HOW ACCURATE WAS CLEMENT ATTLEE IN HIS ASSERTION THAT THE INDIAN NATIONAL ARMY WAS THE PRINCIPAL

REASON FOR BRITAINS WITHDRAWAL FROM INDIA IN 1947?

BY DAVID TOMLINSON (200536162)

SCHOOL OF HISTORY UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS APRIL 2013

DR. CATHERINE COOMBS

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS........................................................................................................................... 1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................... 2 CHAPTER I A SHORT HISTORY OF SUBHAS CHANDRA BOSE AND THE INDIAN NATIONAL ARMY ... 7 CHAPTER II THE RED FORT TRIALS.................................................................................................. 10 CHAPTER III THE INA AND THE ARMED FORCES ............................................................................ 27 CONCLUSION..................................................................................................................................... 42 LIST OF SOURCES............................................................................................................................... 46

INTRODUCTION
When I was the acting Governor, Lord Atlee, who had given us independence by withdrawing the British rule from India, spent two days in the Governors palace at Calcutta during his tour of India. At that time I had a prolonged discussion with him regarding the real factors that had led the British to quit India. My direct question to him was that since Gandhis Quit India movement had tapered off quite some time ago and in 1947 no such new compelling situation had arisen that would necessitate a hasty British departure, why did they have to leave? In his reply Atlee cited several reasons, the principal among them being the erosion of loyalty to the British Crown among the Indian army and navy personnel as a result of the military activities of Netaji [Subhas Chandra Bose]. Toward the end of our discussion I asked Atlee what was the extent of Gandhis influence upon the British decision to quit India. Hearing this question, Atlee's lips became twisted in a sarcastic smile as he slowly chewed out the word, minimal.
1

P. B. Chakravarty, Acting Governor of West Bengal, 1956

In Britain, we tend to view our imperial history through a narrow lens. Very recently, Michael Gove made a remark on BBCs Question Time about the proposed governmental changes to the school history curriculum which demonstrates common attitudes to both Indian independence and imperial history as a whole. He said, for the first time, we have suggested that people know about Nehru, Gandhi and Jinnah... that they know about the people who fought for independence and liberation at a time when Britain was withdrawing from her Empire. 2 It is not surprising that he chose these three individuals as the foremost examples of the people who fought for Indias independence and liberation; many academics focus their studies of independence around this triumvirate and consequently, the role of Subhas Chandra Bose and the Indian National Army (INA) is somewhat overlooked. Further research into the INAs place within the Indian independence movement is

Quoted in: Ramesh Chandra Majumdar, Three Phases of Indias Struggle for Freedom (Bombay: Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan, 1967), pp. 58-59 2 Question Time, BBC 1, 21 March 2013, 10.35pm.

certainly warranted, not least because Clement Attlee, the man who ultimately made the decision to grant India her independence, reportedly stated that the INA was the principal reason behind Britains departure by 1947. The other interesting aspect of Goves remark was the way he framed it in a manner which suggests that Britain was not forced out of India. He said that the campaign for independence came at a time when Britain was withdrawing from her Empire, the implication of which is that the wheels were already in motion and the choice was fundamentally Britains. This too is a common attitude, particularly amongst western scholars who tend to encourage the idea of authority solemnly being handed over to the Indian people at an appropriate point of Britains choosing. The title of the distinguished 12 volume series, The Transfer of Power in India, 1942-7 is evocative of this attitude and has been used extensively by historians to reinforce it. This dissertation will also use these volumes extensively with a view to ascertain the impact of Bose and the INA on British imperial policy, relating this to the decision to grant India her independence. The sources contained within the volumes are of considerable value to those studying Indian independence as they provide an excellent insight into the communications, decisions and attitudes of the upper-echelons of colonial government. Their provenance is undisputed and the fact that many were formerly classified implies that what is written can generally be considered a fair reflection of the thoughts and concerns of the author. Of course, one must also take into account limitations such as who the intended recipient or readers would be and how this would change the content or writing style, as well as the fact that British sources often cannot be relied upon for an accurate evaluation of Indian opinion. In the third chapter, for example, the discrepancies between British perceptions of ideology amongst Indians serving in the British Indian Army and actual patterns of thought are explored in detail. For a more accurate representation of popular Indian opinion, contemporary newspaper reports have been used, as well as the memoirs, writings and accounts of politicians and INA men. 3

Newspaper reports are useful for gauging public opinion and are used particularly in the second chapter to assess the relationship between the dialogue of the national press and British policymaking. The writings of prominent politicians, especially speeches, which would have reached a considerable audience both through the radio and in newspapers, are also useful. They aid in understanding factors which may have influenced public opinion and, importantly, were used by British policymakers to analyse the trajectory of Indian political demands. The claims and reported facts in these speeches and writings must not be considered factually accurate due to the vested interest of the authors in presenting information in a politically favourable way. Similarly, the testaments of former-INA men are used sparingly due to their unquestionable bias and tendency to prevaricate or aggrandise the actions of the organisation. They have not been used to provide historical information, but rather as an indication of the way INA members perceived themselves and were perceived by other Indians. By analysing this range of primary sources, it is hoped that the interrelationships between the INA, popular opinion, political rhetoric, direct action and British policymaking will be exposed. This will indicate the extent to which the INA influenced the British decision to quit India in 1947. The INA is not a topic which has attracted a great deal of historical research or discourse; many major works on colonial India, such as Bose and Jalals Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy, under-analyse the INA or fail to mention it entirely. 3 Judith Browns Modern India: The Origins of an Asian Democracy and Sumit Sarkars Modern India, 1885-1947, which can be seen as syntheses of the Cambridge and subaltern approaches respectively, also deemphasise the INAs role in Indian independence. These distinguished scholars, whose works together can provide the general reader with a rich and informed understanding of Indias past, 4 allude to the INA only in

Sugata Bose and Ayesha Jalal, Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy (New York: Routledge, 2003), pp. 132-4. Just two and a half pages are devoted to discussing the INA and although the authors mention the effect of the INA on Army loyalty, no explanation further explanation is offered. 4 Thomas R. Metcalfe, Book Review of Modern India: The Origins of an Asian Democracy by Judith M. Brown and Modern India: 1885-1947, by Sumit Sarkar, in Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 45 (1986), pp. 1095-1098

passing; Browns reference to it takes up barely four lines of text. 5 Sarkar does go into more detail, covering the INA trials, the publics reaction to it, Congress appropriation of the cause and its connection to the Royal Indian Navy mutiny of 1946, however the scope of his book only allows for his analysis to span five pages. 6 As such, the connections between these elements are not delineated to a sufficient degree. There are certain historians who have researched the INA to a more considerable extent and examined its impact on the Indian independence movement. Primary among these are Peter Ward Fay, Kalyan Kumar Ghosh and Leonard A. Gordon. Fays book, The Forgotten Army, Indias Armed Struggle for Independence, 1942-45, provides a detailed narrative of the INAs creation, development and downfall told chiefly from the perspective of two of the organisations commanders, Prem Sahgal and Lakshmi Swaminadan. 7 Much of Fays research was conducted by interviewing these two and it is supplemented by some intelligence reports, official correspondence and secondary sources. It is perhaps due of the nature of his core body of research that the book takes on a slightly informal and speculative approach, which somewhat undermines its authority. Compounding this non-academic tone is the scarcity of references in his work; his final two chapters dealing with the Red Fort trials and their effects, for which sixty pages are allocated, include just 48 references. K. K. Ghoshs The Indian National Army: Second Front of the Indian Independence Movement, on the other hand, is meticulously referenced and clearly benefits from extensive and varied research on the part of the author. 8 Amongst other source materials, he uses interviews with over fifty witnesses, contemporary publications, and some official correspondence, although presumably he did not have access to many of the declassified documents published in the Transfer of Power
5

Judith Brown, Modern India: The Origins of an Asian Democracy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 324 6 Sumit Sarkar, Modern India, 1885-1947 (London: Macmillan, 1989), pp. 418-423 7 Peter Ward Fay, The Forgotten Army: Indias Armed Struggle for Independence, 1942-1945 (Calcutta: Rupa and Co., 1993) 8 Kalyan Kumar Ghosh, The Indian National Army: The Second Front of the Indian Independence Movement (Meerut: Meenakshi Prakashan, 1969)

volumes as his analysis of British imperial policy relies chiefly on contemporary speeches and retroactive explanations of decision making. A more intricate and detailed argument is needed in order to establish that the INA and the political fallout of the Red Fort trials directly influenced the highest levels of colonial administration, ultimately expediting the British decision to quit India. This can be achieved through careful study of the official documents of the Indian Government and is what this dissertation shall endeavour to elucidate.

