General) Prem Sehgal, Captain (General) Shah Nawaz Khan and Lt. (Lt Colonel) Gurbaksh Singh Dhillion representing three major faiths of India – Hindu, Muslim, and Sikh elevated the nationalist fervor to heights never experienced before during India’s freedom movement. Bose and the INA soldiers overnight became national heroes and captured the hearts and minds of every Indian even in the remotest corners of the country. India for once stood united against Britain in the defense of the three patriots. For the first time, Congress, Hindu Mahasabha and Muslim League were on the same side of the fence.
India’s legal luminary, Bhulabhai Desai led a battery of top flight legal eagles in defending the three Indians. But the outcome had been already fixed. Despite a judgment in favor of the Crown, the British Army feared the revival of the Ghadr of 1857. Due to the unprecedented uproar, the three officers were hastily freed in January 1946. Hukumat-i-Britannia subsequently abandoned the rest of the trials.
A month later in February 1946, a Naval mutiny erupted across India united under the banner of ‘Jai Hind’ and proved that Britannia no longer ruled the waves. This was followed by intelligence reports and visible signs of disloyalty in many sections of the British Indian armed forces. Hukumat-i-Britannia soon comprehended that the INA had severely impacted the allegiance of their armed forces, a crucial backbone of imperialism. General Claude Auchinleck, Commander-in-Chief of the British Indian Army, called Bose a ‘genuine patriot’ and appreciatingly wrote, “Subhas Chandra Bose acquired a tremendous influence over them (British Indian Army) and that his personality must have been an exceedingly strong one”.
Michael Edwardes in his book, The Last Years of British India, has confirmed, “It slowly dawned upon the government of India that the backbone of British rule, the Indian Army, might now no longer be trustworthy. The ghost of Subhas Bose, like Hamlet's father, walked the battlements of the Red Fort, and his suddenly amplified figure over-awed the conferences that were to lead to independence.” Ultimately in the final war of independence Bose and the INA prevailed. Left powerless Britain let go of the “jewel in the crown” and swiftly quit India.
The single greatest emotional truth of India’s freedom movement is that Bose and the INA not only affected the withdrawal of Britain rule from India but also the subsequent dismantling of the British Empire from the rest of the world as Indian forces were employed to reinforce colonization. Britain would never be the dominant power in the world again.
On 16 August 1947, India’s first woman photojournalist Homai Vyarawalla immortalized the moment when the tricolor was hoisted at the Red Fort in Delhi. At that instant the man India missed the most was Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. The leader of Burma, Ba Maw recorded, “Subhas Chandra Bose was a man you could not forget once you knew him; his greatness was manifest. Like many other revolutionists, the essence of this greatness was that he lived for a single task and dream and so set his own seal on them. At one moment he came close to achieving at least a part of that vast, pervasive dream. He failed because the world forces ranged on his side failed. But fundamentally, Bose did not fail. The independence he won during the war was the true beginning of the independence which came to India a few years later. Only the usual thing happened: one man sowed, and others reaped after him.”
Today the inspirational story of the Indian National Army and the role of the Indian diaspora in the freedom struggle of our nation must be told to the younger generation. A monument for the INA and a Jai Hind park in the heart of Delhi commemorating the valor of the Rani Jhansi Regiment is long overdue and needs to materialize soon.
Netaji and his Azad Hind Fauj will continue to live in our hearts forever.
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