Indian National Army
The Indian National Army (INA; Azad Hind Fauj /ˈɑːzɑːð ˈhinð ˈfɔːdʒ/; lit. 'Free Indian Army') was a collaborationist armed unit of Indian collaborators that fought under the command of the Japanese Empire.[1] It was founded by Mohan Singh on 1 September 1942 in Southeast Asia during World War II.
This article is about the second Indian National Army under Subhash Chandra Bose. For the organisation under Mohan Singh, see First Indian National Army. For the modern Indian military, see Indian Armed Forces. For the army of the British Raj, see British Indian Army. For the regiment raised in Germany, see Free India Legion.Indian National Army
August 1942 – September 1945
Azad Hind (puppet state of Japanese empire)
~43,000 Soldiers: Gandhi Brigade, Nehru Brigade, Azad Brigade, Subhas Brigade, Rani of Jhansi regiment
Ittehad, Itmad aur Qurbani
(Hindustani: Unity, Faith and Sacrifice)
Mohan Singh (1942)
Subhas Chandra Bose (1943–1945)
It fought under the command of the Japanese military in the British campaign in the Southeast Asian theatre of WWII, with its aim to secure Indian independence from British rule.[2] The army was first formed in 1942 under Mohan Singh by Indian prisoners of war (PoWs) of the British Indian Army captured by Japan in the Malayan campaign and at Singapore.[3][4][5] This first INA, which had been handed over to Rash Behari Bose and Mohan Singh, collapsed and was disbanded in December that year after differences between its leadership and the Japanese military over its role in Japan's war in Asia. The INA was handed over to Subhas Chandra Bose.[6] 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 (the Provisional Government of Free India). The INA came to be known as the puppet army of the Japanese empire.[7][8]
Subhas Chandra Bose named the brigades/regiments of INA after Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Maulana Azad, and himself.[9] There was also an all-women regiment named after Rani of Jhansi, Lakshmibai. Under Bose's leadership, the INA drew ex-prisoners and thousands of civilian volunteers from the Indian expatriate population in Malaya (present-day Malaysia) and Burma.[10] 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.[11][12]
After the INA's initial formation in 1942, there was concern in the British Indian Army that further Indian troops would defect. This led to a reporting ban and a propaganda campaign called "Jiffs" to preserve the loyalty of the Sepoy.[13] Historians consider the INA not to have had significant influence on the war.[14]
The British Raj, never seriously threatened by the INA, charged 300 INA officers with treason in the INA trials, but eventually backtracked in the face of opposition by the Congress.[15][16] These trials became a galvanising point in the Indian Independence movement for the Indian National Congress.[17][18] A number of people associated with the INA during the war later went on to hold important roles in public life in India as well as in other countries in Southeast Asia, most notably Lakshmi Sehgal in India, and John Thivy and Janaki Athinahappan in Malaya.[19]
The military unit was associated with Imperial Japan and the other Axis powers, and accusations were levelled against INA troops of being involved and complicit in Japanese war crimes.[20] The INA's members were viewed as Axis collaborators and traitors by British soldiers and Indian PoWs who did not join the army,[21] but after the war they were seen as patriots by many Indians.[21] Although they were widely commemorated by the Indian National Congress in the immediate aftermath of Indian independence, some of the members of the INA were denied freedom fighter status by the Government of India.[22][10][21][23]
Second INA[edit]
Subhas Chandra Bose[edit]
Subhas Chandra Bose was the ideal person to lead a rebel army into India came from the very beginning of F Kikan's work with captured Indian soldiers. Mohan Singh himself, soon after his first meeting with Fujiwara, had suggested that Bose was the right leader of a nationalist Indian army.[43] A number of the officers and troops – including some who now returned to prisoner-of-war camps and some who had not volunteered in the first place – made it known that they would be willing to join the INA only if it was led by Subhas Bose.[44] Bose was a nationalist. He had joined the Gandhian movement after resigning from a prestigious post in the Indian Civil Service in 1922, quickly rising in the Congress and being incarcerated repeatedly by the Raj.[45] By late 1920s he and Nehru were considered the future leaders of the Congress.[46] In the late 1920s, he was amongst the first Congress leaders to call for complete independence from Britain (Purna Swaraj), rather than the previous Congress objective of India becoming a British dominion.[46] In Bengal, he was repeatedly accused by Raj officials of working with the revolutionary movement. Under his leadership, the Congress youth group in Bengal was organised into a quasi-military organisation called the Bengal Volunteers.[47] Bose deplored Gandhi's pacifism; Gandhi disagreed with Bose's confrontations with the Raj.[46] The Congress's working committee, including Nehru, was predominantly loyal to Gandhi.[46] While openly disagreeing with Gandhi, Bose won the presidency of Indian National Congress twice in the 1930s. His second victory came despite opposition from Gandhi. He defeated Gandhi's favoured candidate, Bhogaraju Pattabhi Sitaramayya, in the popular vote, but the entire working committee resigned and refused to work with Bose.[48] Bose resigned from the Congress presidency and founded his own faction within the Congress, the All India Forward Bloc.[49]
Influence[edit]
World War II[edit]