CHAPTER I A SHORT HISTORY OF SUBHAS CHANDRA BOSE AND THE INDIAN NATIONAL ARMY

Subhas Chandra Bose was born in Cuttack, Orissa on 23 January 1897 to a traditional Bengali family. 9 Following a difficult childhood, throughout which Bose felt small and insignificant, 10 he secured a place studying the Mental and Moral Sciences Tripos at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge with the intention of taking the Indian Civil Service examination upon graduation. 11 He passed and was thus offered a position, however after a lengthy period of self-reflection he decided to decline and instead enter into Indian politics. 12 After serving as Mayor of Calcutta from 1930-32, he embarked on a tour of Europe which radicalised his political beliefs and instilled in him the notion that swaraj should be attained through proactive means. He was particularly inspired by the men of action he encountered such as De Valera, Mussolini and Hitler. 13 His return to India saw him assume Presidency of the Indian National Congress twice, once with Gandhis support and once against his wishes, which put him at odds with the mainstream Indian political elite. He was detained and jailed for the last time in 1940 for sedition, but escaped house-arrest and made his way to Europe using a false passport. In March 1941, he arrived in Berlin and set about convincing the Nazis to provide him with resources to start the Free India Centre, a broadcasting centre transmitting propaganda and speeches to Indian radios, and an Indian Legion, which by the end of the War was made up of three thousand sepoys captured in the North Africa campaign. 14 From there, he persuaded the Germans to arrange transportation for him to Singapore where in July 1943 he assumed control of the fledgling Indian
Leonard A. Gordon, Brothers Against the Raj: A Biography of Sarat and Subhas Chandra Bose (New Delhi: Penguin Books India, 1990), p. 7 10 Subhas Chandra Bose, An Indian Pilgrim (Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1965), pp. 2, 25 11 Sugata Bose, His Majestys Opponent: Subhas Chandra Bose and Indias Struggle Against Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011), pp. 35-6 12 Gordon, p. 59 13 Fay, p. 190 14 Ibid. p. 199
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National Army, hitherto commanded by Mohan Singh. The First INA was made up of Indian soldiers captured during Japans swift occupation of the Malayan peninsular and benefitted from generous support from Japanese military intelligence under the tutelage of Major Iwaichi Fujiwara, who recognised its potential as a propaganda tool. 15 Bose, or Netaji (great leader) as he came to be known, was drafted in to command the Second INA due to his charisma and reputation as a strong nationalist leader. 16 The character of the INA under Bose was an inclusive one; he introduced a womens regiment, The Rani of Jhansi Regiment under Lakshmi Swaminadan, and promoted non-communalism through a strong Muslim presence in the ranks and leadership. 17 The strength of the force is unknown due to the destruction of many INA records under Boses orders; some estimates place it at around 20,000, 18 whereas the British ventured a figure close to double that at 43,000. 19 In any case, the Japanese only provided arms enough for 16,000 men so the INA was underequipped throughout its wartime operations, a primary factor influencing their crushing defeat during the Battles of Imphal and Kohima in northeast India, near the Burmese border. 20 The INA had little military success overall and was to all intents and purposes disbanded following the defeat of the Japanese at Mount Popa in Burma. Many INA men now found themselves back under the control of British officers in POW detention centres awaiting repatriation and, in some cases, trial for desertion, waging war against the king and brutalities committed against captured Indian soldiers who had refused to forsake their loyalty to the Crown and join the INA. The dramatic end to the INA came with Boses death in an air crash in Taihoku on

Fay, p. 82 Joyce C. Lebra, Japanese Trained Armies in South-East Asia (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977), pp. 27-8 17 Sarkar, p. 411 18 Ibid, p. 410 19 Annexure 1 to Memorandum by Secretary of State for India and Burma, 20 October, 1945, in in The Transfer of Power in India, 1942-7, ed. by Nicholas Mansergh, Vol. 6, No. 48 (London: Her Majestys Stationary Office, 1976), 20 Fay, p. 526
16

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18th August 1945, however to this day there are those who maintain that he did not die and the crash was the biggest cover-up in Indian politics. 21

See, for example: Mission Netaji, <http://www.missionnetaji.org/people-behind-mission-netaji> [accessed 01/04/2103]

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CHAPTER II THE RED FORT TRIALS

The nature of the trials Between November and December of 1945, the first post-war court-martials were held for ex-INA men. There had been previous courts-martial of captured INA soldiers in 1943 and 1944, but they had failed to gain any contemporary publicity owing to their clandestine nature and the reluctance of the government to provide information regarding the INA. 22 The conclusion of the war had led to this veil of ignorance and propaganda being lifted and the British could no longer keep the existence of the INA a secret from the politicians and people of India. The British reasoning behind supressing information relating to the INA during the war was that its disclosure would have been dangerous for growing political upheaval inside and outside the country. Such disclosure would have adversely affected the dwindling morale of the British troops... 23 Indeed, growing political upheaval and dwindling morale were exactly what the trials resulted in; however the British were in a far stronger position to deal with it following the cessation of their wartime commitments. The trials of Captain Shah Nawaz Khan, 1/14, P.R., Captain P.K. Sahgal, 2/10, Baluch. and Lt. Gurbakhsh Singh Dhillon, 1/14, PR., garnered much public and political interest, not least due to the chosen setting for the proceedings. Field Marshall Sir Claude Auchinleck, Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army, decided upon the location of the Red Fort in Delhi as a suitable location due to its proximity to Army Headquarters and the convenient fact that many members of the INA were being held there in custody. 24 There is also an element of historic suitability about his choice; the titular king of Delhi and last of the Mughal emperors was tried there for his involvement in the 1857

22

Stephen P. Cohen ,Subhas Chandra Bose and the Indian National Army, Pacific Affairs Vol. 36, No. 4 (Winter, 1963) pp. 411-429 23 R. P. Singh, Rediscovering Bose and the Indian National Army (New Delhi: Manas, 2010), p. 239 24 Ibid, p. 242

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Mutiny, 25 and the rallying cry Bose gifted to his men was Chalo Dilli (Onwards to Delhi), a proclamation of their mission to take the capital, which would not be complete until the tricolour flag flew over the Vice-regal Palace and they stood at the gates of the Red Fort. 26 It is ironic then that three of the INAs top commanders would find themselves successfully in Delhi but facing trial in the most historic of buildings, and one which elicited romantic ruminations of a pre-Raj period in Indian history. 27 Auchinleck was advised not to hold the trials in a location as accessible to the general public and the press as it was quite rightly thought that they could unduly report or disrupt the proceedings, but he ignored this advice on the grounds that such secrecy belonged to outworn tradition and was contrary to the concept of justice and fair play. 28 As summarised by H. V. Hodson, honourable as this attitude was, the choice proved disastrous for the image of the regime. 29 The British were deeply concerned about the potential impact of the INA on Indian thought and action. Their primary concern was the reliability of the army, the lever on which imperial authority hinged, and an issue that had been the preoccupation of Army officials since the 1857 Mutiny. Therefore, they were eager to make an example of the INA men for the benefit of discipline within the British Indian Army, but they were faced with a dilemma. Harsh treatment would most likely upset and aggravate the Indian general public who saw Bose as a patriot despite his misguided actions. 30 Therefore, they sought a middle ground whereby the full force of the law would be used against the leaders and instigators but leniency would be shown for the misled regulars, a policy

Lucinda Downes Bell, The 1858 Trial of the Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah II Zafar for Crimes Against the State (Melbourne: University of Melbourne Press, 2005) 26 Boses Special Order of the Day, 25 August, 1943, in The Essential Writings of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, eds. Sisir K. Bose and Sugata Bose, (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 296. 27 William Kuracina, Sentiments and Patriotism: The Indian National Army, General Elections and the Congress's Appropriation of the INA Legacy, Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 44, (2010), p. 825 28 Singh, p. 242 29 H. V. Hodson, The Great Divide (Karachi: OUP Pakistan, 1986), p. 250 30 Telegram No. 10494 from Governor-General to Secretary of State, 21 August, 1945 in The Transfer of Power in India, 1942-7, ed. by Nicholas Mansergh, Vol. 6, No. 48 (London: Her Majestys Stationary Office, 1976), p. 109. Hereafter referred to as TOP

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which the British believed to be consistent with maintaining the reliability of the Army and the public peace. 31 Furthermore, they intended to prove to the Indian public that their position on the INA was justified. Telegrams sent between British civil servants indicate the Rajs attitude towards Bose and his renegade army; a telegram from Sir E. Jenkins, Private Secretary to the Viceroy, to Sir F. Mudie, a home member in the Viceroys executive council, dated 28 July 1945 describes Bose as a war criminal, 32 and propaganda during the war had described him variously as a henchman of the Axis powers, a quisling and a fascist stooge. 33 In order for this tactic to be effective, the British sought to ensure success at the trials by enlisting Sir Noshirwan P. Engineer, Advocate General of India, as counsel for the prosecutor. The Defence Committee also featured distinguished names from the Indian legal community. Recognising the importance of the trials, especially as a vehicle for advancing the process of independence, the Indian National Congress took up the case of the accused and provided a pantheon of great legal minds to act as counsel for the defence. Amongst the two dozen lawyers they provided for the first trial were: Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru; Dr Khatju, former Minister of Justice; Asaf Ali; two former judges of the Lahore High Court and one of the Patna High Court; Bhulabhai Desai, leader of the Central Legislative Assembly, who was responsible for the defences conduct; and Pandit Nehru, who donned after thirty years his barrister's gown and white band as a defence counsel. 34

Congress appropriation of the cause The involvement of Nehru, and indeed Congress as a whole, is curious at first glance. Nehru had stated in 1942 that members of the INA had put themselves on the wrong side and were

31 32

Ibid. Telegram from Sir E. Jenkins to Sir F. Mudie, 28 July, 1945, in TOP, Vol. 5, No. 512, p. 1297 33 Subhas Chandra Bose, Testament of Subhas Bose, ed. by Arun (Delhi: Rajamal Publications, 1946), p. ii 34 L. C. Green, The Indian National Army Trials, The Modern Law Review, Vol. 11, No. 1 (Jan., 1948), p. 52

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functioning under Japanese auspices...[they] had to be resisted in India and outside, 35 as well as dramatically stating in 1943 that he would personally go to the front and fight Bose and the Japanese if they invaded India. 36 He was a socialist and supporter of Gandhis vision for Indian independence through non-violent resistance, as was Congress, at least ostensibly. Significantly, both he and Bhulabhai Desai had resigned from the Congress Working Committee following Boses re-election in 1939. 37 Now both men appeared as key figures responsible for the defence of the INA and sought to legitimise their quest for independence. What caused Nehru and Congress appropriation of the INA cause, which ran contrary to two decades of non-violent struggle and [disregarded] the Congress leaderships well publicized and irreconcilable ideological feud with the INAs Netaji, Subhas Chandra Bose? 38 William Kuracina has written a seminal thesis on this question and argues that the sentimental and symbolic nature of the INA, which had elicited a powerful and passionate reaction across Indian society, provided Congress leaders with an opportune electioneering weapon...to counter the emotional responses to the Muslim Leagues campaign message. 39 For Congress, one of the most powerful aspects of the INA legacy was its all-inclusive nature; as Nehru wrote in 1946, the trial by court-martial of some of its officers aroused the country as nothing else had done, and they became the symbol of unity among the various religious groups in India, for Hindu and Muslim, and Sikh and Christian were all represented in the Army. 40 This spirit was one which Congress wished to be associated with in order to both counter the claims of the Muslim League that they failed to represent the interests of all Indians equitably and to legitimise their position as the leading political party in the country. Amidst the winter election campaigning, the prospect of harnessing a spirit which recognises no distinction between Hindu and Muslim, between one community and another,

