History, for the most part, is considered linear in the way it is told. One event follows another. But it is rarely straightforward, for there exist parallel narratives that are just as important but remain out of public memory. The Forgotten Indian Prisoners of World War II, the debut book of former banker Gautam Hazarika, casts light on a few such untold stories.
The book opens at the height of World War II in December 1941, where the scale and speed of the Japanese attack on Singapore resulted in the collapse of the Allied forces’ (Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union) defence, triggering their retreat from all corners of Southeast Asia. As the Allied forces — largely made up of Indian soldiers in the British army — gradually move back towards India, the Japanese decided to put an ingenious plan into action with the help of a “Sikh general”. The plan would entail convincing captured Indian soldiers to turn on their British overlords using a strategy of “quick release”: the soldiers, after being treated rather well in captivity, would be sent back soon so that they would not be suspected of harbouring anti-British sentiment, but they would do exactly that by stoking discontent among fellow soldiers.
The “Sikh general” was Captain Mohan Singh of the 14th Punjab Regiment, who had joined hands with the Japanese following his surrender. He, along with the Sikh preacher Giani Pritam Singh and Japanese military officer Major Fujiwara Iwaichi, played a key role in the birth of the Indian National Army (INA). Following the British surrender of Singapore in February 1942, Mohan Singh addressed thousands of Indian soldiers and announced the formation of the INA.
As Hazarika details the incidents leading up to the INA’s establishment, he writes that Mohan Singh’s role in history, as
the first leader of the INA, has been overshadowed by his illustrious successor, Subhas Chandra Bose (who, contrary to popular perception, was not even in Asia when the INA was formed).
A whole chapter is dedicated to the rise and fall of the “first” INA, where we witness how power corrupts when the tables turn: newly enlisted INA soldiers, put in charge of guarding British prisoners of war (POWs) by the Japanese, got into heated exchanges with their erstwhile superior officers and committed wartime excesses, leading to casualties. Hazarika shows how even though nationalist sentiment might have played a role in thousands of the captive Indian soldiers enlisting in the INA, peer pressure and the fear of mistreatment and torture in Japanese internment camps were plausible motives behind their decision.
Hazarika frames this situation as “an impossible dilemma” as opposed to “a great attraction”.
The book points out (again, contrary to popular belief) that the naming of the INA regiments after Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad also happened much before Bose took over — a move that Mohan Singh hoped would win the INA political legitimacy and inspire patriotism among the soldiers. It also highlights Singh’s commendable attempts to instil communal harmony, since soldiers were used to eating in groups marked by class and creed. However, disagreements and mistrust over imperial Japan's use of the INA in combat and that country's ambitions upon a successful invasion of India meant that Singh was ousted and the INA almost disbanded.
The Japanese decided to install their trusted friend, the Indian nationalist Rash Behari Bose (who was living in Japan then), at the helm, and his efforts to convince soldiers to stick by the INA (all the while denouncing Mohan Singh) brings out the argument of having a military force accountable to a civilian leadership. But it was not long before Subhas Chandra Bose arrived in Singapore from Europe and took over the “second” INA. In an electrifying speech, he talked about mobilising a 3,00,000-strong army, including a women’s regiment (later the Rani of Jhansi Regiment, led by Lakshmi Swaminathan), and renamed the INA as the Azad Hind Fauj with the slogan of Chalo Dilli ("Onwards to Delhi") However, a less-than-enthusiastic response from the Indian POWs in the Japanese-controlled areas forced him to focus on recruiting civilians instead.
However, as Hazarika points out, much of what Subhas Chandra Bose achieved as the leader of the INA was largely symbolic, be it the “handover” of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands by the Japanese (and its subsequent renaming as Shaheed and Swaraj, respectively) or, the announcement of the aspirational idea of the Provisional Government of Free India. In the end, the INA’s role in the overall Japanese aggression in Burma (present-day Myanmar) and India’s northeastern frontier was minuscule.
“Propaganda, however, gave the impression it was an INA invasion with the Japanese being incidental when in fact it was the other way round,” Hazarika writes.
The truth was that the INA was poorly armed and would never stand a chance against the well-trained Allied forces, whose counteroffensive would eventually culminate in the Japanese surrender in September 1945. However, Subhas Chandra Bose was proven right in his belief that the INA’s sacrifice would resonate with Indians back home, which was evident during the INA trials in 1945-46.
The book’s most enthralling bits are about little-known stories of soldiers: Be it the escape of three lieutenants from the POW camps in Singapore and their 3,000-mile journey through enemy territory to reach British-occupied territory in India; the ordeal suffered by Indian POWs being transported to labour camps in Papua New Guinea; or the utter despair experienced by the soldiers before the Allied forces liberated them.
However, for the sheer number of people whose stories find mention, more should have been done in terms of enhancing the narrative flow. At many points in the first half of the book, it was tough to keep track of multiple narratives, making the reading even laborious to some extent. Perhaps the author could have chosen to have somewhat shorter chapters (or even subsections) focusing on specific individuals instead of jumping from one narrative thread to another. Also, too many subheads — one after every paragraph or two, on average — soon become exasperating. This gives the impression that the author wants to spoon-feed the reader and has no faith in either the reader's attention span or in his own storytelling ability.
The other problem is the proofreading. Although no errors are desirable, one or two in a 300-page book would still pass muster. However, one begins to lose count of the misspellings much before they are halfway through this book. Even names lack consistency. Lt Hill becomes Hills in one instance and Sahgal goes to Sehgal and back within the same paragraph.
In his foreword, the historian Srinath Raghavan writes that Hazarika’s book focuses on the “human dimension that often tends to be overlooked by professional historians”. The compelling stories should have been complemented by narrative flair to make this book the riveting read it deserves to be. (The book was published by Vintage/Penguin Random House and has 360 pages, priced at 799 rupees. The next book that the Blueprint will feature: The Case For American Power by Shadi Hamid)
 "The INA we don't know")
