NETAJI SUBHAS CHANDRA BOSE
The Singapore Saga
NALANDA-SRIWIJAYA CENTRE, ISEAS SINGAPORE
The Nalanda-Sriwijaya Centre at the Institute o Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, Singapore, pursues research on historical interactions among Asian societies and civilizations. It serves as a orum or comprehensive study o the ways in which Asian polities and societies have interacted over time through religious, cultural, cultural, and economic exchanges exchanges and diasporic networks. The Centre also ofers innovative strategies or examining the maniestations o hybridity, convergence and mutual learning in a globalizin globalizing g Asia.
NETAJI SUBHAS CHANDRA BOSE
The Singapore Saga Selected writings, rare photographs, oral history and archival documents on Subhas Chandra Bose and Singapore’s role in the struggle or India’s reedom
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Singapore, 1943. Netaji reviews INA troops. Photo: Cour tesy Netaji Research Bureau.
Compiled by NILANJAN NILANJANA A SENGUPTA Designed by RINKOO BHOWMIK
The Nalanda-Sriwijaya Centre at the Institute o Southeast Asian Studies expresses its deepest gratitude to the ollowing institutions and individuals or making this project possible: l The
High Commission o India, Singapore S ingapore l The Netaji Research Bureau, Kolkata l The National Library Board, Singapore l The National Archives, Singapore l The Institute o Southeast Asian Studies Library, Singapore (http://www.psywarrior.com) l Herbert A. Friedman (http://www.psywarrior.com) l Harvard University Press l Ranjana Sengupta, Joyce Iris Zaide, Aparajita Basu
Front Cover INA troops at the Padang, Singapore, 5 July 1943. Photo: Courtesy Netaji Research Bureau Photo o Netaji and newspaper clippings: Courtesy ISEAS Library Back Cover 21 October 1943, Subhas Chandra Bose proclaiming the ormation o the Provisional Government o Free India at Singapore’s Cathay Cinema. Photo: Courtesy ISEAS Library.
All information in this document is privileged. None of this may be reproduced or reprinted without due acknowledgement to the Nalanda-Sriwijaya Nalanda-Sriwija ya Centre, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore. Email:
[email protected]
Contents 4
Foreword George Yeo
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Message K Kesavapany
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Preace Tansen Sen
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Introduction Nilanjana Sengupta
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His appeal cut across religious, caste and linguistic lines SR Nathan
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In Bose’s lie story, Singapore was an important platorm TCA Raghavan
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Remembering Bose in Singapore Kwa Chong Guan
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In his Footsteps... Krishna Bose
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The Rani o Jhansi Regiment Joyce Chapman Lebra
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A Rani on Horseback Nilanjana Sengupta
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Roads to Delhi Sugata Bose
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Through the Archives Photographs, Photograph s, newspaper clippings, documents, etc. on the INA in Singapore
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Select Bibliograph Bibliography y
D R O W E R O F
Subhas Chandra Bose and Singapore GEORGE YEO Former Minister or Foreign Aairs, Republic o Singapore
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any non-Indian Singaporeans are unaware o the role Singapore played in the independence struggle o India. Some, especially Chinese Singaporeans, saw Netaji as a Japanese collaborator. In a sense he was. The Japanese Army removed Mohan Singh to clear the way or Netaji’s rise as the leader o the Indian National Army. (Incidentally, Mohan Singh was incarcerated in a small prison on Pulau Pulau Ubin which still stands today but is now temporarily used as a seaood restaurant.) Netaji’s role in threatening the Raj by military orce was a necessary complement to Gandhi’s non-violent struggle. The The British knew k new that i they did not grant India reedom, they would eventually be orced out. Persisting in the prosecution o INA soldiers ater the War would only make their position in India worse. With the detachment o time, Netaji’s role in the independence o India is increasingly acknowledged across Indian society. Singaporeans are also increasingly aware and proud o the part Singapore played in that big story. It runs strangely parallel to the part Singapore played in another big story – the 1911 Revolution in China – the Centennial o which we celebrate this year. History brought two great historical gures to Singapore, Dr Sun Yat-Sen and Subhas Chandra Bose, and Singapore became a base or their monumental exertions, one to the east and the other to our west. This was not twice an accident. Because o its geographical and cultural position in between these two civilizations, Singapore’s Singapore’s destiny is inseparably linked to both. As it was in the 19th and 20th centuries, so too will it be in this century.
