The Indian National Army trials (also known as the INA trials and the Red Fort 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.
Jawaharlal Nehru in Poona had announced that Congress would stand responsible for the trials. The committee formed for the defence of INA soldiers was formed by Congress Working Committee. It included Jawaharlal Nehru, Bhulabhai Desai, Asaf Ali, Tej Bahadur Sapru, Kailash Nath Katju and others. [1]
Initially, over 7,600 members of INA were set for trial but due to difficulty in proving their crimes the number of trials were significantly reduced. [2] Approximately ten courts-martial 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, alongside 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. These three came to be the only defendants in the trials who were charged with "waging war against the King-Emperor" (the Indian Army Act, 1911 did not provide for a separate charge for treason) as well as murder and abetment of murder. Those charged later only faced trial for torture and murder or abetment of murder.
The trials covered arguments based on military law, constitutional law, international law, and politics. Historian Mithi Mukherjee has called the event of the trial "a key moment in the elaboration of an anticolonial critique of international law in India." [3] As it was an army trial, Lt. Col. Horilal Varma Bar At Law & the then-Prime Minister of the Rampur State, along with Tej Bahadur Sapru, served as the lawyers for the defendants. These trials attracted much publicity, and public sympathy for the defendants, particularly as India was in the final stages of the Indian independence movement. Outcry over the grounds of the trial, as well as a general emerging unease and unrest within the troops of the Raj, ultimately forced the then-Army Chief Field Marshal Claude Auchinleck to commute the sentences of the three defendants in the first trial.
Japan, as well as South East Asia, was a major refuge for Indian nationalists living in exile before the start of World War II who formed strong proponents of militant nationalism and also influenced Japanese policy significantly. Although Japanese intentions and policies with regards to India were far from concrete at the start of the war, Japan had sent intelligence missions, notably under Major I Fujiwara, into South Asia even before the start of the World War II to garner support from the Malayan Sultans, the Burmese resistance and the Indian movement. These missions were successful in establishing contacts with Indian nationalists in exile in Thailand and Malaya, supporting the establishment and organisation of the Indian Independence League.
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 Malayan Campaign had brought under her control considerable numbers of Indian prisoners of war, notably nearly 55,000 after the Fall of Singapore. The conditions in the Japanese prisoner of war camps were notorious and led to some of the troops deserting, when offered release by their captors, and forming a nationalist army. From these deserters, the First Indian National Army was formed under Mohan Singh Deb and received considerable Japanese aid and support. It was formally proclaimed in September 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 notable Rash Behari Bose. The arrival of Subhas Bose in June 1943 saw the revival and reorganisation of the unit as the army of the Azad Hind government that was formed in October 1943. Within days of its proclamation in October 1943, the Azad Hind had been accorded recognition by Germany, Fascist Italy, Croatia, Thailand, Ba Maw's Burmese government, and some other Axis-allied nations, as well as receiving felicitations and gifts from the government of neutral Ireland and Irish republicans who had left British rule in 1912. The Azad Hind government declared war on Britain and America in October 1943. In Nov 1943, Azad Hind had been given a limited form of governmental jurisdiction over the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, which had been captured by the Japanese navy early on in the war. In the early part of 1944, INA forces were in action along with the Japanese forces in Imphal and Kohima area against Commonwealth forces, and later fell back with the retreating Japanese forces after the failed campaign. In early 1945, the INA's troops were committed against the successful Allied Burma Campaign. Most of the INA troops were captured, defected or fell otherwise into British hands during the Burma campaign by end of March that year and by the time Rangoon fell in May 1945, the INA had more or less ceased to exist although some activities continued until Singapore was recaptured.
At the conclusion of the Second World War, the government of British India brought some of the captured INA soldiers to trial on treason charges. The prisoners would potentially face the death penalty, life imprisonment or a fine as punishment if found guilty.