35 36

Hugh Toye, Subhas Chandra Bose: The Springing Tiger (London: Oxford University Press, 1968), p. 171 Gordon, p. 552 37 Kuracina, pp. 818, 833 38 Ibid, p. 818 39 Ibid, p. 826 40 Jawaharlal L. Nehru, The Discovery of India (New Delhi: Penguin, 2004), p. 634

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between one class and another... 41 provided a unique opportunity for Congress, who regarded the INA cause as a potential secular counterweight to the separatism of the Muslim League. 42 Most importantly of all, the three defendants in first Red Fort trial each represented a different major religious group in India: Shah Nawaz Khan was a Muslim; Sahgal was a Hindu; and Gurbakhsh Singh Dhillon was a Sikh. Because of this, the trials became an all-India issue and a rallying cry for a united front against British authority. The possibilities of being the representative of the masses who were largely in favour of clemency, of renouncing the Leagues claims and at the same time, challenging British imperial authority on an all-India level gradually led Congress to come out in support of the INA men. Nehru claimed that big changes are impending in India, it would be a very grave mistake leading to far-reaching consequences if they [INA personnel] were treated just as ordinary rebels. The punishment given to them would in fact be a punishment on all Indians, and a deep cut would be created in millions of hearts. 43 According to General Mohan Singh, a founding member of the First Indian National Army, Nehrus great political foresight was the first to recognise the trials importance in the hearts and minds of the people and he shrewdly changed tack to capitalise on this. 44 It ought to be noted, however, that throughout all of this Nehru maintained some integrity in his views the INA. At no point did he completely denounce his wartime beliefs on the organisation and continued to hold that while their aims and motivations were pure, their execution and approach was disagreeable and not in keeping with the best interests of the independence movement. He regularly referred to the INA men as misguided and particularly took issue with the fascist undertones of Boses operations in south Asia. 45 He often lamented the INAs unfortunate association with the Japanese, 46
Sarat Chandra Bose, I Warned My Countrymen (Calcutta: Netaji Research Bureau, 1968), p. 159 Kuracina, p. 826 43 Toye, p. 171 44 General Mohan Singh, Soldiers Contribution to Indian Independence (New Delhi: Army Educational Stores, 1975), p. 384 45 Jawaharlal Nehru, Interview to the press, Srinagar, 19 August 1945, in Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, ed. by S. Gopal, Vol. 14 (New Delhi: Orient Longman Limited, 1972), pp. 331332. Hereafter referred to as Selected Works. 46 Ibid.
42 41

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maintaining throughout the period of the INAs political prominence that Bose was quite wrong in his methods when he thought that he could win the freedom of India with the help of the Japanese. 47 Despite these reservations, he had no qualms about also calling them brave men and patriots when expedience demanded it. 48 Leonard Gordon argues that Nehru, and indeed Gandhi as well, were responsible for bringing it [the INA movement] and Subhas Bose back into the mainstream of Indian nationalism and in doing so, were able to yoke the powerful emotions of support for the INA to the Congress bullock cart. 49 Gandhi also came out in support of the INA men. Like Nehru, he maintained that their approach was misguided but he saw numerous saving graces, such as Boses patriotism which he described as second to none and his bravery [which] shines through all his actions, as well as a spirit amongst the INA men of self-sacrifice, unity irrespective of class, and discipline. 50 This was a spirit which he had been eager to foster amongst Indian nationalists for decades and Boses INA must have seemed like a near-perfect embodiment of Gandhis model force for independence, albeit one founded upon violence. Still, he could see the value of the INA - or rather the media-friendly image of the INA expounded by the Congress propaganda machine - and stated that he too had been enchanted by the hypnotism of the Indian National Army which had cast its spell on us all. 51 He also pointed out that Shah Nawaz Khan had reported Boses last wishes to be that the INA return to India and act in a non-violent manner to help the Congress in the continuing fight for Indian independence. Leonard Gordon says that this suited Gandhi perfectly. Gandhi had assimilated the INA troops into his non-violent army. He had given due recognition to Bose, but discarded his violent means. 52

47 48

Jawaharlal Nehru, Interview to the press, Bombay, 23 June 1945, in Selected Works, p. 21 Jawaharlal Nehru, Report on Speech of December 24, 1945, in Selected Works, pp. 279-80 49 Gordon, p. 551 50 Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, How to Canalise Hatred, in The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Vol. 83 (New Delhi: The Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Govt. of India, 1977), p. 135 51 Ibid. 52 Gordon, p. 552

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The British had hoped that Gandhi would be somewhat of a calming influence on the increasingly firebrand Congress, but ill health had kept him on the side-lines for the time being. Wavell was beginning to feel the heat of the situation, his growing alarm evident in a note he sent to HMG on 5th November 1945:
[Congress] began by taking the credit for the 1942 disturbances; asserting that the British could be turned out of India in a very short time; denying the possibility of compromise with the Muslim League; glorifying the INA; and threatening the officials who took part in the suppression of the 1942 disturbances with trial and punishment as war criminals From these general attempts to excite communal and racial hatred, they have now passed to a disclosure of their programme, which is, briefly, to contest the elections, to serve an ultimatum on HMG, and, in default of its acceptance, to organise a mass movement on the 1942 lines but on a much larger scale.
53

Deterioration of the political situation By November 1945, Congress was intensifying the pressure on the Government, using the INA and the Red Fort trials as a vehicle to advance their political aims, as well as the cause of Indian independence. They seemed to have abandoned their previous policy of non-violence and Wavell picked up on this, musing, either there is a secret policy which includes the use of violence, or the more extreme leaders are out of control. 54 The British administrators were wise to Congress true motives however, and Wavell commented in a telegram to Pethick-Lawrence on the 1st October that they were making a play to support the INA and trying to channel public opinion by demanding their unconditional release and lauding them as heroes. 55 During an informal conversation in the Chelmsford Club, New Delhi, about the INA and the forth-coming trials on 15 November 1945, Bhulabhai Desai mentioned that the INA trials have given them the best weapon they ever had for
Archibald Percival Wavell, Wavell: The Viceroys Journal, ed. by Penderel Moon (London: Oxford University Press, 1973), p. 181 54 Ibid. 55 Telegram No. 36 from Wavell to Pethick-Lawrence, 1 October, 1945, in TOP, Vol. 6, No. 127, p. 305
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their propaganda and that if any of these are executed, it will only make them the greatest martyrs India has ever had, and he continued that as things are going now it may lead to an armed revolution. 56 In Congress eyes, leader and army made a formidable stick with which to beat the British. 57 Certainly, Nehru did nothing to dispel this threat of armed revolution. His speeches on the INA question gradually changed in tone from August, when he stated that British refusal to accede to Congress demands of releasing the men would likely cause unrest in India, 58 and their mistreatment would leave a lasting effect on the minds of Indians, 59 to more ominous proclamations such as there would be a great stir and tremendous repercussion if public interests were not satisfied. 60 He talked of a wave of resentment, which would sweep the length and breadth of the country if the prisoners were mistreated. 61 These thinly veiled threats of violence did not go unnoticed throughout the upper echelons of the Rajs administration. Wavell told PethickLawrence on 16th October 1945 of Nehrus intemperate speeches and statements, which he perceived to be whipping up public sentiments and laying the groundwork for inciting antiGovernmental disturbances. 62 Not even Nehru would deny his role as an agitator who capitalised on the looming threat of violent insurrection to intimidate the British. He practically admitted in an interview with the Viceroy on the 3rd November that he had been preaching violence and that he did not see how violence was to be avoided if legitimate aims could not be attained otherwise. 63 A report on the INA situation date 20th November 1945 and prepared by the Director of the Intelligence Bureau summed up by stating that, the public feeling which exists is one of sympathy for the INA and genuine disapproval of its conduct is lacking. Congress campaign of propaganda was clearly working, and it was working

56 57

M. C. Setalvad, Bhulabhai Desai (Mumbai: Botavala Cembarsa, 1973), cited in Singh, p. 307 Fay, p. 435 58 Jawaharlal Nehru, Speech at Lahore, 26 August, 1945 in Collected Works, p. 166. 59 Jawaharlal Nehru, Speech at Tekri Kalan, 30 August, 1945 in Collected Works, p. 173. 60 Jawaharlal Nehru, Speech at Allahabad, 2 October, 1945 in Collected Works, p. 208. 61 Jawaharlal Nehru, Speech at Lucknow, 4 October, 1945 in Collected Works, p. 211 62 Telegram No. 38 from Wavell to Pethick-Lawrence, 16 October, 1945 in TOP, Vol. 6, No. 146, p. 347 63 Kuracina, p. 848

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on a nationwide and community-wide level, as alluded to by the report: the measure of sympathy is substantial and is not confined to towns or to any particular community, and that day by day it is being whipped up by the speeches of nationalist leaders and the writings of the nationalist press. This is likely to continue and intensify. 64 The national press is a good indicator of public opinion and by analysing newspaper reports, one can glean a better understanding of the atmosphere which the British policymakers faced in India. There were detailed and up-to-date reports on the proceedings of the trials almost every day and newspapers such as Patlipura of Patna, Bihar, brought out comprehensive publications in local dialects which reported the major issues, thus bringing the matter to all Indian ears. 65 Needless to say, the tone of such reports was overtly biased towards the INA and the Congress view was supported completely by the nationalist press. 66 Not only this, but the manner in which it was presented was decidedly anti-British and pro-Independence. Ghosh sees the nationalist press coverage of the trials and the history of the INA as the Saga of Indias battle for freedom, 67 and by simply looking at some of the headlines between October and December 1945, we can see that this was the case. For example, The Hindu published two articles on 10 December 1945 titled, INAs role in Imphal Battle and Freedom for India: INAs Objective Explained, which glorified the organisations role in their ill-fated campaign in Manipur and Assam and put the trials in the wider context of the independence movement. 68 The reports captured public imagination, playing on the uniqueness of the circumstances and the fact that the trials were unprecedented in British Indian history. 69 They argued that the charge of treason was unjustified for these patriots and drew parallels between the efforts of De Valera in Ireland and Bose in South Asia, contending that the

