The Indian Independence League (also known as IIL) was a political organisation operated from the 1920s to the 1940s to organise those living outside British India into seeking the removal of British colonial rule over the region. Founded by Indian nationalists, its activities were conducted in various parts of Southeast Asia. It included Indian expatriates, and later, Indian nationalists in-exile under Japanese occupation following Japan's successful Malayan Campaign during the first part of the Second World War. During the Japanese Occupation of Malaya, the Japanese encouraged Indians in Malaya to join the League. [1]
Established primarily to foster Indian nationalism and to obtain Japanese support for the Indian Independence Movement, the League came to interact and command the first Indian National Army under Mohan Singh before it was dissolved. Rash Behari Bose handed over the INA to Subhas Chandra Bose. Later, after the arrival of Subhas Chandra Bose in South East Asia and the revival of the INA, the League came under his leadership, before giving way to Azad Hind.
With the occupation of South-East Asia, a large expatriate Indian population had come under the Japanese occupation. A framework of local Indian associations had existed even before the war reached Malaya. The biggest of these included the likes of the pre-war Central Indian Association, the Singapore Indian Independence league and other organisations, and had amongst their members eminent Indian expatriates, e.g. K. P. K. Menon, Nedyam Raghavan, Pritam Singh, S.C. Goho and others. With the occupation authority's encouragement, these groups began amalgamating into the local Indian Independence leagues and became the predominant liaising organisation between the local Indian population and the Japanese occupation force.
Joining the Indian Independence League brought security and perks. [2] Displaying an IIL card smoothed the purchase of a railway ticket and allowed purchase at the IIL headquarters of hard-to-get items like tooth paste and soap at reasonable prices. [2] It was also the means by which rations were issued. [3] In addition, since the IIL was allowed to work with the Swiss Red Cross, members could receive and send letters to then hard to reach places, such as Ceylon. [2]
Rash Behari Bose was an Indian revolutionary noted for his planning of the Delhi-Lahore conspiracy of 1912 to assassinate the then Viceroy Lord Hardinge, and his involvement in the Ghadr Conspiracy of 1915. Sought by the Raj, Rash Behari fled to Japan where he found sanctuary among Japanese patriotic societies. Rash Behari subsequently learned the Japanese Language, married a Japanese woman, and became a naturalised Japanese citizen. [4]
Before and during the Malayan Campaign, Rash Behari had tried to interest Japanese efforts to aims of the Indian Independence movement. With encouraging reports from Fujiwara and the establishment of the local Independence leagues, the IGHQ sought Rash Behari's help to expand and amalgamate the Indian movement taking shape.
Rash Behari advised the IGHQ to attach the evolving INA to a political organisation that would also speak for the civilian Indian population in South-east Asia. [5]
In March 1942, he invited the local leaders of the Indian Independence leagues to a conference in Tokyo. This invitation was taken up and the delegation met at a Tokyo hotel in late March 1942.
The Tokyo conference, however, failed to reach any definitive decisions. A number of the Indian delegation held differences with Rash Behari, especially given his long connection with Japan and the current position of Japan as the occupying power in South-east Asia, and were wary of vested Japanese interests. [5] The conference agreed to meet again in Bangkok at a future date. [5] The Indian delegation returned to Singapore in April with Rash Behari.