By 1943 and 1944, courts martial were taking place in India of former personnel of the British Indian Army who were captured fighting in INA ranks or working in support of the INA's subversive activities. These did not receive any publicity or political sympathies and support until much later. The charges in these earlier trials were of "Committing a civil offence contrary to the Section 41 of the Indian Army Act,1911 or the Section 41 of the Burma Army Act" with the offence specified as "Waging War against the King" contrary to the Section 121 of the Indian Penal Code and the Burma Penal Code as relevant. [4]
With the release of Sarat Chandra Bose on 14 September 1945, the trials began to take an organised form. [5]
However, the number of INA troops captured by Commonwealth forces by the end of the Burma Campaign made it necessary to take a selective policy to charge those accused of the worst allegations. The first of these was the joint trial of Shah Nawaz Khan, Prem Sahgal and Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon, followed by the trials of Abdul Rashid, Shinghara Singh, Fateh Khan, Captain Malik Munawar Khan Awan, Captain Allah Yar Khan, and several other commissioned officers of the INA. The decision was made to hold a public trial, as opposed to the earlier trials, and given the political importance and significance of the trials, the decision was made to hold these at the Red Fort. Also, due to the complexity of the case, the provision was made under the Indian Army Act rule 82(a) for counsels to appear for defence and prosecution. The then Advocate General of India, Sir Naushirwan P Engineer was appointed the counsel for Prosecution.
The Indian National Congress made the release of the three defendants an important political issue during the agitation for independence of 1945–6. The INA Defence Committee was a committee established by the Indian National Congress in 1945 to defend those officers of the Indian National Army who were to be charged during the INA trials. Additional responsibilities of the committee also came to be the co-ordination of information on INA troops held captive, as well as arranging for relief for troops after the war. The committee declared the formation of the Congress' defence team for the INA and included Jawaharlal Nehru, Tej Bahadur Sapru, Bhulabhai Desai, R.B. Badri Das, Asaf Ali, Kanwar Sir Dalip Singh, Kailash Nath Katju, Bakshi Sir Tek Chand, P.N. Sen, Inder Deo Dua, Shiv Kumar Shastri, Ranbeer Chand Soni, Rajinder Narayan, Sultan Yar Khan, Narayan Andley and J.K. Khanna. [1]
The first trial, that of Shah Nawaz Khan, Gurubaksh Singh Dhillon and Prem Sahgal was held between November and December 1945 against the backdrop of general elections in India with the Attorney General of India, Noshirwan P. Engineer as the chief prosecutor and two dozen counsel for the defence, led by Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru and fronted by Lt. Col Horilal Varma Bar At Law [6] All three of the accused were charged with "waging war against the king contrary to section 121 of the Indian Penal Code". In addition, charges of murder were leveled against Dhillon and of abetment to murder against Khan and Sahgal. The defendants were Punjabis who came from three different religions – one Hindu, one Sikh, and one Muslim – but all three elected to be defended by the defence committee set up by the Indian National Congress. [6]
These were the trials of Captain Abdul Rashid, Captain Shinghara Singh Mann, Captain Munawar Khan, Captain Allah Yar Khan, Lieutenant Fateh Khan and some other officers. Shangara Singh was awarded the Sardar-e-Jung, the second-highest decoration bestowed by Azad Hind government for valour in combat, and the Vir-e-Hind medal. Subhas Chandra Bose himself gave Singh Mann his medals in Rangoon. He was captured by the British and held in a prison in Multan from January 1945 to February 1946. After his release, he returned to his family in the Punjab. In 1959, he settled in Vadodara, Gujarat, where he remained as of 2001. He died aged 113. Though Captain Allah Yar Khan and few of his coompanions were listed as POWs but in fact they escaped into jungle surrounding Singapore, fearing torture at the hands of the Japanese soldiers. They survived in jungle hunting and stalking on Japanese supply until October 1943 when they joined the second INA raised under Subhas Chandra Bose. At the time of trial, Captain Khan was under treatment at India-based General Hospital in Bangalore. In the wake of unrest over the charges of treason and glorification of INA soldiers in the first trial, the charges of treason was dropped. However, these officers were cashiered from army with rank reduction from the date of grant of emergency commission. The site of trial was also moved from the Red Fort to an adjoining building. [7]