Enclosure to Telegram No. 21/6/45-Poll from Government of India, Home Dept. to the Secretary, Political Dept., India Office, 20 November, 1945, in TOP, Vol. 6, No. 222, p. 515 65 Kalyan Kumar Ghosh, The Indian National Army: Second Front of the Indian Independence Movement (Meerut: Meenakshi Prakashan, 1969), cited in Singh, p. 306 66 Kuracina, p. 848 67 Ghosh, in Singh, p. 306 68 The Hindu, 10 December 1945 69 The Hindustan Times, 6 November 1945

64

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dividing line between the obloquy of treason and the glory of sacrificial patriotic service is extremely thin. 70 Many of Boses Orders of the Day were reproduced and the adventures of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment were narrated elaborately. 71 The effect of this nationalist propaganda cannot be understated, especially when we consider that it was proffered to an Indian public who were growing increasingly despondent both with British rule and the continuing indolence and inefficacy of the Gandhian campaign for independence. Leonard Gordon describes the British as somewhat unwise to this state of affairs: What they did not foresee was the powerful political impact that the story of the INA would have on a nation primed for independence after the war. After all, this war, like the First World War, had been fought by the British and their allies in the name of democracy and self-determination. 72 From September 1945, when Congress first published their resolution on the INA which stated that it would be a tragedy if these officers, men and women were punished for the offence of having laboured, however mistakenly, for the freedom of India and calling for their immediate release, 73 to February 1946 the political tide in India changed dramatically. On 13 February, The Statesman published an article called Mob Rule which stated that political leaders have too little control over the passions they arouse amongst certain sections of the population. 74 On 5 November, the opening of the first trial, heavy police barricades were erected to control the huge crowds surrounding the Red Fort. The crowds held posters and large banners with messages like Save INA Patriots and They are patriots and not traitors were draped across the battlements and gates of the fort. 75 It was not only in Delhi that Indians by their thousands had come out to protest; In Madura police had fired against the unruly crowds and a national INA Day had been
The Indian Express, 18 October 1945 Harkirat Singh, Indian Nation Army Trial and the Raj (New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers and Distributors, 2003), p. 76 72 Gordon, p. 553 73 Enclosure 4 to Telegram No. 34 from Wavell to Pethick-Lawrence, 18 September, 1945, in TOP, Vol. 6, No. 115, pp. 279-80 74 Mob Rule, The Statesman, 13 February, 1946, in The Statesman: An Anthology, ed. by Niranjan Majumdar (New Delhi: The Statesman Ltd., 1975), p. 495. 75 Singh, Rediscovering Bose and the Indian National Army, p. 256
71 70

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observed in many parts of the country. 76 Over the next fortnight or so, the All-India Womens Conference, 77 the teachers and the students would express their disproval and vehemently protest against the trial. 78 By 21 November, the day court reconvened following a two week adjournment, law and order was balancing on a knife edge as serious rioting broke out in Calcutta, soon to be followed by Bombay, Karachi, Patna, Allahabad, Benares, Rawalpindi and other places. 79 In Calcutta, students were organised into a procession by activists from the Forward Bloc and had proceeded to Dalhousie Square, all the time demanding the release of the INA prisoners. In a phenomenal act of communal unity, they had been joined by their bitterest enemies, the Communist Student Federation and also students from Islamia College carrying the Muslim Leagues flag. 80 A brutal police backlash in which two students a Hindu and a Muslim were killed sparked a city-wide demonstration and the situation escalated, the violence eventually lasting for three days. In this time, 33 were killed, 200 civilians were injured along with 70 British and 37 American soldiers, 150 official vehicles were destroyed or damaged. 81 Perhaps most worrying of all for the authorities the crowds when fired on largely stood their ground or most only receded a little, to return again to the attack. 82 They would face the same stony determination from a unified crowd of Bengalis who seemed equally unafraid of imperial authority in February 1946, the significance of which shall be explored in the next chapter. The British also faced the resurgence of certain terrorist organisations and violent troublemakers. Sir Maurice Hallett, Governor of the United Provinces, expressed his immediate concerns to Wavell in a telegram dated 19 November, not long after the commencement of the first trial. He demarcates the link between Congress appropriation of the cause for their election campaign and the consequent intensification of public feeling vis--vis the INA trials with the re-emergence of terrorist
76 77

The Hindu, 7 November 1945, p. 4; 8 November 1945, p. 8 The Hindustan Standard, 5 November 1945, The INA supplement, p. 1 78 Ghosh, p. 215 79 Ibid. 80 Sumit Sarkar, Modern India 1885-1947 (Delhi: Macmillan, 1984), p. 421 81 Ibid. 82 Telegram No. R.G.C. XXVI from Governor Casey to Wavell, 2 January 1946, in TOP, Vol. 6, No. 326, p.725

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groups and signs of the formation of private armies, some of which were linked to former-INA men.83
I see a report from Benares that some agitator there threatened that if INA men were not saved, revenge would be taken on European children. In Agra, Hindi and English handwritten leaflets are said to have been found in a hotel that if any INA soldier were killed, Britishers would be murdered... These may seem rather petty matters, but they do show which way the wind is blowing.
84

Clearly the wind was not blowing in favour of the British; the threat of further violence was apparent and they faced the unprecedented situation of large sections within Indian society being united by a universal cause and whipped up into a state of hysteria, which threatened to become unmanageable either by them or by Congress. Hallett suggests that contacts should be established with demobilised soldiers and with the families of the INA prisoners, 85 but the seditious threats and criminal actions were not localised to the community of former INA men. Wavell knew that the true threat lay at Congress door. By early November, Congress had sharpened their revolutionary rhetoric; Patel stated in a speech at Bombay that the party was not going to sit quiet after the elections and wait on the convenience and pleasure of the British Government. The Congress would demand an immediate and final solution... If such a solution was not forthcoming... sure as day follows night there would be another struggle... When the time for action comes and the time for action may come soon, we must be able to act as one man. Nehru built on this call for action with a statement of his own, saying that revolution is inevitable. 86 In reaction to this and the heightening political unrest, Wavell sent a note to HMG reporting the situation of great difficult and danger and requesting support and guidance from His Majestys Government. 87 He warned with the utmost gravity of an imminent coup, orchestrated by the Congress leaders with the INA

83 84

Telegram from Sir M. Hallett (UP) to Wavell, 19 November 1945, in TOP, Vol. 6, No. 218, pp. 506-7 Ibid. 85 Ibid. 86 Wavell, p. 182 87 Ibid., p. 181

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as the spear-head of their revolt. 88 He expected it to happen in spring of 1946, after the elections, although he proposed that circumstances could cause force their hand. The purpose of the uprising would be to subvert the British administration and to make them capitulate to Congress demands for immediate independence, an objective which would be achieved by:

organised attacks on the railways and public buildings, treasuries would be looted and records destroyed. In fact Congressmen would attempt to paralyse the administration, as they did in 1942; they would also attack and possibly murder any officials, British and Indian, on whom they could lay their hands.
89

Britains response By closely analysing the correspondence sent between British officials from August to December 1945 we can see the effect that the violence, the campaigning, the threats and the public pressure had on governmental policy. On 11 August, estimates were sent from the Governor-General to the War Department about how many INA prisoners would be tried and how many would be executed, as well as updated classifications of the captives. Each INA man was categorised by their involvement and complicity in the organisation; blacks were those who were fanatical in their loyalty to Bose and the cause, they were usually officers and it was recommended that they ought to be court-martialled; greys were those who willingly became members of the INA but could not be considered fundamentally or incurably disloyal to the Raj; whites were those who were forcibly made to join the INA and whose loyalty to the Raj was beyond question. 90 In this telegram, it was estimated that 600 men were to be brought to trial and, whilst it was recommended that most of

Ibid., pp. 182-183 Wavell, pp. 182-183 90 Telegram No. 10234 from Governor-General to Secretary of State, 11 August, 1945, in TOP, Vol. 6, No. 17, pp. 49-52
89

88

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the anticipated death penalties issued ought to be commuted to imprisonment or transportation, some 50 executions were predicted. 91 In the third part of the telegram, a draft press communique is discussed. The communique stresses the leniency and good-natured manner in which the majority of INA men were to be treated, opening with, The Government of India have decided to treat with mercy and generosity... 92 This demonstrates that public relations were a concern of the authorities, however most of the correspondence from August indicate that logistic and legal considerations were at the forefront of British thought. 93 By late August though, as the interests of nationalist leaders in the INA were beginning to pique, public opinion became increasingly prominent in Governmental considerations; on 21 August, the Governor-General suggests that the communique discussed earlier in the month ought to be published as soon as possible due to the likely involvement of nationalist leaders. Strategically, the Governor-General thought that a quick publication of their statement of intent would give the Government the upper-hand and forestall criticism from politicians and the press. He also believed that a policy of maximum forcefulness against the instigators and leniency towards the misled regulars would be consistent with maintaining the reliability of the Army and the public peace. 94 Congress first official statement of interest in the INA situation was the resolution passed in Poona on 15 September which called for the immediate release of the prisoners; it is discussed in a telegram from Wavell to Pethick-Lawrence on 18 September. Wavell notes the exaggerated and embittered language of the resolution and anticipates that Congress involvement will cause

Ibid. Ibid. 93 See, for example: Telegram No. 18179 from Secretary of State to Governor-General, 17 August, 1945 in TOP, Vol. 6, No. 32, pp. 75-6; Minutes from Meeting of India and Burma Committee, 17 August, 1945 in TOP, Vol. 6, No.33, pp. 76-82; Telegram No. 31 from Wavell to Pethick-Lawrence, 20 August, 1945 in TOP, Vol. 6, No. 47, pp. 105-9 94 Telegram No. 10494 from Governor-General to Secretary of State, 21 August, 1945, in TOP, Vol. 6, No. 48, pp. 109-111
92

