The Indian National Council was an organisation founded in December 1941 in Bangkok by Indian Nationalists residing in Thailand. [1] The organisation was founded from the Thai-Bharat Cultural Lodge on 22 December 1941. [2] The founding president of the Council was Swami Satyananda Puri, along with Debnath Das as the founding secretary. [2] [3] 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. [3] [4]
However, the Indian National Council emphasised solidarity with the Indian National Congress and, at a time when Japan began her successful Malayan Campaign, the council reflected the Congress leadership's reluctance to appear Quisling of the Japanese. [5] The council also had differences with the Indian Independence League, with Puri openly questioning Tokyo's anti-imperialist credibility in light of her actions in Korea and China. [6] Puri was killed in a plane crash, along with Giani Pritam Singh en route to the Conference in Tokyo in 1942 that saw Rash Behari Bose accepted as the leader of the expatriate Indian movement in South-east Asia. Later, the council sent delegates to attend the Bangkok Conference. [7]
The Indian National Army was a collaborationist armed unit of Indian collaborators that fought under the command of the Japanese Empire. It was founded 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 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 First Indian National Army during World War II. The Indian National Army was formed in 1942 under Bose which he later handed over as the Indian National Army to Subhas Chandra Bose.
Sarat Chandra Bose was an Indian barrister and independence activist.
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.
Subhas Chandra Bose 's political views were in support of complete freedom for India with a classless society and state socialism at the earliest, whereas most of the Congress Committee wanted it in phases, through a Dominion status.
The Indian Independence League was a political organisation operated from the 1920s to the 1940s to organise those living outside India into seeking the removal of British colonial rule over India. 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.
The Bangkok Conference was a conference held on 15 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 Tokyo Cadets or the Tokyo Boys, was the name given to the group of forty five youth recruits of the Indian National Army who were sent to the Imperial Japanese Army Academy or Imperial Japanese Army Air Force Academy to train as fighter pilots in 1944 by Subhas Chandra Bose. The cadets were captured as prisoners of war after Japan surrendered, but were released in 1946 after the end of the INA trials. The cadets became officers in the Indian forces, Burma Navy, Pakistan forces, and private pilots. Some of them became general officers.
Major General 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. He earned the Sword of Honour from the Indian Military Academy, and joined 14/1 Punjab Regiment.
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).
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 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.
Prafulla Kumar Sen, also known as Swami Satyananda Puri, was an Indian revolutionary and philosopher. Puri, had in his youth taught Oriental philosophy at the University of Calcutta and later at Rabindranath Tagore's Visva-Bharati University at Santiniketan. Encouraged by Tagore, he arrived in Thailand in 1932, and in 1939, he founded the Thai-Bharat Lodge, a cultural forum. Arriving in Thailand, Puri was appointed a professor at the Chulalongkorn University, lecturing in ancient Indian and Thai languages, and is said to have mastered the Thai Language in six months and went on to translate a number of Indian philosophical works and biographies, including the Ramayana and biographies of Gandhi to Thai. His literary work eventually was more than twenty volumes.
The Thai-Bharat Cultural Lodge (อาศรมวัฒนธรรมไทย-ภารต) is one of the most prestigious Indian cultural organisation in Thailand that seeks to promote comparative studies and exchange between Thai and Indian history and culture. It was founded in 1940 in Bangkok by Swami Satyananda Puri with encouragement from the Indian Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore. The Swami Satyananda Puri foundation was established by the Thai-Bharat Cultural Lodge in 1942. The SSPF library today is a reference library that houses many old and rare Indian texts. The foundation is also involved in promoting work on Indian culture, especially on the Ramayana.
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.
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.
Sisir Kumar Bose was an Indian freedom fighter, pediatrician and legislator. He was the son of Indian nationalist leader Sarat Chandra Bose, nephew of Indian freedom fighter Subhas Chandra Bose and husband of former Member of Parliament Krishna Bose (1930–2020).