Beyond the concurrent campaigns of noncooperation and nonviolent protest, this spread to include mutinies and wavering support within the British Indian Army. This movement marked the last major campaign in which the forces of the Congress and the Muslim League aligned together; the Congress tricolor and the green flag of the League were flown together at protests. In spite of this aggressive and widespread opposition, the court martial was carried out and all three defendants were sentenced to deportation for life. This sentence, however, was never carried out, as the immense public pressure of the demonstrations forced Claude Auchinleck, Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army, to release all three defendants. A slogan popular during this time was, "Laal quile se aayi aawaz, Sahgal, Dhillon, Shahnawaaz". (transl. The sound coming from the Lal Red Fort says -Dhillion, Sehgal, Shahnawaz; May the three live long) [8]
During the trial, mutiny broke out in the Royal Indian Navy, incorporating ships and shore establishments of the RIN throughout India from Karachi to Bombay and from Vizag to Calcutta. The most significant if disconcerting factor for the Raj was the significant militant public support that it received. At some places, NCOs in the British Indian Army started ignoring orders from British superiors. In Madras and Pune, the British garrisons had to face revolts within the ranks of the British Indian Army.
Another Army mutiny took place at Jabalpur during the last week of February 1946, soon after the Navy mutiny at Bombay, which were both suppressed. It lasted about one week. After the mutiny, about 45 persons were tried by court martial. 41 were sentenced to varying terms of imprisonment or dismissal. In addition, a large number were discharged on administrative grounds. While the participants of the Naval Mutiny were given the freedom fighters' pension, the Jabalpur mutineers got nothing. They even lost their service pension.
Most of the INA soldiers were set free after cashiering and forfeiture of pay and allowance. [9]
Lord Louis Mountbatten, the head of Southeast Asia Command, ordered the INA memorial to its fallen soldiers to be demolished when Singapore was recaptured in 1945. [10] It has been suggested by some historians that Mountbatten's decision to demolish the INA memorial was part of a larger effort to prevent the spread of the socialist ideals of the INA in the political atmosphere of the Cold War and the decolonisation of Asia. [11] [12] In 1995, the National Heritage Board of Singapore marked the place as a historical site. A Cenotaph has since been erected at the site where the memorial once stood.
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. [13] However, the stories of the trials at the Red Fort filtered through. Newspapers reported at the time of the trials that some of the INA soldiers held at Red Fort had been executed, [14] which only succeeded in causing further protests.
The 2017 period drama film Raag Desh is based on the INA trials.
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 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.
Lakshmi Sahgal was a revolutionary of the Indian independence movement, an officer of the Indian National Army, and the Minister of Women's Affairs in the Azad Hind government. Lakshmi is commonly referred to in India as Captain Lakshmi, a reference to her rank when taken prisoner in Burma during the Second World War.
During the Second World War (1939–1945), India was a part of the British Empire. British 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 was also used as 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 a short-lived Japanese-controlled 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.
Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose: The Forgotten Hero is a 2004 Indian epic biographical war film, written and directed by Shyam Benegal. The film starred an ensemble cast of Sachin Khedekar, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Rajit Kapur, Arif Zakaria, and Divya Dutta, among others. The film depicts the life of the Indian Independence leader Subhas Chandra Bose in Nazi Germany: 1941–1943, and in Japanese-occupied Asia 1943–1945, and the events leading to the formation of Azad Hind Fauj.
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. Intended to serve as a liberation force for British-ruled India, it was made up of Indian prisoners of war and expatriates in Europe. Owing 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.