91

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difficulties for the Government of India. 95 By 5 October, we can already see the British willing to change their policy in order to temper public opinion; Pethick-Lawrence proposes that only those who were directly responsible for the death of Indian soldiers or for torture should be put to death. This, he believes, will take the wind out of Congress criticism and prevent further censure. 96 However, by 2 November 1945 it was clear that further concessions were needed in order to keep a lid on the rapidly deteriorating political situation. General Sir Claude Auchinleck had been consulted in order to provide his opinion on whether the release of large numbers of guilty INA men would pose a security risk to the provinces, especially volatile areas such as Bombay, Bengal and the Punjab, 97 and what the reaction of loyal members of the Indian Army would be to this. In his report, he stated his intention to drop the charges against a, b, c, e category prisoners i.e. all but those responsible for murder, brutality, desertion or capture of Allied subjects 98 and his intention to remove the waging war against the King from the chargesheet of those being tried. This was irrefutably due to the treasonable implications of the charge and the reactionary nationalist clamour that suggested that fighting for the independence of ones own country cannot constitute treason. About this, Auchinleck wrote in early 1946 that, as regards confirmation [sic] of the sentence waging war, I hold that it is our object to dispose of this most difficult problem of how to deal with the so-called INA in such a way as to leave the least amount of bitterness and racial feeling in the minds of the peoples of India and Britain... 99 In addition to the removal of this charge, Auchinleck estimates that there will be no more than 20 executions, assuming an estimated 120 INA men go to trial. This number was down from 50 executions from 600 trials on 11 August, 100 showing a growing sense of apprehension to prolong a situation which was, by all accounts, proving to be far more trouble than had been anticipated.
Telegram No. 34 from Wavell to Pethick-Lawrence, 18 September, 1945, in TOP, Vol. 6, No. 115, p. 273 Telegram from Pethick-Lawrence to Wavell, 5 October, 1945, in TOP, Vol. 6, No. 131, p. 315 97 Telegram No. 1882-S from Wavell to Pethick-Lawrence, 28 October, 1945, in TOP, Vol. 6, No. 174, pp. 416418 98 Telegram from Governor-General to Secretary of State, 11 August, 1945, in TOP, Vol. 6, No. 17, p. 49 99 John Connell, Auchinleck: A Biography of Field-Marshall Sir Claude Auchinleck (London: Cassel, 1959), pp. 807-808 100 Telegram from Governor-General to Secretary of State, 11 August, 1945, in TOP, Vol. 6, No. 17, p. 50
96 95

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Reflecting back on British media strategy, Wavell told Pethick-Lawrence on 5 November 1945 that Congress would have sought the same effects on public opinion whether the government had taken pre-emptive, counter-propaganda measures or not. However, he does admit that their response was stilted, saying that they ought to have fed the press accurate reports on the INA as soon as the war ended, thus enabling them to temper the mood of the nationalist press and creating a fairer atmosphere for the trials to proceed in. 101 In his private journal, he had written a day earlier that propaganda and publicity over the INA was fatally slow and ineffective. 102What this indicates to the historian is that the main issue here can interpreted to be a psychological one. We have seen the psychological impact of the INA on the masses insofar as the violent passion Congress and other agitators successfully aroused. We shall see later on the psychological impact the affair, and particularly the involvement of the nationalist press, had on army loyalty. For now, Auchinleck had to take a judgement call; the three INA soldiers had been found guilty and been sentenced to transportation for life, cashiering and forfeiture of pay and allowances. 103 With the political pressure in the country mounting and the issue of army loyalty to thoroughly consider, Auchinleck reflected on his options. In a note to Wavell on 17 November 1945, he had passed on the concerns of the Governor of Punjab who warned that if the Government intend to carry out the death sentences, they must be prepared to face unparalleled agitation, more widespread than 1919 and 1942 and use ruthless force to suppress it. 104 He reiterated that, the representatives of the Provinces expressed considerable uneasiness about the political situation which might result from a continuance of the present agitation. 105 Clearly, public opinion and the threat of violence had their effects as Auchinleck immediately commuted the sentences of all three to one of cashiering and

Telegram No. 41 from Wavell to Pethick-Lawrence, 5 November, 1945, in TOP, Vol. 6, No. 190, p. 443 Wavell, pp. 180-81 103 Singh, Rediscovering Bose and the Indian National Army, p.306 104 Enclosure 2 to Telegram from General Auchinleck to Wavell, 24 November, 1945 in TOP, Vol. 6, Enclosure 2 to No. 233, p. 535 105 Telegram from General Auchinleck to Wavell, 24 November, 1945, in TOP, Vol. 6, No. 233, p. 530
102

101

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forfeiture of pay and allowances on 31 December 1945. 106 In a telegram circulated to all Army Commanders in February of the next year, he revealed the circumstances that influenced his decision: to have confirmed the sentence... would have probably precipitated a violent outbreak throughout the country, and have created active and widespread disaffection in the Army, especially amongst the Indian officers and the more highly educated rank and file. Therefore commuted sentences were the only option available in order to maintain the stability, reliability and efficiency of the Indian Army so that it may remain in the future a trustworthy weapon for use in the defence of India, and we hope, of the Commonwealth as a whole. 107

Connell, pp. 808-09 Enclosure to Telegram from General Auchinleck to Wavell, 13 February, 1946, in TOP, Vol. 6, Enclosure to No. 425, pp. 939-946
107

106

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CHAPTER III THE INA AND THE ARMED FORCES

The importance of military authority in India The British Indian Army was a cornerstone of imperial authority within the subcontinent. Not only this, but it had a more far-reaching importance insofar as it protected British imperial interests from North Africa to East Asia. Sarkar sums its role up succinctly as a domestic rod of order and an international fire brigade, 108 and throughout the nineteenth century it was dispatched variously to China, Persia, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Egypt, Burma, Singapore and Hong Kong amongst many others. 109 Furthermore, India was regarded by many British imperialists as an English barrack in the oriental seas from which we may draw any number of troops without paying for them. 110 Therefore, the reliability and efficacy of the British Indian Army had been of paramount importance to both internal security within India and regional power in general since the beginning of the Raj. Little had changed even after the First World War; commenting on the Rawlinson Committees proposals for Indianisation of the forces, Montagu sent Lord Reading a telegram on the fundamental principles of Indian Government which said the security of the country from dangers without and within... depends [on] the capacity of its Government to fulfil its primary duties [which] can only be ultimately guaranteed by the Army in India. 111 The question of reliability within the British Indian Army had always preoccupied colonial thought, owing to the circumstances of its origin. Following the dissolution of the dismal failure that was the East India Company administration in India, 112 and the mutiny of their army which was primarily made up of sepoys, there came the transferring [of] all rights that the company had hitherto
Sarkar, p. 79 Ronald Hyam, Britains Imperial Century, 1815-1914: A Study of Empire and Expansion (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002), p. 37 110 Sir Charles Lucas, ed., The Empire at War, Vol. 1 (London: 1921-26), pp. 56-7. 111 Telegram from Secretary of State, Edwin Montagu to Viceroy, Lord Reading, 14 February, 1922, London, British Library, India Office Records L/MIL/3/2534 M. 1348/1922, No. 1 112 C. A. Bayly, The Consolidation and Failure of the East India Company's State, 1818-1857, in Indian society and the Making of the British Empire, by C. A. Bayly (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 106
109 108

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enjoyed on Indian soil directly to the Crown. 113 With it came a restructuring of the army. Patterns of recruitment changed to concentrate on the martial races of north India, especially those in the Punjab and those who had stayed loyal throughout the mutiny. 114 Further evidence of British cautiousness is seen in the ratio, which Keith Jeffrey describes as a central tenet of the Indian military administration and a crude index of mistrust. 115 The ratio was approximately one British soldier for every two Indian soldiers and this was adhered to fairly stringently until the outbreak of the First World War. In 1914, there were 81,000 British troops and 152,000 Indian troops but by 1918, there were six Indians for every British soldier. 116 At the conclusion of the war, this balance was quickly redressed; British high command still thought that such a high ratio posed an internalsecurity risk. 117 This shows that even over half a century after the mutiny, imperial paranoia was still influencing military decisions and that the British Indian Army was seen as an entity that had to be carefully managed and maintained so that authority in the subcontinent could be continued. During the war, the INA posed no considerable threat to the British position in India, either internally or externally. The dismissive terms in which British officials describe Bose and his organisation are testament to this, although Military Intelligence was still wary of his potential subversive influence. On 14 July 1943, just ten days after Bose officially assumed leadership of the Indian Independence League and the INA, MI2 prepared a note on his recent activities. It describes his espionage connections in India and propaganda campaign, but concludes that pragmatically Bose has little chance of fomenting a revolution in India or providing any substantial military threat. 118 His propaganda campaign largely consisted of radio broadcasts and pamphleteering, facilitated by Japanese broadcast centres and aeroplanes. Of a number of pamphlets that had been dropped on
Stanley Wolpert, A New History of India (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 237 Keith Jeffery, 'An English Barrack in the Oriental Seas'? India in the Aftermath of the First World War, Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 15 (1981), p. 371 115 Ibid. p. 370 116 Government of India, The Army in India and its Evolution: Including an Account of the Establishment of the Royal Air Force in India (Calcutta: Superintendent Govt. Printing India, 1924), p. 219 117 Jeffrey, p. 371 118 Note by M.I.2 on the Recent Activities of Subhas Chandra Bose, 14 July, 1943, in TOP, Vol. 4, No. 37, pp. 74-5
114 113

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the villages east of Aijal, near the Burmese border, Sir Andrew Clow wrote to Wavell that they were extremely inept, written in unfamiliar languages, poorly designed and featured little understanding of local mentality and conditions. 119 There was a state-sponsored blackout of his radio broadcasts although some did manage to reach Indian audiences thanks to Japanese transmission infrastructure. 120 The British initiated a counter-propaganda campaign on the radio, designed to deride Bose and his men as traitors, spread the notion that he was a Japanese fascist pawn and pillory his transparent personal ambition. 121 The broadcasts made no mention of an army at all, least of all its reported strength or accounts of their operations; instead, it granted the existence of Jiffs (Japanese-Indian Fifth Columnists) who out of... ignoble motives... had hitched their fortunes to the puppet Bose and his brutal Japanese masters. 122 The campaign enjoyed moderate success and at the close of the war, there were still many Indians who had never heard of the INA or were convinced by British propaganda that Bose and his men were mere stooges of the Japanese. The British were now faced with the problem of how to treat captured INA men and what the implications of the situation would be regarding army loyalty. An intelligence report delivered on 15 June 1945 gives us an early insight into the post-war problems the British anticipated because of the INA; the report is based on an interview with a captured Jiff who warns that:
these men [INA soldiers], having no immediate hope, will return to their depots and appear as good and well-disciplined soldiers on parade. Off duty, however, they will probably discuss their past experiences, the Bose movement, independence, an Indian army without British soldiers and more especially the hardships they themselves bore in an effort to achieve these objects... The source goes on to state that this will mean a rapid permeation of nationalism throughout the entire Indian Army...