In Singapore, Rash Behari was invited to chair a public meeting that saw the proclamation of the All-Malayan Indian Independence League. [5] The League was headed by Nedyam Raghavan, a Penang Barrister and a prominent Malayan Indian. The governing board included K.P. Kesava Menon and S.C Goho, the latter the chairman of the Singapore Indian Independence League. The league made a number of proposals including creation of a Council of Action as the executive arm, formation of a body which the regional leagues would report to, as well as the relations between the INA and the council as well as those between the council and the Japanese authority. [5] The decision was made to vote on these proposals by a representation larger than that had met at Tokyo, and meeting elsewhere than on Japanese soil. [5] There also remains suggestions that members of the League, including Niranjan Singh Gill who directed the PoW camps, were apprehensive about Japanese intentions with regards to the league, and the Independence movement. [6]
The league found widespread support among the Indian population; membership was estimated to be close to a hundred-thousand at the end of August. Membership in the league was of advantage for the population in the middle of war-time emergency and when dealing with the occupation authorities. The League's membership card identified the holder as Indian (and thus an ally), it was used to issue rations. [3] Further, the League took efforts to improve the conditions of the local Indian populace, including the cause of the now jobless plantation labourers. [5]
In June 1942, the Bangkok conference was held. This saw the constitution of the Indian Independence League. The league consisted of a Council for Action and a Committee of representatives below it. Below the committee was to be the territorial and local branches. [7] Rash Behari Bose was to chair the council, while K.P. Kesava Menon, Nedyam Raghavan were among the civilian members of the council. Mohan Singh and an officer by the name of Gilani were to be the INA's members. [7] The committee of representatives took members from the 12 territories with Indian population, with representation proportional to the representative Indian population. [7] [8] The Bangkok resolution further decided that the Indian National Army was to be subordinate to it. [7]
The Bangkok conference adopted a thirty-four point resolution to and expected the Japanese government to respond to each point. These included the demand that the Japanese government clearly, explicitly and publicly recognise India as an independent nation and the league as the nation's representatives and guardians. [7] Other points also demanded assurances of Japanese respect for her sovereignty and her territorial integrity, to all of which the council unanimously demanded that Japan clearly and unequivocally commit themselves before the league proceeded any further in collaboration. [9] The resolution further demanded that the Indian National Army be accorded the status of an allied army and be treated as such, and that all Indian POWs be released to the INA. The Japanese must help the army with loans, and not to ask it to march in any other purpose than for the liberation of India. [7] The resolution was duly forwarded to what was then the Japanese liaising office, the Iwakuro Kikan.
In November 1943, the Greater East Asia Conference was held in Tokyo. The head of state who were the member of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere was gathered. Subhas Chandra Bose participated as a Head of State of Provisional Government of Azad Hind.
In 1945, noted Jakarta's Indian community leader Pritam Singh took part in both the Indian Independence League and also Indonesia's struggle for independence. [10]
In 1972, the Centre introduced the Swathantra Sainik Samman Pension Scheme [11] through which independence activists were entitled to a pension. [12] However, there was significant resistance to implementing the scheme. [12] For example, it took 24 years of legal fighting for S. M. Shanmugam to finally receive his pension in August 2006. [12]
Indian Independence League received a prominent role in film maker K. A. Devarajan's 1998 film "Gopuram." [13] In the film, the maternal grandfather of an Indian journalist is a 1930s independence activist in Japan who is wanted by the Imperial Police. [13] Eventually, the grandfather joins the Indian Independence League in Japan and his exploits are presented. [13]
In Amitav Ghosh's novel The Glass Palace (2000), Ghosh chronicles the fictional Rangoon teak trade fortunes of Rajkumar Raha and his extended family. [14] In that book, Uma Dey is a widow and Indian Independence League activist. [14] 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. [14]
The Indian National Army was a collaborationist armed unit of Indian collaborators that fought under the command of the Japanese Empire. It was founded by Mohan Singh on 1 September 1942 in Southeast Asia during World War II.
Subhas Chandra Bose was an Indian nationalist whose defiance of British authority in India made him a hero among many 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.
The Provisional Government of Free India or, more simply, Azad Hind, was a short-lived Japanese-supported provisional government in India. It was established in Japanese occupied Singapore during World War II in October 1943 and has been considered a puppet state of the Empire of Japan.
Rash Behari Bose was an Indian revolutionary leader who fought against the British Empire. He was one of the key organisers of the Ghadar Mutiny and founded the Indian Independence League. Bose also led the Indian National Army (INA) which was formed in 1942 under Mohan Singh.
Indian nationalist leader Subhas Chandra Bose died on 18 August 1945 from third-degree burns sustained after the bomber in which he was being transported as a guest of Lieutenant General Tsunamasa Shidei of the Imperial Japanese Kwantung Army crashed upon take off from the airport in Taihoku, Japanese-occupied Formosa, now Taipei, Taiwan. The chief pilot, copilot, and General Shidei were instantly killed.
Mohan Singh was a British Indian Army officer, and later member of the Indian Independence Movement, best known for founding 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.
