Subhas Chandra Bose and the INA

Subhas Chandra Bose, known as "Netaji," chose a very different path to freedom from Gandhi's. He believed only armed force, backed by Britain's wartime enemies, could drive the British out. After breaking with the Congress, he escaped from India and sought help in Germany and Japan. He built the Indian National Army (INA) and a Provisional Government of Free India. The INA's military campaign failed. But its soldiers' sacrifice and the trials that followed shook the foundations of British rule. This is a very high-yield topic.

Bose was an intrepid, militant nationalist. He had topped the ICS exam but resigned in 1921 to join the freedom struggle under his guru Chittaranjan Das. He was imprisoned twice and served as mayor of Calcutta. Over time he came to believe the Congress was too wedded to Gandhi's methods. He was elected Congress president at Haripura (1938). At Tripuri (1939) he sought re-election against Gandhi's wishes and defeated Pattabhi Sitaramayya, Gandhi's candidate. Gandhi called Pattabhi's defeat his own. The Pant resolution, a motion requiring Bose to form his working committee in accordance with Gandhi's wishes, made his position untenable. He resigned in April 1939 and founded the Forward Bloc in May 1939 as a radical group within the Congress.

When the war came, Bose convened an Anti-Compromise Conference at Ramgarh (1940) with the Forward Bloc and Kisan Sabha. He was arrested and then placed under house arrest in Calcutta. He made his famous escape in January 1941, slipping out in disguise and reaching Peshawar under the pseudonym Ziauddin, then travelling through Kabul to Berlin. He left India "to supplement from outside the struggle going on at home." In Germany he met Hitler and formed a "Free India" force from Indian POWs, the Free Indian Legion (also known as the Indian Legion). From the Free India Centre he gave the slogan "Jai Hind" and was first hailed as "Netaji." He was disappointed when Russia joined the Allies. In 1943 he travelled by submarine to Japan and then Singapore to take over the Indian independence movement in the East.

Bose left India to win freedom for one united country by force of arms. The British endgame, years later, very nearly produced the opposite. In 1947 Lord Mountbatten, the last Viceroy, first drafted a scheme for the transfer of power that came to be called the "Balkan Plan." It proposed handing power to the individual provinces and princely states, each free to join a union or stand alone. Critics warned this would fragment India into many small units, like the Balkans of Europe. The plan was Mountbatten's brain-child, a point question setters test directly. Nehru rejected it firmly, and Mountbatten replaced it with the 3 June Plan (1947), which partitioned India into just two dominions, India and Pakistan.

The idea of an army of Indian prisoners of war was originally that of Mohan Singh. He was an Indian officer who organised the first Indian National Army with Japanese-held POWs after the fall of Singapore. By the end of 1942, about 40,000 men were ready. But differences with the Japanese arose. The Japanese wanted only a token force. This led to Mohan Singh's arrest and the first phase faltered.

The second phase began with Bose's arrival. Rashbehari Bose was the old revolutionary who had created the Indian Independence League in Tokyo. He handed over its leadership and the INA to Subhas Bose in July 1943. Bose became Supreme Commander on 25 August.

• On 21 October 1943, Bose proclaimed the Provisional Government of Free India (Azad Hind) at Singapore, with himself as head of state; it declared war on Britain and the US and was recognised by the Axis powers.
• The famous slogan "Give me blood, and I will give you freedom" was given in Malaya.
• A women's regiment, the Rani of Jhansi Regiment, was formed, commanded by Captain Lakshmi Swaminathan (Sahgal).
• On 6 November 1943, the Japanese handed the Andaman and Nicobar Islands to the INA, renamed Shahid Dweep and Swaraj Dweep.
• On 6 July 1944, from the Azad Hind Radio, Bose addressed Gandhi as the "Father of the Nation", the first person to do so, and sought his blessings for "India's last war of independence."

Keep the founders distinct, a favourite of question setters: Mohan Singh organised the first INA in Southeast Asia, Rashbehari Bose founded the Indian Independence League in Tokyo, and Subhas Chandra Bose raised the Free Indian Legion in Europe. Lala Hardayal belongs to an earlier story, the Ghadar movement in America, and V. D. Savarkar to the Hindu Mahasabha. Neither raised this army.

The INA headquarters shifted to Rangoon (January 1944), and the soldiers marched towards India with the war cry "Chalo Delhi."

• The Azad Hind Fauj crossed the Burma border onto Indian soil on 18 March 1944 and advanced towards Kohima and Imphal. On 14 April 1944, Colonel Malik of the Bahadur Group hoisted the INA flag at Moirang in Manipur (where the INA Memorial stands today), to cries of "Jai Hind" and "Netaji Zindabad."
• But the Indians faced discriminatory treatment from the Japanese, who denied them rations and arms. This demoralised the INA. After three months the Allies reclaimed the territory. The INA began its retreat on 18 July 1944.
• The steady Japanese retreat quashed any hope of liberating India. With Japan's surrender on 15 August 1945, the INA also surrendered.
• On 18 August 1945, Bose reportedly died in a mysterious air crash at Taipei (Taiwan).

The captured INA soldiers were brought back to India to be court-martialled. But a powerful movement arose in their defence. The trials at the Red Fort in 1945-46 triggered a wave of national sympathy that shook British confidence in the loyalty of the Indian armed forces. At home, Viceroy Wavell's Simla Conference of June 1945 had already failed, and the endgame of negotiations with Britain began. The INA's real impact on the freedom struggle was only beginning.

The first and most famous trial opened at the Red Fort in November 1945. Three INA officers were court-martialled together:

• Shah Nawaz Khan: an INA officer, a Muslim.
• Prem Kumar Sehgal: an INA officer, a Hindu.
• Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon: an INA officer, a Sikh.

One officer from each major community stood in the dock. The trial thus became a symbol of national unity, and "Shah Nawaz, Sehgal, Dhillon" became a popular cry. The Congress formed a defence committee for them. Bhulabhai Desai led the defence, assisted by veterans such as Tej Bahadur Sapru and Jawaharlal Nehru, who put on his barrister's gown again after decades. The court convicted the three. But public pressure was so intense that the Commander-in-Chief remitted their sentences and released them.