119 120

Telegram No. 77 from Sir A. Clow to Wavell, 19 December, 1943, in TOP, Vol. 4, No. 274, pp. 557-8 Fay, p. 419 121 Ibid., p. 425 122 Ibid.

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Rehabilitation [of INA men] he considers cannot be successful unless it is based on the fostering of a national rather than communal spirit.
123

The intelligence officer also reports the apparent aloofness of the British Indian Army towards the INA and a willingness to both denounce them as traitors and execute the worst of them. Some, he reports, even suggested that a court-martial would be an appropriate outcome. 124 It is in fact likely that this attitude was commonplace amongst the loyal sepoys of the Indian Army. They were cut from the same cloth as the INA men, they had benefitted from the same influences and training, yet they had stayed faithful whilst the Jiffs had defected in order to fight against them. British wartime propaganda again had a huge influence in their conceptualisation of the INA; counter-intelligence agents were sent to areas in which Boses contact parties were operating. Tales of Japanese cruelty were spread and intermingled with tales of Jiff complicity until there was no longer a clear distinction between the two. Their disloyalty and brutishness were reiterated again and again by radio broadcasts, newspaper reports and commanding officers. The natural obscurity of war, compounded by censorship and normal information management, virtually guaranteed that the prevailing image of the INA officer would remain that of a man who was part traitor, part coward, part bully, a lackey in the service of Nippon. 125

Changing trends within the Armed Forces How long this conception remained prevalent amongst the men of the British Indian Army is difficult to ascertain. What is very likely, however, is that their opinions regarding the INA began to be swayed by the gradual outpouring of public support for the latter. As stated in the previous chapter, the Red Fort trials elicited a widespread emotional response from the Indian people, which was

Note by Military Intelligence No. 10005, South East Asia and India Command Weekly Security Intelligence Summary No. 189, in TOP, Vol. 5, No. 512, p. 1127-8 124 Ibid. 125 Fay, pp. 427-28

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kindled by the nationalist press, Congress propaganda and speeches, and political activism. Following his release from British custody, Shah Nawaz Khan, one of the accused from the first trial, addressed a reception at Gandhi Ground held in honour of the INA heroes. He declared that for the first time, the might of the British Government had bowed down before the wishes of the Indian people and the right of the subject races to wage war for their freedom of the country has been recognised. 126 Statements such as this, along with the nationwide glorification of the INA cause, must have set the sepoys thinking as to why they had not taken the same opportunity to fight for the independence of their homeland. It became apparent to them that the image of the Indian Army within the collective Indian mind was unfavourable; it was seen as an instrument of the British imperialism to keep India and other Asiatic countries in subjugation. 127 Brigadier Rajendra Singh wrote that the effect on the morale on the men was devastating; the sepoy felt chagrined at the publicity given to the INA soldiers, his prestige was stolen from his sails. He wanted to emulate the INA soldiers and unconsciously become a fighter for the independence of India. 128 Such thinking had cause to be particularly predominant due to a heightening of political awareness which had begun to take place within the ranks, notably because of the vast expansion of the armed forces. The pre-war recruitment process, as described above, focused on certain classes or martial races that were believed to be untainted by political consciousness. 129 They invariably hailed from areas with well-established civil-military structures, such as District Soldiers Boards, best illustrated by the example of the Punjab area. 130 But the need for soldiers during the Second World War had left these classes unable to supply the total requirement. As such, men were drafted in who had no previous association with the military and because of their urban and educated backgrounds, they

Singh, Soldiers Contribution to Indian Independence, p. 308 Ghosh, p. 228 128 Brigadier Rajendra Singh, Far East in Ferment (Delhi: Army Educational Stores, 1961), p. 28 129 Ibid., p. 226 130 Tai Yong Tan, Maintaining the Military Districts: Civil-Military Integration and District Soldiers Boards in the Punjab, 1919-1939, in Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 28, No. 4 (October, 1994), pp. 833-874
127

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brought politics with them. 131 Furthermore, considering the level of awareness and the country-wide platform the trials commanded, it was impossible to keep the armed forces isolated from the growing sense of unrest. On 22 June 1945, the Congress Working Committee had passed a resolution instructing Congressmen on the importance of giving an Indian character to the Indian Army, which entailed breaking down the barriers which had previously prevented the politicisation of the armed forces. 132 As described above, the army was already somewhat primed for politicisation due to the vast changes in its demography and Congress therefore planned to use the INA as a national counterweight to the apolitical British Indian Army. 133 As one might expect, the Indian government was wise to this desire; since 1934, Congress had been concerned with unfettered national control, among other things over the army and other defence forces. 134 Wavell notes on 22 October in a telegram to Pethick-Lawrence that Congress growing interest in army affairs, which was evident even at the Simla Conference, and their effort... to suborn the Army is likely to be the most dangerous development of the near future. 135 Abdul Kalam Azad, he says, recently stated that the Indian Army should become a truly national organisation to which the public, and presumably the political leaders, could have free access leading Wavell to conclude that there is no doubt that the Congress Party wish to establish influence over people who are capable of fighting. 136 Morale in the British Indian Army during the Second World War was, on the whole stronger and performance was better than metropolitan armies, at least in some theatres in the age of Total

Sir Francis Tuker, While Memory Serves: The Story of the Last Two Years of British Rule in India (London: Cassell, 1950), p. 65 132 CWC resolution on Instructions, Bombay, 22 June, 1945, in INC: The Glorious Tradition, Texts of the resolutions passed by the INC, the AICC and the CWC, ed. by A.M. Zaidi, Vol. 4 (New Delhi: Indian Institute of Applied Political Research, 1988), p. 205 133 Kuracina, p. 837 134 CWC resolution on Congress Goal & the Means of Its Attainment, Benares, 30 July, 1934 in INC: The Glorious Tradition, Texts of the resolutions passed by the INC, the AICC and the CWC, ed. by A.M. Zaidi, Vol. 3 (New Delhi: Indian Institute of Applied Political Research, 1988), p. 267. 135 Telegram No. 39 from Wavell to Pethick-Lawrence, 22 October, 1945, in TOP, Vol. 6, No. 157, p. 375 136 Ibid. pp.375-6

131

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War. 137 Speaking in general terms, Tarak Barkawi argues that even in the face of nationalist challenges such as Quit India and the INA, by and large, it remained loyal and fought effectively with the exception of the INA itself... 138 However, after the fighting had ended and the sepoys returned to India, the wartime method for ensuring loyalty and boosting morale through adequate supply of food, drink, sex and qualitative and quantitative superiority in military hardware, the crucial components of in-combat motivation, 139 was no longer good enough and old grievances began to be raised. Racial discrimination, the slow progress of Indianisation, disparities between the treatment and pay of British and Indian soldiers and the apparent aloofness of the British authorities to their conditions were all preconditions for a growing sense of unrest among the jawans and indeed some Indian officers. 140 The culmination of this discontent came with the Royal Indian Navy mutiny and the various copycat mutinies it inspired in February 1946, an issue which will be explored in greater detail further down, along with additional analysis of longstanding grievances within the armed forces. It was a toxic mix of INC subversion tactics, growing political awareness amongst the troops, the Red Fort trials which had brought the army closer to the people 141 and widespread public support for the INA which prepared the stage for a surge of nationalism which swept the armed forces. It is also important to note that many Indian military men had, or were developing, sympathy for the INA and their cause. Following their capture, many INA men had been shipped back to India for detention via Rangoon. In Rangoon, the Indian soldiers, airmen and seamen of the British armed forces had had their first non-military encounters with the INA. There had been time to discuss motivations and ideologies, to make friends and swap stories, and in the months following there was

Kaushik Roy, Discipline and Morale of the African, British and Indian Army units in Burma and India during World War II: July 1943 to August 1945, in Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 44, No. 6 (November 2010), pp. 12551282 138 Tarak Barkawi, Culture and Combat in the Colonies: The Indian Army in the Second World War, in Journal of Contemporary History , Vol. 41, No. 2 (April 2006), pp. 328-329 139 Roy, p. 1281 140 Ghosh, p. 225 141 Jawaharlal Nehru, Interview to the press, Delhi, 2 December, 1945, in Collected Works, p. 363

137

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widespread fraternisation between the men from both camps. 142 Also, in many cases close contact could not be avoided even if the British had tried to prevent it; the men were kith and kin, they came from the same villages and families.

Britains response British conceptions about the armys attitude towards the INA were somewhat nave and illinformed. Since the end of the war, Auchinleck and High Command had been labouring under the illusion that most men wanted to see justice brought upon the traitors. 143 They were slow to recognise the changing patterns of thought within the ranks and were happy to believe that the Indian army was kept in a watertight compartment, away from the taint of politics. 144 That is not to say that they were not careful about the potential subversive influence of the former INA men the greys from Boses army were to be discharged as services no longer required because they posed a danger to the integrity of the Army 145 but they were perhaps too ready to believe what the sepoys told them. The enclosure to Wavells telegram to Pethick-Lawrence on 2 November, written by Auchinleck, states that the majority opinion amongst the serving British Indian Army members is that the INA men are all traitors and therefore ought to be put on trial. According to Auchinleck, the army would accept the policy of limited trials, dismissals and discharges, but would resent any measure which allowed the INA men to stay in the army for any reason. 146

Toye, p.170 Note by Military Intelligence No. 10005, South East Asia and India Command Weekly Security Intelligence Summary No. 189, in TOP, Vol. 5, No. 512, p. 1128-9 144 Jawaharlal Nehru, Speech at Patna, 24 December, 1945, in Collected Works, pp. 279280. 145 Telegram No. 10234 from Governor-General to Secretary of State, 11 August, 1945, in TOP, Vol. 6, No. 16, p. 51 146 Enclosure to Telegram No. 1141 from Wavell to Pethick-Lawrence, 2 November, 1945, in TOP, Vol. 6, Enclosure to No. 185, p. 436
143