The Bangkok Conference was a conference held on 23 June 1942 by Indian Nationalist groups and local Indian Independence leagues at Bangkok to proclaim the formation of the All-India Independence league. The conference further saw the adoption by the league of a thirty-four set resolution known as the Bangkok resolutions that attempted to define the role of the league in the Independence movement, relations with the nascent Indian National Army, and clarify the grounds and conditions for obtaining Japanese support for it. The resolution further attempted to clarify the relations of Japan and the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere with a free India.
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.
Fujiwara kikan was a military intelligence operation established by the IGHQ in September 1941. The Unit was transferred to Bangkok at the end of that month and headed by Major Fujiwara Iwaichi, chief of intelligence of the 15th army. Its task was to contact the Indian independence movement, the overseas Chinese and the Malayan Sultans with the aim of encouraging friendship and cooperation with Japan. The unit was notable for its success in establishing cooperative ties between the Empire of Japan and the Indian independence movement, overseas Chinese and various Malay sultans.
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.
Giani Pritam Singh Dhillon was an Indian freedom fighter and Sikh missionary who, as a member of the Ghadar Party, was instrumental in the planning of the failed 1915 Ghadar conspiracy in the British Indian Army. Giani Pritam Singh Dhillon was a close friend of Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon, famous Sikh Indian independence movement leader and prominent member of the Indian National Army. He was also close associate of Subhas Chandra Bose. Pritam Singh is also remembered for reviving the same idea during World War II by seeking Japanese support in the establishment of what came to be the Indian National Army. Pritam Singh died in a plane crash in 1942.
Subbier Appadurai Ayer was the Minister for Publicity and Propaganda in Subhas Chandra Bose's Azad Hind Government between 1943 and 1945, and later a key defence witness during the first of the INA trials. Ayer had travelled to Bangkok in November 1940 as a Special correspondent for Reuters before joining the Indian Independence League. In October 1943, Ayer was appointed the Minister of publicity and propaganda in the nascent Azad Hind Government.
K. P. Keshava Menon (1884?–?) was an Indian lawyer and a leading Indian independence activist from Kerala who was a key proponent of the formation of the Indian Independence League (IIL) and a lawyer for the Indian National Army (INA).
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. 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 formed by Mohan Singh. 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. Later on, the leadership of the Indian National Army was handed to Subhas Chandra Bose. 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 Indian National Council was an organisation founded in December 1941 in Bangkok by Indian Nationalists residing in Thailand. The organisation was founded from the Thai-Bharat Cultural Lodge on 22 December 1941. The founding president of the Council was Swami Satyananda Puri, along with Debnath Das as the founding secretary. Along with the Indian Independence League, it came to be one of the two prominent Indian associations that corresponded with I Fujiwara's F Kikan on the scopes of Japanese assistance to the Indian movement.
The Tokyo Conference was a conference held between March 28 and 30, 1942 at Tokyo by South-East Asian Indian Nationalist groups including the Indian Independence League, the Indian National Council, and smaller local Indian associations and clubs. This conference led to the decision to establish an all-unifying Indian Independence League. The conference was held at the invitation of Rash Behari Bose who was instrumental in persuading the Japanese authorities to stand by the Indian nationalists and ultimately to support actively the Indian freedom struggle abroad. Bose was also elected the leader of the Indian movement in South-East Asia during this conference. However, the Tokyo conference failed to reach any definitive decisions due to the differences between various regional factions, and also because of differences both with Rash Behari especially given his long connection with Japan and the current position of Japan as the occupying power in South-east Asia, and also because many were wary of vested Japanese interests. The Tokyo conference however, did agree on the decision to meet again in Bangkok to establish an all-unifying IIL at a future date. Rash Behari arrived in Singapore in April with the returning Indian delegation.
Major General Jaganath Rao Bhonsle, also known as Jagannathrao Krishnarao Bhonsle was an Indian military officer, independence activist, and politician. As a member of the Indian National Army, Bhonsle served as the Azad Hind's minister for armed forces in the Azad Hind. After the war, he was a minister and MP in India after independence.
The Indian National Army (INA) was a Japanese sponsored 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.
