‘INA achieved Netaji’s objective of creating conditions for ending British rule’

Noted political scientist and author Sumantra Bose, grandnephew of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, in an interview with Open, said that he believes that by the time of the Red Fort trials in 1945, the British colonial rulers were hopelessly out of sync with both the Indian people and the Indian armed forces. “But it was a chronicle of an imperialist disaster foretold,” says Bose, who is also the director of Netaji Research Bureau in Kolkata.

Bose, formerly a professor of International and Comparative Politics at the London School of Economics and now holding a similar position at Krea University in Andhra Pradesh, says, “I had the opportunity to meet two of the legendary ‘Red Fort Three’—Prem Kumar Sahgal and Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon—numerous times until their deaths in 1992 and 2006, respectively. I have not met finer men.” An alumnus of Amherst College, Massachusetts, and Columbia University, Bose is the author of several books, including Secular States, Religious Politics: India, Turkey, and the Future of Secularism and Kashmir at the Crossroads: Inside a 21st-Century Conflict. Edited excerpts:

What were the major reasons for these former British officers to join Subhas Chandra Bose’s INA? Was it primarily to escape being prisoners of war, or were there other factors that made them “disloyal” to the Empire and led them to seize the opportunity to fight against it?

I had the opportunity to meet Prem Kumar Sahgal and Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon numerous times. They and the many other Indian National Army warriors I grew up with—India’s soldiers in the final war of independence—were exemplars of what being a true patriot means. I imbibed my patriotic values from them and from my late father, the freedom fighter Sisir Kumar Bose. All the INA stalwarts, as well as my father, had one thing in common. They were utterly humble people who gave all the credit for their contributions to India’s freedom to their leader, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, whom they worshipped until the last moment of their lives.

Sahgal, Dhillon, and Shah Nawaz Khan all joined the “first INA” established in 1942, a year before Subhas Chandra Bose arrived in South-East Asia. But like many others who joined, they did so with doubts and reservations. They wanted to fight for India’s freedom from the British Empire, but did not wish to be part of a force that would be controlled by and used as pawns by the Japanese. Their pride as individuals, soldiers, and Indians would not permit that. At one point around the end of 1942, it did seem that the Azad Hind Fauj would fizzle out and fail to develop into the authentic army of liberation that tens of thousands of erstwhile British-Indian Army POWs wanted it to be.

That promise was revitalised—and realised—after Subhas Chandra Bose’s eagerly awaited arrival in South-East Asia in mid-1943. He brought inspirational leadership, political direction, and a fierce, uncompromising commitment to Indian interests and self-respect that not only galvanised the military men but also enthused the large civilian population of Indian origin living in South-East Asia. Shah Nawaz Khan wrote in his book My Memories of I.N.A & Its Netaji: “It is indeed a difficult task, nay almost an impossible one, for a humble person like me to attempt to depict a true picture of Netaji, one of the greatest men India has ever produced. The attempt I am making is probably unworthy of my great leader.” He further wrote: “I [had] felt all along that the Japanese were exploiting us and at heart I was an admirer of the British. Therefore, when Netaji arrived, I watched him very keenly…Netaji captured all our hearts. We felt confident that here was a leader who could be trusted to take us to our goal.”

Shah Nawaz, who was from Rawalpindi, and Dhillon, who was from Lahore, were from families with long records of service in the British Indian Army. Shah Nawaz was a third-generation recruit and Dhillon a second-generation recruit. Sahgal, who grew up first in Jalandhar and then in Lahore, was from a prosperous family that had some involvement in nationalist politics, but he nonetheless chose a military career in the British-Indian Army.

They did themselves and their enslaved nation proud as officers of the Azad Hind Fauj. Shah Nawaz Khan became one of the most distinguished field commanders of the INA, fighting first in India’s Northeast and India-Burma frontier areas in 1944 and then in Burma in 1945. Prem Sahgal served as Netaji’s military secretary and then led defensive operations in the Mount Popa area of Burma in 1945 against tremendous odds. Gurbaksh Dhillon’s stellar INA service culminated in startlingly effective resistance to vastly superior British and British-Indian forces, backed by unchallenged air support, who attempted to cross the Irrawaddy River in Burma in early 1945. All three fought for India’s freedom to the bitter end.

What led the British authorities in India at the time to believe that a public trial would be the better course of action? Why did that assumption go so badly wrong?

On January 23, 1966, on Subhas Chandra Bose’s 69th birth anniversary, Colonel Prem Kumar Sahgal delivered Netaji Research Bureau’s Netaji Oration—the keynote address—at Kolkata’s Netaji Bhawan. He said: “Claude Auchinleck had been advised that when INA officers were put up for trial in court-martial, the INA would stand condemned by the Indian people generally and by members of the Indian armed forces in particular.”

“As it turned out, our British colonial masters were hopelessly out of sync with both the Indian people and the Indian armed forces. It was a chronicle of an imperialist disaster foretold.” In September 1945, two months before the Red Fort trials began, my father, Sisir Bose, was released from prison in Lyallpur, Punjab (present-day Faisalabad, Pakistan). He had been there since February 1945, preceded by three and a half months in solitary confinement in the Lahore Fort. He writes in his memoir Subhas and Sarat: An Intimate Memoir of the Bose Brothers (2016): “As I packed my possessions, I wondered how the people of the country would receive us.”

He need not have worried: “As I came out of the Lyallpur jail, I was dumbstruck. A huge, heaving crowd stood in front of me. I drowned in flowers as I emerged, amid deafening slogans. I was put on a tonga. As we moved through the city, thousands of people ran alongside. They were shouting: ‘Subhas Chander Bose zindabad! Bose khandaan zindabad!’ I have never felt so embarrassed in my life.” A few days later, the train journey from Lahore to Calcutta was a mind-boggling experience. At every station, big and small, there were swarms of people waiting, even at the dead of night. As soon as the Calcutta Mail steamed into a station, there were deafening slogans—Subhas Chander Bose zindabad, Bose khandaan zindabad, Azad Hindustan zindabad!”

What impact did the Red Fort trials have on India’s independence movement?

Colonel Prem Sahgal said in his 1966 Netaji oration: “The revolts that took place [in early 1946] in the Indian Navy and in some units of the Indian Air Force and the Indian Army were the direct result of the new awakening…Members of the Indian Armed Forces awoke, and the British Government realised that they could no longer be expected to sustain and support British tyranny in India. The awakening in the Indian Armed Forces broke the will of the British to continue their rule in India. Thus, in the final analysis, the INA succeeded in achieving Netaji’s strategic objective of creating such conditions in the country that British rule could no longer continue.”