Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose and the Azad Hind Fauj - The Death Knell to British Rule in India.
The bewildering tale of India's 200 years of British rule is very complex.
Trading of a British company in India, creating differences between its princely states, sponsoring internal wars between them, winning their trust, fuding them and then gradually annexing them - Divide and Rule - has been the initiating strategy of the rule of British empire in India.
Decades pass and people realise that their land, society and dignity are at stake; and that instead of going shoulder-to-shoulder with the Brits, alas, they are reduced to weak, helpless slaves.
Then revolts and mutinies sprout, awakened Indians initiate uprising against Britishers, desperately trying to convince their brothers that these Brits aren't traders but backstabbers.
But as a result of decades of strong grip over India, force of the British Empire was so dominant in the country that two huge problems faced us. Firstly, broadcasting of the realisation that Indians are to be freed from this horrible plight and that mass uprising and revolution is necessary to throw off the deeply rooted grasp of the Brits on India.
At the dawn of the 20th century and around that time, as an effect to intolerable atrocities of the Empire on Indians and due to countless sacrifices of the past revolters, the Indian land was gifted with innumerable leaders and national icons for its freedom campaign.
Many brave souls came forward to give up their lives and blood to the freedom campaign and contribute to India's freedom struggle. India witnessed Gandhiji, Sardar Patel, Jawaharlal Nehru, Bhagat Singh, Lal-Bal-Pal, V. Savarkar and many many many such bold personalities. This hundred years of history is on the tongue of every Indian.
But when we peep into the immideate history beforr our Independence, that is, the time duration of 1940s to 1947, and observe all our significant attempts to attain freedom, we find NO big movement from our celebrated freedom fighers like Gandhiji etc. The notable nationwide step we see from the entire Congress is its Quit India movement in 1942. Which too, was immideatly put to ruthless death by the Britishers, jailing all the Congress politicians, entirely killig the movement.
My friends, it is very ironic that we can't give a proper answer to what exactly made Britishers left India in 1947. It is like watching a long, suspenseful, rollercoaster movie and ending up missing out its main turning point.
What could be thr reason India attained freedom? Most Indian history text books about the freedom struggle are dominated by the role played by the non-violent movement of Mahatma Gandhi. Ahinsa and Satyagraha are the shining ideals that are central to the idea of how India won its hard fought freedom. But was India's freedom gained entirely by the non-violent struggle of Mahatma Gandhi and was there no contribution of the use of force?
In 1956, when former British prime minister Clement Atlee visited India, the then governor of Bengal ask him one important question! He asked that after the quit India movement subsided in 1942, there were no significant freedom movements in India, then inspite of having the opportunity to rule India why did they leave? To which clement Atlee said, that the role played by Netaji's army was paramount in India being granted independence while the role played by the non-violent movement was dismissed as minimal!
This statement itself is enough to prove that we know very little of what force actually won us freedom and posed a death knell to the British rule in 1947.
When India was crippling under the British rule in 1890s under injustice, slavery, famines and unequal treatment to Indians, there happens to be the birth of a baby boy in the Bose family of Calcutta, namely Subhash Bose.
From the very beginning of his youth he was tremendously influenced by the lives and works of Swamiji and his guru, Sri Ramakrishna. He wrote: “How shall I express my indebtedness to Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda? It is under their sacred influence that my life got the first awakening.”
Netaji's father sent him to London to study for the ICS, Indian Civil Services, which was by far one of the toughest examinations in the world. But Netaji was such a genius that he topped the exams with 4rth rank with just 6 months of study. But as soon as he was offered the job by the Britishers, he rejected it, realising that it is of no use to live a slave's life under the Britisher Empire, and instead of liberating our Motherland, help Britishers suck its soul.
Returning to India in 1921, Bose joined the nationalist movement led by Mahatma Gandhi and the Indian National Congress. He followed Jawaharlal Nehru to leadership in a group within the Congress which was less keen on constitutional reform and more open to socialism.
Bose quickly rose to ranks and became Congress president in 1938. After reelection in 1939, differences arose between him and the Congress leaders, including Gandhi, over the future federation of British India and princely states, but also because discomfort had grown among the Congress leadership over Bose's negotiable attitude to non-violence, and his plans for greater powers for himself. After the large majority of the Congress Working Committee members resigned in protest, Bose resigned as president and was eventually ousted from the party.
Now Netaji had no choice but to fight as a lone wolf for the freedom of India. This is when we see his actual journey to emancipate India.
It was now the time of world war 2. At one side Hitler from Germany was ravaging through Europe and on the other side, the Japanese did not just dominate Asia but also started preparing to wage a war against America itself. And hitler had caused so much damage, that let alone colonies, the Britishers were on the verge of losing their own country!
This is where Netaji saw an opportunity. He saw that in the process of fighting the Nazis and the Japanese, the British army was spread all across the globe, because of which in India, only the upper management of the army were Britishers, whereas the entire frontline army consisted of only Indian soldiers!
Numbers say that during the World War II, while only 40 thousand Britishers were there in India, the whole frontline army of the Britishers had 25 lakh Indian soldiers, working for them!
Netaji thought if he could somehow get those 25 lakhs to revolt, Brits would have no other option but to surrender, and leave India. But in order to let that happen, the soldiers needed a big push which could form the rebellion, and this is when Netaji's international relations strategy paid off.
