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The Indian National Army was an armed force formed by Indian freedom fighters/collaborators and Imperial Japan on 1 September 1942 in Southeast Asia during World War II. Its aim was to secure Indian independence from British rule. It fought alongside Japanese soldiers in the latter's campaign in the Southeast Asian theatre of WWII. The army was first formed in 1942 under Rash Behari Bose by Indian PoWs of the British-Indian Army captured by Japan in the Malayan campaign and at Singapore. This first INA, which had been handed over to Rash Behari Bose, collapsed and was disbanded in December that year after differences between the INA leadership and the Japanese military over its role in Japan's war in Asia. Rash Behari Bose handed over INA to Subhas Chandra Bose. It was revived under the leadership of Subhas Chandra Bose after his arrival in Southeast Asia in 1943. The army was declared to be the army of Bose's Arzi Hukumat-e-Azad Hind. Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose named the brigades/regiments of INA after Gandhi, Nehru, Maulana Azad, and himself. There was also an all-women regiment named after Rani of Jhanshi, Lakshmibai. Under Bose's leadership, the INA drew ex-prisoners and thousands of civilian volunteers from the Indian expatriate population in Malaya and Burma. This second INA fought under the Imperial Japanese Army against the British and Commonwealth forces in the campaigns in Burma: at Imphal and Kohima, and later against the Allied retaking of Burma.
Subhas Chandra Bose was an Indian nationalist whose defiance of British authority in India made him a hero among Indians, but his wartime alliances with Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan left a legacy vexed by authoritarianism, anti-Semitism, and military failure. The honorific Netaji was first applied to Bose in Germany in early 1942—by the Indian soldiers of the Indische Legion and by the German and Indian officials in the Special Bureau for India in Berlin. It is now used throughout India.
During the Second World War (1939–1945), India was a part of the British Empire, with the British holding territories in South Asia that included over six hundred autonomous Princely States. India officially declared war on Nazi Germany in September 1939. India, as a part of the Allied Nations, sent over two and a half million soldiers to fight under British command against the Axis powers. India also provided the base for American operations in support of China in the China Burma India Theater.
The Provisional Government of Free India or, more simply, Azad Hind, was an Indian provisional government established in Japanese occupied Singapore during World War II. It was created in October 1943 and supported by – as well as largely dependent on – the Empire of Japan.
Field Marshal Sam Hormusji Framji Jamshedji Manekshaw, widely known as Sam Manekshaw and Sam Bahadur, was the Chief of the Army Staff of the Indian Army during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, and the first Indian Army officer to be promoted to the rank of field marshal. His active military career spanned four decades and five wars, beginning with service in the British Indian Army in World War II.
MI19 was a section of the British Directorate of Military Intelligence, part of the War Office. During the Second World War it was responsible for obtaining information from enemy prisoners of war.
The term Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre (CSDIC) was used for facilities in the UK, the continent between 1942 and 1947, the Middle East, and South Asia. They were run by the British War Office on a joint basis involving the British Army and various intelligence agencies, notably MI5 and MI9. The CSDICs on the European mainland were:
The Indian Legion, officially the Free India Legion or 950th (Indian) Infantry Regiment, was a military unit raised during the Second World War initially as part of the German Army and later the Waffen-SS from August 1944. Originally intended to serve as a force to fight for independence of British-ruled India, it was made up of Indian prisoners of war and expatriates in Europe. Due to its origins in the Indian independence movement, it was known also as the "Tiger Legion", and the "Azad Hind Fauj". As part of the Waffen-SS it was known as the Indian Volunteer Legion of the Waffen-SS.
Mohan Singh was an Indian military officer, Japanese collaborator and member of the Indian Independence Movement best known for organising and leading the Indian National Army in South East Asia during World War II. Following Indian independence, Mohan Singh later served in public life as a Member of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha of the Indian Parliament. He was a member of the Indian National Army (INA).
The Indian National Army trials was the British Indian trial by court-martial of a number of officers of the Indian National Army (INA) between November 1945 and May 1946, on various charges of treason, torture, murder and abetment to murder, during the Second World War. In total, approximately ten court-martials were held. The first of these was the joint court-martial of Colonel Prem Sahgal, Colonel Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon, and Major-General Shah Nawaz Khan. The three had been officers in the British Indian Army and were taken prisoner in Malaya, Singapore and Burma. They had, like a large number of other troops and officers of the British Indian Army, joined the Indian National Army and later fought in Burma alongside the Japanese military under the Azad Hind.
The Bidadari Resolutions were set of resolutions adopted by the nascent Indian National Army in April 1942 that declared the formation of the INA and its aim to launch an armed struggle for Indian independence. The resolution was declared at a prisoner-of-war camp at the Bidadari in Singapore during Japanese occupation of the island.
Jiffs was a slang term used by British Intelligence, and later the 14th Army, to denote soldiers of the Indian National Army after the failed First Arakan offensive of 1943. The term is derived from the acronym JIFC, short for Japanese-Indian fifth column. It came to be employed in a propaganda offensive in June 1943 within the British Indian Army as a part of the efforts to preserve the loyalty of the Indian troops at Manipur after suffering desertion and losses at Burma during the First Arakan Offensive. After the end of the war, the term "HIFFs" was also used for repatriated troops of the Indian Legion awaiting trial.