142

34

On 27th November, Wavell received a letter from Sir George Cunningham, Governor of the NorthWest Frontier Provinces. In this, he expressed his reservations about the reliability of such testaments from Indian Army men:
Some Army Officers of great experience with whom I have discussed the matter Dick OConnor was one have said that leniency [towards the INA detainees] at this stage would have a disastrous effect on the Army. I do not believe that this is true. Some Indian officers and soldiers, whose relations or close friends have suffered under the INA leaders, are no doubt thirsting for their blood. But I am certain that they are comparatively few and that their resentment at any clemency shown now would not affect Army discipline as a whole. Most Indian soldiers who have said to me, Hang the lot have, in my opinion, said so because they thought it was what I wanted to hear...
147

Three days before, Auchinleck had sent a telegram to Wavell revising his opinion regarding army loyalty and the INA. He no longer believed, as he had just three weeks ago, that the majority opinion was that the INA were traitors. He drew on the diversification of recruitment areas and the growth of nationalist feeling amongst the armed forces as reasons for it now being quite impossible to isolate the Armed Forces from the rest of the country, a problem which went some way to explaining as to how there was no general resentment towards the INA men. 148 Three key factors had caused his appraisal of the situation to change. In the weeks since, a strong current of opinion was coming in from the Punjab. The Punjab region was vital to gauging the opinions of the army as the majority of sepoys originated in the region, more even than the regions of UP, Bihar and Bengal combined. 149 Bertrand Glancy, Governor of the Punjab, predicted that if death sentences were carried out, then the government would be facing a level of revolt far greater than the 1942 disturbances or the Amritsar massacre fallout. Most people in the Punjab did not take the allegations against them seriously and their regaling with the title of traitors only increased

147 148

Wavell, p. 188 Telegram from General Auchinleck to Wavell, 24 November, 1945, in TOP, Vol. 6, No. 233, p. 532 149 Fay, p. 511

35

their popularity. 150 Secondly, the first trial had commenced and judging by the strong public reaction it would have seemed likely that there was a swathe of sympathy for the INA, particularly amongst the impressionable jawans. This suspicion was proved somewhat by the growing trend in the armed forces, as well as in other quarters of society, to use the INA slogan Jai Hind as a mode of greeting. 151 Thirdly, and in light of this, Auchinleck had commissioned a Special Organisation to try to gauge the real attitudes of the officers and men towards the INA. Its findings are reflected in his telegram to Wavell of the 26 November, wherein he states that he does not think that any senior British officer today knows what is the real feeling among the Indian ranks regarding the INA... there is a growing feeling of sympathy for the INA and an increasing tendency to disregard the brutalities committed by some of its members as well as the foreswearing by all of them of original allegiance. 152 This rise in sympathy towards the INA went hand in hand with a rise in nationalist sentiments amongst the members of the armed forces. On the 11 November, the opening day of the trials, Royal Indian Air Force members stationed in Calcutta sent a message to the Bengal Congress Committee offering their appreciation of the noble ideal of the INA and their commendable and inspiring efforts. They recorded their strongest protest against the autocratic action of the Government of India and, in effect, that of the British Government in trying by court martial these brightest jewels of India. 153 The President of the INC at the time, Abdul Kalam Azad recalls a time in late 1945 when he visited Karachi and a group of naval officers came to see me. They expressed their admiration for the Congress policy and assured me that if the Congress issued necessary orders, they would come over to us. If there was a conflict between Congress and the Government, they would side with the Congress and not with the Government. Hundreds of naval officers in

150 151

Ibid. Singh, Rediscovering Bose and the Indian National Army, p. 305 152 Telegram from General Auchinleck to Wavell, 26 November, 1945, in TOP, Vol. 6, No. 241, p. 545 153 The Hindustan Standard, 11 November 1945, p.5

36

Bombay expressed the same feelings. 154 Gandhi also received declarations of loyalty from Indian servicemen: There was hardly a day when a group of Indian military men did not contact him. They met him during his morning walks, they were at his evening prayer gatherings. We are soldiers, they said apologetically and added, but we are soldiers of Indian freedom. 155 By 11 February 1946, the Indian armed forces had an openly de facto nationalist alignment; Colonel Himmat Singh, the officer representing the Indian Army in the Indian Central Assembly, stated that every officer and man is just as anxious for the freedom of this country as you in this house or outside. 156 On the 6 November 1945, Wavell had despaired at the deteriorating political situation in India. As described in the previous chapter, the increasingly violent rhetoric of Congress leaders and the effect it was having on the volatile masses had led him to warn HMG to be prepared for a serious attempt by the Congress... to subvert the present administration in India. 157 The upcoming INA trials had been the catalyst for this. Before Congress appropriation of the cause, they had had no political programme to rejuvenate the country. 158 The people were indifferent; there was nothing to excite popular indignation, no Jallianwalla Bagh nor anything remotely resembling it. 159 Congress had managed to rekindle the spark of nationalism by using the INA cause to win political leverage and support. With the INA, which seemed to represent a non-communal, violent and popular alternative path to independence, they were in a position to subtly threaten the British with a popular uprising. Wavell saw it as enough of a threat to ask Whitehall to issue an unequivocal and direct warning that such an uprising would be met with force. 160 But could the British Indian Army be relied upon to supress such a popular uprising? Auchinlecks written appraisal of this question on 24 November demonstrates his uncertainty. Throughout November 1945, evidence of support for the
Abdul Kalam Azad, India Wins Freedom (Hyderabad: Orient Longman, 1988), p. 134 D. G. Tendulkar, Mahatma: Life of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Vol. 7 (New Delhi: Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Govt. of India, 1963), pp. 98-99 156 Times of India, 11 February 1946, p. 6 157 Enclosure to Telegram No. 125/48 from Wavell to Pethick-Lawrence, 6 November, 1945, in TOP, Vol. 6, Enclosure to No. 194, p. 452 158 Ghosh, p. 208 159 Michael Edwardes, The Last Years of the British in India (London: New English Library, 1967), p. 92 160 Enclosure to Telegram No. 125/48 from Wavell to Pethick-Lawrence, 6 November, 1945, in TOP, Vol. 6, Enclosure to No. 194, pp. 453-4
155 154

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INA amongst the ranks and a mounting nationalist sentiment became more apparent. Auchinleck agreed with Wavell that a strong statement expressing the Governments willingness to use armed force would both quash any ideas Congress had about inciting an uprising and at the same time inform the army of exactly what was expected of them. In absence of a firm declaration the loyalty of the Indian Forces is likely to progressively deteriorate. 161 This firm declaration was never provided. Attlee read Auchinlecks report on 1 December. 162 By 4 December, the Government had issued a statement focused on conciliation; it announced that in January 1946, a delegation of MPs would be sent to India to assess the political situation, ascertain the views of the Indian leaders, and in doing so transmit the general wish and desire of the people of this country that India should speedily attain her full and rightful position as an independent partner state in the British Commonwealth. 163 It would be inaccurate to claim that Auchinlecks report influenced the decision to send this parliamentary delegacy to India; that decision was made in a meeting of the India and Burma Committee on 19 November 1945 and the original suggestion came from Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, one of Gandhis secretaries with whom Stafford Cripps had had a long conversation at the London Conference on Education. 164 However, the decision marked a change in the British attitude towards Indian independence and indicated a desire to hasten the process due to their precarious political position. The findings of the Parliamentary delegation compounded the sense of urgency. The leader of the delegation, Professor Richards, noted that the foremost attitude he encountered was a unified sense of wanting the British to get out of India and, in his opinion, there were two courses of action to satisfy this: either (a) that we should arrange to get out, (b) that we should be driven out. 165 He noted that with regards to the latter, the

Quoted in Fay, p. 516 Ibid. 163 Memorandum by the Secretary of State for India on Indian Situation, 24 November 1945, in TOP, Vol. 6, No. 234, p. 537 164 Minutes of the India and Burma Committee meeting of 19 November, 1945, in TOP, Vol. 6, No. 217, pp. 501-2 165 Points made by the Parliamentary Delegation at the meeting at No. 10 Downing Street, 13 February, 1946, in TOP, Vol. 6, No. 426, p. 947
162

161

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loyalty of the Indian Army is open to question; the INA have become national heroes under the boosting of Congress; the possibility cannot be excluded that Congress could form an Independent Indian Army. Brigadier Low shared some of the same concerns about the Indian Army, noting that politics have got into the Army... the effect of the INA trials has been very severe... [But] on the whole, the Army could be relied upon to do its duty except in the event of civil war. 166 Lord Chorleys findings concurred with this and, while he saw it suitable to rely on the Army for dealing with riots, they could not be relied on for dealing with anything more serious. 167

Actualisation of British concerns These concerns about the reliability of the armed forces were somewhat made manifest by the Royal Indian Navy mutiny, which began on 18 February 1946 in Bombay but quickly spread via wireless communication sets to a total of seventy-eight ships stationed in Karachi, Madras, Calcutta, Cochin, Vizagapatam, Mandapam and the Andamans, as well as almost every shore base in the country. 168 In most places it was a peaceful protest but shots were fired between ratings and the military in Bombay, Karachi and Madras. The cause of the mutiny was ostensibly poor conditions amongst the RIN ratings and dissatisfaction with their rate of pay and allowances, however there was also a political complexion to the revolt as well. The ratings issued a list of demands to the Flag Officer Bombay on 19th February, including the release of INA personnel and the withdrawal of Indian troops from Indonesia. 169 In Bombay, the RIN was renamed as the Indian National Navy by the mutineers and the spread of nationalism amongst the ratings was demonstrated further by the hoisting of Congress and Muslim League flags on the masts formerly supporting the White Ensign. 170

Ibid., p. 949 Ibid., p. 950 168 Ghosh, p. 233 169 Defence Department, Government of India, The Gazette of India, Extraordinary, 21 January 1947 (New Delhi: Published by Authority, 1947), p. 118 170 Nripendra Nath Mitra, ed., The Indian Annual Register: An Annual Digest of Public Affairs of India, Vol.2 (Calcutta: Indian Annual Register Office, 1945), p. 285
167