He realised that since the Nazis, Japanese and the Russians were against the Britishers, they would be more inclined to help India out.
So on 17th of January 1941 at 1:30 a.m, Netaji disguised as a Pathan, escaped his house arrest and hoodwinked the Britishers, and went from India to Afghanistan, from Afghanistan to Russia, and when the Russians did not help him out, he headed to Germamy, and that's where he met Adolf Hitler. But after some time he realised that Hitler was not in the position to help him.
But Hitler arranged for him a submarine, in which he went to an incredible sea voyage from Germany to Japan.
The situation with the Japanese was that they anyways wanted to attack the Britishers.
Earlier there had happened a battle in Singapore in 1942 in which the Japanese soldiers had defeated and captured 64,000 British troops as prisoners of war.
Among these 64,000 were close to 40,000 Indian soldiers, fighting on the behalf of the British Raj.
These Japanese were so clever that they thought that instead of sending their own troops to fight the britishers in India, why not to send the Indian war of prisoners. Thus the nucleus what came to be the Indian National Army was born.
In April 1942, as the discussions and the process of setting up the Indian Independence League and defining the aims of the movement carried on, Mohan Singh convened a meeting of a group of his officers to frame what is now called the Bidadary resolution. This resolution announced that:
Indians stood above all differences of caste, community, or religion. Independence was every Indian's birthright. An Indian National Army would be raised to fight for it.
Between December 1942 and February 1943, Rash Behari Bose struggled to hold together the INA. The soldiers of the INA were feeling demotivated as they were used as pawns by the Japanese for their own gain.
A number of the officers and troops who had returned to PoW camps, or had not volunteered in the first place, made it known that they would be willing to join the INA only on the condition that it was led by Subhash Chandra Bose.
The first INA, therefore, formed the nucleus of the army under Bose's leadership, which he proclaimed the army of his Provisional Government of Free India. It drew a large number of civilian volunteers from Indian diaspora in south-east Asia, eventually growing to a unit of almost forty thousand soldiers.
Netaji started addressing the INA soldiers to establish a purpose for their army, and reinstated in them their lost patriotism. This is when he had roared his now famous lines,
"Tum Mujhe Khoon Do,
Mein Tumhe Aazadi Dunga"
"You give me blood, and I will give you freedom" - a slogn which eternally echoes the tunnels of time.
The INA was fully filled with enthusiasm and vigour. This is when Netaji formed three incredible commanders - Prem Kumar Sehgal, Shahnawaz Khan and Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon.
These commanders took the INA from Singapore to Myanmar, to Kohima, to Imphal under the flag of Subhash Bose, filling the directions with chants like "Chalo Delhi" and "Kadam Kadam Badhaye Ja".
Here's where the INA had their first encounter with the Britisher army, which by the way was full of Indian soldiers. So practically only Indians were fighting amongst each other.
But unfortunately, INA suffered a ruthless defeat, in which they had to surrender. To make matters worse, suddenly the news spread that Netaji had died in a plane crash.
While the nation was mourning the loss of this legend, something crazy happened. Until now nobody in India knew that INA was formed by Netaji himself and that they were not fighting for the Japanese but for the liberation of India.
But the Britishers quickly sensed the danger of potential revolts of its 25 lakh soldiers and took control over all press and media to stop letting Indians becoming aware of an entire army which was coming to fight for them.
But here Britishers made a huge mistake. They thought of launching a psychological attack on the Indians.They wanted to set an example of what could happen if any Indian revolted against them.
So they decided to conduct a public trial on the three INA commanders; Sehgal, Shahnawaz and Dhillon. This trial is famously known as the Red Fort Trial which was held in November, 1945 wherein these three commanders were to be given harsh punishment so that no Indian ever dares to stand against the Britishers.
This trial was marketed by them through media as if it was an invitation to a sensational event. But guess what, all tables turned against the Britishers as it turns out that through this very marketing Indians got to know about Azad Hind Fauj formed by Netaji to liberate India.
And just as Netaji haf strategised, the moment Indian soldiers of the British army came to know about the great INA, all these soldiers, including Navy, started revolts against the British Raj.
The awareness about the INA spread as a huge snowball whose strength Britishers had never imagined.
Lakhs of people started revolting, thousands of people took to the streets with Netaji's photo and hundreds of them directly started beating the British army. This mutiny is famously known as the Naval Mutiny of 1946.
Furthermore, hundreds of people gathered around the Red Fort and started chanting slogans like
"Hindustan Ki Ek Awaaz -
Sehgal, Dhillon, Shahnawaaz"
" Chalis Karod ki ek awaaz,
Sehgal, Dhillon, Shahnawaaz"
And just as Netaji had thought, when the 25 lakh Indian soldiers started rebelling against the Britishers, they just panicked and had no option but to give up India, considering its tight international position in World War II.
This caused such a rippling effect that in 1946 itself a Cabinet was set up to eventually transfer all powers to the Indian nationalist politicians. On 20th Feb 1947 PM Clement Attle declared that Britishers would leave India by June 1948.
Therefore, the Red Fort trial was one of the crucial moments of Indian freedom struggle which led to India's independence on August 15, 1947.
This, dear friends, is the missing chapter in the history of India's freedom struggle which is not elaborately taught in our history textbooks.
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