Sidney Bradshaw Fay concludes that the INA was not significant enough to beat the British-Indian Army by military strength. He also writes that the INA was aware of this and formulated its own strategy of avoiding set-piece battles, gathering local and popular support within India and instigating revolt within the British-Indian Army to overthrow the Raj.[14] Moreover, the Forward Bloc underground movement within India had been crushed well before the offensives opened in the Burma–Manipur theatre, depriving the army of any organised internal support.[128] However, despite its small numerical strength and lack of heavy weapons, its special services group played a significant part in halting the First Arakan Offensive while still under Mohan Singh's command.[160] The propaganda threat of the INA and lack of concrete intelligence on the unit early after the fall of Singapore made it a threat to Allied war plans in Southeast Asia, since it threatened to destroy the Sepoys' loyalty to a British-Indian Army that was demoralised from continuing defeats.[161] There were reports of INA operatives successfully infiltrating Commonwealth lines during the Offensive. This caused British intelligence to begin the "Jiffs" propaganda campaign and to create "Josh" groups to improve the morale and preserve the loyalty of the sepoys as consolidation began to prepare for the defence of Manipur.[162][163] These measures included imposing a complete news ban on Bose and the INA that was not lifted until four days after the fall of Rangoon two years later.[164][165]
During the Japanese U-Go offensive towards Manipur in 1944, the INA played a crucial (and successful) role in diversionary attacks in Arakan and in the Manipur Basin itself, where it fought alongside Mutaguchi's 15th Army.[166] INA forces protected the flanks of the assaulting Yamamoto force at a critical time as the latter attempted to take Imphal.[86][167] During the Commonwealth Burma Campaign, the INA troops fought in the battles of Irrawaddy and Meiktilla,[168] supporting the Japanese offensive and tying down Commonwealth troops.[169][170]
Controversies[edit]
British and Commonwealth troops viewed the recruits as traitors and Axis collaborators.[88][185][186] Almost 40,000 Indian soldiers in Malaya did not join the army and remained as PoWs. Many were sent to work in the Death Railway, suffered hardships and nearly 11,000 died under Japanese internment.[187] Many of them cited the oath of allegiance they had taken to the King among reasons not to join a Japanese-supported organisation, and regarded the recruits of the INA as traitors for having forsaken their oath. Commanders in the British-Indian Army like Wavell later highlighted the hardships this group of soldiers suffered, contrasting them with the troops of the INA.[187] Many British soldiers held the same opinion.[21] Hugh Toye and Peter Fay point out that the First INA consisted of a mix of recruits joining for various reasons, such as nationalistic leanings, Mohan Singh's appeals, personal ambition or to protect men under their own command from harm.[188] Fay notes some officers like Shah Nawaz Khan were opposed to Mohan Singh's ideas and tried to hinder what they considered a collaborationist organisation.[189] However, both historians note that Indian civilians and former INA soldiers all cite the tremendous influence of Subhas Bose and his appeal to patriotism in rejuvenating the INA. Fay discusses the topic of loyalty of the INA soldiers, and highlights that in Shah Nawaz Khan's trial it was noted that officers of the INA warned their men the possibility of having to fight the Japanese after having fought the British, to prevent Japan exploiting post-war India.[162][190] Carl Vadivella Belle suggested in 2014 that among the local Indians and ex-British-Indian Army volunteers in Malaya, there was a proportion who joined due to the threat of conscription as Japanese labour troops. Recruitment also offered local Indian labourers security from continual semi-starvation of the estates and served as a barrier against Japanese tyranny.[56]
INA troops were alleged to engage in or be complicit in torture of Allied and Indian prisoners of war.[20] Fay in his 1993 history analyses war-time press releases and field counter-intelligence directed at Sepoys. He concludes that the Jiffs campaign promoted the view that INA recruits were weak-willed and traitorous Axis collaborators, motivated by selfish interests of greed and personal gain. He concludes that the allegations of torture were largely products of the Jiffs campaign.[88][191][192] He supports his conclusion by noting that isolated cases of torture had occurred, but allegations of widespread practice of torture were not substantiated in the charges against defendants in the Red Fort trials.[193][194] Published memoirs of several veterans, including that of William Slim, portray the INA troops as incapable fighters and as untrustworthy.[195] Toye noted in 1959 that individual desertions occurred in the withdrawal from Imphal.[196] Fay concluded that stories of INA desertions during the battle and the initial retreat into Burma were largely exaggerated.[197] The majority of desertions occurred much later, according to Fay, around the battles at Irrawaddy and later around Popa. Fay specifically discusses Slim's portrayal of the INA, pointing out what he concludes to be inconsistencies in Slim's accounts.[198] Fay also discusses memoirs of Shah Nawaz, where Khan claims INA troops were never defeated in battle. Fay criticises this too as exaggerated. He concludes the opinions held by Commonwealth war veterans such as Slim were an inaccurate portrayal of the unit, as were those of INA soldiers themselves.[192] Harkirat Singh notes that British officers' personal dislike for Subhas Chandra Bose may have prejudiced their judgement of the INA itself.[123]