Shah Nawaz Khan was an Indian politician who served as an officer in the Indian National Army (INA) during World War II. He was profoundly influenced by Subhas Chandra Bose's speeches asking POWs to join the Indian National Army and to fight for a free India, Khan led the army into North-Eastern India, seizing Kohima and Imphal which were held briefly by the INA under the authority of the Japanese. In December 1944, Shah Nawaz Khan was appointed Commander of the 1st Division at Mandalay. After the war, he was tried, convicted for treason, and sentenced to death in a public court-martial carried out by the British Indian Army. The sentence was commuted by the Commander-in-chief of the Indian Army following unrest and protests in India. After the trial, Khan declared that he would henceforth follow the path of non-violence espoused by Mahatama Gandhi and joined the Congress party. Having successfully contested the first Lok Sabha in 1952 from Meerut, Khan had an illustrious parliamentary career. He was elected four times to the Lok Sabha from Meerut constituency in 1951, 1957, 1962 and 1971. He lost in the 1967 and 1977 Lok Sabha election from Meerut.
Lieutenant colonel Prem Kumar Sahgal was an officer of the British Indian Army. After becoming a Japanese prisoner of war, he served as an officer in the Indian National Army, which was led by Subhas Chandra Bose and had been set up by the Japanese to fight against British rule in India.
The INA Defence Committee, later the INA Defence and Relief Committee, was a committee established by the Indian National Congress in 1945 to defend those officers of the Indian National Army who were to be charged during the INA trials. Additional responsibilities of the committee also came to be the co-ordination of information on INA troops held captive, as well as arranging for relief for troops after the war. The committee declared the formation of the Congress' defence team for the INA and included famous lawyers of the time, including Bhulabhai Desai, Asaf Ali, Jawaharlal Nehru and as The British insisted that this was an Army Court Martial, Lt. Col Horilal Varma Bar at law and Prime minister of the state of Rampur was selected to head the defense Committee.
Major General Arcot Doraiswamy Loganadan was an officer of the Indian National Army, and was also a minister in the Azad Hind Government as a representative of the Indian National Army there. Loganadan also served briefly as the Governor of the Andaman Islands while these islands were occupied by the Japanese during the war, and afterwards moved to Burma for the duration of the war.
Mohammed Zaman Kiani was an officer of the British Indian Army who later joined the Indian National Army (INA), led by Subhas Chandra Bose, and commanded its 1st Division.
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.
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 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.
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 alleged 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.
Azad Hind Fouz Smriti Mahavidyalaya is an undergraduate liberal arts college in Domjur, West Bengal, India. It is in Howrah district. It is affiliated with the University of Calcutta.
The Indian National Army (INA) and its leader Subhash Chandra Bose are popular and emotive topics within India. From the time it came into public perception in India around the time of the Red Fort Trials, it found its way into the works of military historians around the world. It has been the subject of a number of projects, 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 autobiographical, while still others historical and political works, that tell the story of the INA. A large number of these provide analyses of Subhas Chandra Bose and his work with the INA.
The Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre (India), or CSDIC (I) for short, was the Indian branch of the CSDIC, established during World War II. Established along with the parent section at the start of hostilities in Europe, the branch developed as an important tool for interrogation of enemy troops and informant from November 1942, when the first information emerged of the nascent Indian National Army. The organisation formed a part of the Jiffs campaign, and was initially tasked with identifying Indian troops at risk of defecting to the INA. By the end of the war its task had evolved into interrogating INA soldiers captured in Burma, Malaya and Europe, interrogating them regardless of rank and identifying soldiers as whitegrey or black on the basis of their commitment to Subhas Chandra Bose and Azad Hind. The classifications were to be important in rehabilitating INA soldiers into the British-Indian Army. Col. Hugh Toye, who worked with the unit, later went on to write the first substantive history on the INA in his book 1959 book The Springing Tiger.
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.
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