The First Indian National Army was the Indian National Army as it existed between February and December 1942. It was formed with Japanese aid and support after the Fall of Singapore and consisted of approximately 12,000 of the 40,000 Indian prisoners of war who were captured either during the Malayan campaign or surrendered at Singapore and was led by Rash Behari Bose of Hindu Mahasabha of Japan. It was formally proclaimed in April 1942 and declared the subordinate military wing of the Indian Independence League in June that year. The unit was dissolved in December 1942 after apprehensions of Japanese motives with regards to the INA led to disagreements and distrust between Mohan Singh and INA leadership on one hand, and the League's leadership, most notably Rash Behari Bose, who handed over the Indian National Army to Subhas Chandra Bose but remained as Supreme Advisor to INA. A large number of the INAs initial volunteers, however, later went on to join the INA in its second incarnation under Subhas Chandra Bose.
The Farrer Park address was an assembly of the surrendered Indian troops of the British Indian Army held at Farrer Park in Singapore on 17 February 1942, two days after the Fall of Singapore. The assembly was marked by a series of three addresses in which the British Malaya Command formally surrendered the Indian troops of the British Indian Army to Major Fujiwara Iwaichi representing the Japanese military authority, followed by transfer of authority by Fujiwara to the command of Mohan Singh, and a subsequent address by Mohan Singh to the gathered troops declaring the formation of the Indian National Army to fight the Raj, asking for volunteers to join the army.
The Battles and Operations involving the Indian National Army during World War II were all fought in the South-East Asian theatre. These range from the earliest deployments of the INA's preceding units in espionage during Malayan Campaign in 1942, through the more substantial commitments during the Japanese Ha Go and U Go offensives in the Upper Burma and Manipur region, to the defensive battles during the Allied Burma campaign. The INA's brother unit in Europe, the Indische Legion did not see any substantial deployment although some were engaged in Atlantic wall duties, special operations in Persia and Afghanistan, and later a small deployment in Italy. The INA was not considered a significant military threat. However, it was deemed a significant strategic threat especially to the Indian Army, with Wavell describing it as a target of prime importance.
The integral associations of the Indian National Army's history with that of the war in South East Asia, especially the Japanese occupation of South East Asian countries, the renunciations of the oath to the King, as well as British war-time propaganda and later allegations of torture by INA soldiers have inspired a number of controversies. Principal among these is British intelligence propaganda during the war which alleged torture at a massive scale of British Indian Army and Allied prisoners of war by the INA troops in collaboration with the Japanese.
Habib ur Rahman (1913–1978) was an army officer in the Indian National Army (INA) who was charged with "waging war against His Majesty the King Emperor". He served as Subhas Chandra Bose's chief of staff in Singapore, and accompanied Bose on his last fatal flight from Taipei to Tokyo, sharing the last moments of his life. Rahman also played an important role in the First Kashmir War. Convinced that Maharaja Hari Singh was out to exterminate the Muslims of Jammu and Kashmir, he joined Major General Zaman Kiani, in launching a rebellion against the Maharaja from Gujrat in Pakistani Punjab. Rehman and his volunteer force launched an attack on the Bhimber town. But, the records of the 11th Cavalry of the Pakistan Army indicate that their efforts did not succeed, and eventually the Cavalry was responsible for conquering Bhimber.
Colonel Claude Hugh Morley Toye MBE was a British Army intelligence officer who worked in India and Burma during World War II.
The Springing Tiger is a historical account of the Indian National Army published in 1959 by Col Hugh Toye. The book was published in London by Cassell Publishers, and is considered one of the first Sympathetic Western accounts of the army. Toye worked as an intelligence officer in World War II in Burma, and was tasked with interrogating captured soldiers of the INA by the CSDIC(I). The book is provided with a foreword by Phillip Mason, who in 1946 was the Secretary of the War department in India. The book describes in detail the formation of the INA under the auspices of the F Kikan of Japanese intelligence through the collapse and subsequent revival of the army under Subhas Chandra Bose, its role in the Battles of Imphal and Kohima and the subsequent collapse in the face of Allied Burmese offensive before ending with the alleged death of Subhas Chandra Bose.
The Indian National Army (INA) was an Indian military wing in Southeast Asia during the World War II, particularly active in Singapore, that was officially formed in April 1942 and disbanded in August 1945. It was formed with the help of the Japanese forces and was made up of roughly about 45 000 Indian prisoner of war (POWs) of British Indian Army, who were captured after the fall of Singapore on 15 February 1942. It was initially formed by Rash Behari Bose who headed it till April 1942 before handing the lead of INA over to Subhas Chandra Bose in 1943.
References
- ↑ Singh 2005 , p. 162
- 1 2 Singh 2005 , p. 163
- ↑ War Office memo ZIP/4/4/32 dated 26 November 1945, now in the British Library.
- 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 .
- Singh, Gajendra. (2005), The Testimonies of Indian Soldiers and the Two World Wars: Between Self and Sepoy, Bloomsbury, ISBN 9781780938202 .