166

39

The Defence Departments official report on the mutiny highlights the growing political consciousness brought about by the INA trials as important. It notes that the morale reports for May, June and July 1945 mention no subversive political influences at work, and in September 1945, the interest of the RIN ratings and officers in politics was either healthy or one of indifference. However, by 31 December 1945, ratings [were] politically conscious... some ratings influenced by INA propaganda and sympathetic to INA... visits to TALWAR and KAKAURI in December 1945 [indicate] all ratings and officers sympathetic to independence movement in the country.171 Rear Admiral Rattray, in his statement to the Commission responsible for this report, said that the causes of the mutiny are to be found in politics and political influence and, while the Commission rejects this as secondary to the longstanding grievances of ratings, it recognises that politics had great effect in unsettling the mens loyalty. 172 Army loyalty was tested somewhat by the February disturbances in Bombay, which followed a strike called in support of the revolting ratings. Disturbances also occurred in Calcutta, Madras and Madura but those in Bombay are noted for their anti-foreign nature, which targeted European and Government property in particular, as well as the British military response they elicited. 173 The reliability of the forces had also come into question as a result of the Calcutta students strike on 11 February in response to the trial of Abdul Rashid, another former-INA man. There was a certain noncommunal and non-partisan nature to Indian participation in this strike as Hindus, Muslims and Communists gathered at Wellington Square, shouting spontaneous slogans of Hindus-Muslims Unite!, British Imperialists Quit India!, and importantly, Chalo Dilli! which was the war cry of the INA. 174 The violent response from the British authorities engendered further outrage and by the evening of 12 February, strikes and protests plagued the entire city causing restiveness amongst the Indian police and Indian soldiers. In response, British troops and Ghurkhas were used exclusively to
171 172

The Gazette of India, p. 133 Ibid., p. 134 173 Ghosh, p. 236 174 Gautam Chattopadhyay, The Almost Revolution, February 1946, in Diptendra Banerjee et al., eds., Essays in Honour of Prof S. C. Sarkar (New Delhi: Peoples Publishing House, 1976), pp. 429-31

40

surmount the unrest yet according to Gautam Chattopadhyay, their victory was more apparent than real as it revealed that the raj could no longer bank on the loyalty of the Indian soldiers and it was impossible to crush the developing all-India upsurge with the help of white troops alone. 175 Chattopadhyays characterisation of this incident as the moment when the British could no longer entirely depend on the armed forces is apocryphal, as the process was a cumulative one. The INA question and Congress exploitation of the sentiments it invoked chipped away at loyalty over the course of months in a very effective manner, leading Sir Francis Tuker to state that never, I believe, has the loyalty and soldierly spirit of any army been subjected to such a strain and to such determined and ingenious pressure to subvert it and destroy its pride in itself. 176

175 176

Ibid., p. 439 Tuker, p. 95

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CONCLUSION

The Indian National Army, whilst failing in their military objective of recapturing India by force, did precipitate the advent of independence through other means. The trials of some of their number had a far-reaching political impact on a nation primed for independence after the Second World War. The character of the INA made it an attractive banner under which the flagging nationalist movement could be resuscitated; its non-communalism, inclusiveness, discipline and pro-activism seemed to represent everything that the nationalist movement had hitherto been lacking. The first trials at the Red Fort became an all-India issue due to the fact that in the three defendants, the three major religions of India were represented, but primarily because of the growing popularity of the INA. This popularity was, in part, due to Congress appropriation of their cause which can be construed as a definite watershed between their pre-war non-violent ideology and a more confrontational post-war rhetoric. The reasons behind this appropriation were manifold and include an appreciation of the electioneering potential of the issue, a desire to harness the non-communal spirit of the INA to counter claims of discrimination by the Muslim League and recognition of the cause as a unifying issue through which the masses could be mobilised. By late 1945, increasingly provocative speeches from Congress leaders such as Nehru and the hostile resolutions they passed complemented the nationalist tone of the recently uncensored press, creating a revolutionary atmosphere. The frequent riots, disturbances and hartals, most of which were, at least in part, products of the outrage aroused by the Red Fort trials, are testament to this and demanded a strong reaction from the Government. With law and order waning and the political situation deteriorating, the British were forced to grant concessions. The INA defendants had their sentences commuted to prevent causing a national uprising and, in light of the volatile atmosphere, the reliability of the British Indian Army became a matter of paramountcy. Throughout the Second World War, the reliability and morale of the Army 42

had generally been very good, whilst the troops attitudes towards the INA had been engineered by wartime propaganda. Changing trends in the prevailing ideological paradigms of the sepoys were brought about by a heightened political awareness, longstanding grievances and redoubled efforts by Congress to engender a spirit of nationalism within the forces. A reappraisal of Army priorities was conducted by officials in late 1945 which revealed these trends and the growing nationalism was made manifest by military strikes, culminating in the Royal Indian Navy mutiny of February 1946. Uncertainty regarding the allegiance of the armed forces, particularly the Army, undermined the foundations upon which British imperial authority rested. In the event of a national uprising, orchestrated by nationalist politicians and with the support of the masses, the efficiency and cooperation of the Army would be the decisive factor in determining the outcome. Such an uprising was indeed expected by Wavell after the 1946 elections and in his opinion, the British had the choice of either a strong response or conciliation. Whitehalls decision to send a parliamentary delegation to India could be interpreted as part of a well-established policy of political appeasement, where token efforts were made by the British to control nationalist fervour, or it could be interpreted as a concrete step towards the establishment of Indian independence. In any case, the findings of the delegation reinforced the validity of British concerns about army loyalty and the degenerating political situation, as well as highlighting the difficulties involved in satisfying the demands of both the Muslim League and the Indian National Congress. The culmination of all of these factors presented the British with a situation whereby mass insurrection seemed possible, if not probable, and their foremost instrument of authority was compromised to an inestimable degree. Professor Richards bluntly informed Attlee of this on his return to London saying, We must quit India quickly. If we dont, we shall be kicked out. 177 On 19th February 1946, Attlee announced the decision to send three cabinet officials, Pethick-Lawrence, Sir

177

Chattopadhyay, p. 42

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Stafford Cripps and A. V. Alexander, to conduct negotiations with Indian political leaders regarding the constitutional problem. 178 The significance of this decision is that it characterises the change in the British attitude towards the question of Indian independence. The British were no longer going to wait for a communal settlement between Congress and the League, hereunto considered a necessary proviso for the progression of transfer of power. A contemporary article in the New York Times explained that underlying this surprise move is the fact that the British no longer bases its policy so strictly on the former stand that it is up to the Indians themselves to agree first before any big step towards independence can be taken. Instead the Labour Cabinet is now determined to draw up, after the fullest consultations with Indian leaders of all parties, its own proposals for a constitution, including, it is understood, a definite date for the achievement of self-rule. 179 In the first draft of Attlees speech to the commons on 15 March, 1946, two reasons for the hastening of the transfer of power are alluded to.
I recall when on the Simon Commission we marked how the spirit of Nationalism spread beyond the politicians and influenced the Indian in the Civil Service. To-day the National idea has spread also to the Armed Forces... The temperature of 1945 is not the same as that of 1920, 1930 or even 1942. The slogans of the earlier decades are discarded today. Nothing increases the pace of movement of public opinion more than a great war. A tide running slowly in peace time becomes vastly accelerated all the more perhaps because during the war, the waters are banked up.
180

Nationalism in the armed forces and the rising heat of public opinion were the definitive factors which led the British to leave India by 1947. Ultimately, the psychological impact of the INA played the preponderant role in the genesis and sustenance of both of these developments. Without the Indian National Army, independence would certainly have been granted at some stage, however the repercussions of its actions galvanised the establishment of a timeline by which this was to occur.

178 179

Cabinet Meeting of 18 February, 1946, Minute 7, in TOP, Vol. 6, No. 441, pp. 1005-1006 New York Times, 23 February 1946, p.2 180 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Attlee, Deposit 33, fols. 321-322

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By February 1946, the state of affairs brought about by the INA had caused the British to realise that their position in India was untenable and they became proactive in their relinquishment of power. It appears that Attlee was indeed correct in his assertion that the INA was the principal reason that the British withdrew from India by 1947. Despite the disparities between his vision and reality, it can be said that ultimately Bose accomplished his quixotic objective.

Let them wait until February 1946, and then start criticising us if our timetable goes wrong. Subhas Chandra Bose, 12 July, 1944

181

181

Toye, p. 184

45

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Kuracina, William, Sentiments and Patriotism: The Indian National Army, General Elections and the Congress's Appropriation of the INA Legacy, Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 44, (2010), pp. 817-856 Lebra, Joyce C., Japanese Trained Armies in South-East Asia (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977) Majumdar, Ramesh Chandra, Three Phases of Indias Struggle for Freedom (Bombay: Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan, 1967) Metcalfe, Thomas R., Book Review of Modern India: The Origins of an Asian Democracy by Judith M. Brown and Modern India: 1885-1947, by Sumit Sarkar, Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 45 (1986), pp. 1095-1098 Roy, Kaushik, Discipline and Morale of the African, British and Indian Army units in Burma and India during World War II: July 1943 to August 1945, Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 44 (November 2010), pp. 1255-1282 Sarkar, Sumit, Modern India 1885-1947 (Delhi: Macmillan, 1984) Setalvad, M. C., Bhulabhai Desai (Mumbai: Botavala Cembarsa, 1973) Singh, R. P., Rediscovering Bose and the Indian National Army (New Delhi: Manas, 2010) Singh, Harkirat, Indian Nation Army Trial and the Raj (New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers and Distributors, 2003), Tan, Tai Yong, Maintaining the Military Districts: Civil-Military Integration and District Soldiers Boards in the Punjab, 1919-1939, Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 28, No. 4 (October, 1994), pp. 833-874 Tendulkar, D. G., Mahatma: Life of Mohandas Karmachand Gandhi, Vol. 7, (New Delhi: Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Govt. of India, 1963) Toye, Hugh, Subhas Chandra Bose: The Springing Tiger (London: Oxford University Press, 1968) Wolpert, Stanley, A New History of India (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004)

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The Hindustan Times, 6 November 1945 The Hindustan Standard, 11 November 1945 The Indian Express, 18 October 1945 Question Time, BBC 1, 21 March 2013, 10.35pm. Times of India, 11 February 1946

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