From let: INA veterans Bala Chandran, Kishore Bhattacharya and Girish Kothari with George Yeo at the launch o Sugata Bose’s new biography o Netaji, His Majesty’s Opponent. Photo: Madan Kunnavakkam
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E G A S S E M
Bose and the linked histories o Singapore and India
K KESAVAPANY Director, Institute o Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore
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he history o modern Singapore begins with Stamord Raes going to Calcutta and receiving the East India Company’s permission to set up a trading base on the island. However, However, this is only hal the story. The other hal begins with Subhas Chandra Bose revitalizing the Indian National Army in Singapore to ght British colonialism in India. The landings by Raes and Bose – in 1819 and 1943 respectively – are the t wo most critical events in the history o Singapore beore its independence in 1965. The two earlier dates tie together inextricably the histories o India and Singapore. It was at the Padang in Singapore that Bose mesmerized and motivated Indians to join the military quest or India’s independence. His marching call, “Chalo Delhi”, gave meaning to their downtrodden lives and unullled imaginations in colonial Singapore and Malaya. What is striking is that he managed to cut across religious, linguistic, regional and gender divisions and give his ollowers an inclusive sense o Indianness.
Tellingly, the Indian National Army recruited Indians outside the martial races who, the British believed, were the only capable sources o military valour. The Rani o Jhansi Regiment destroyed the nal divide and gave women the condence and capacity to ght alongside men. This was a truly revolutionary endeavour. That Pandit Nehru laid a wreath at the site o the INA memorial during his visit to Singapore in 1946 suggests the importance o Bose and his INA in the Indian reedom struggle. It also reects the historical linkages between Singapore and India.
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E C A F E R P
Singapore and Calcutta TANSEN SEN Head, Nalanda-Sriwijaya Nalanda-Sriwijaya Centre at ISEAS
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n 1826, Singapore became part o the Straits Settlements ollowing the Anglo-Dutch Treaty signed two years earlier. In 1830, it was ocially placed under the Presidency o Bengal and thus within the administration o the British East India Company. In act, British control o the port started in 1819, when a British East India Company ocial named Thomas Stamord Raes reached an agreement with the local ocials to allow a British trading outpost to be established at Singapore. With the placing o the territory under the Presidency o Bengal, Calcutta (Kolkata), then the capital o British India, not only acquired administrative control over Singapore, but also became intimately linked to the Southeast Asian port through commercial and cultural activities. On one hand, Singapore was the main transit centre or opium, cotton and other goods exported rom Calcutta to China, as well as a penal settlement or Indian political prisoners and other criminals prosecuted by the Bengal government. On the other hand, Singapore and Calcutta were connected through the missionary work by ollowers o various aiths and movements o immigrant groups, especially those belonging to the Baghdadi Jews and the Parsi communities. David Marshall, the rst chie minister o Singapore, or example, was a descendant o Jewish immigrants rom Calcutta. Moreover, during the Japanese Occupation, prominent Malayans and Singaporeans such as Lim Bo Seng, Albert Foo Yin Chiew, and Tan Chin Tuan evacuated to Calcutta. With other evacuees in India, some o these people discussed the plans or post-War reconstruction o the Malayan region. As Sunanda DuttaRay has pointed out in his seminal work Looking East to Look West: Lee Kuan Yew’s Mission India, Calcutta’s connection to Singapore also
included the minting o Singapore dollars in the Indian city, the establishment o the rst Singapore bank by the Union Bank o Calcutta, and the ounding o Singapore’s major English-language newspaper, The Straits Times, Times, in 1845, by Catchick Moses, a Calcutta Armenian.
achieved without Imperialism, without dismembering the Chinese Republic, without humiliating another proud, cultured and ancient race? No, with all our admiration or Japan, where such admiration is due, our whole heart goes to China in her hour o trial.” He concluded by stating, “Standing at the threshold o The highlights o Singapore’s a new era, let India resolve to aspire connections to Calcutta, and Bengal ater national sel-ulllment in every in general, were no doubt the visit direction — but not at the expense by Rabindranath Tagore in 1927 o other nations and not through the and the establishment o the Indian bloody path o sel-aggrandisement National Army base in Singapore by and imperialism.” Singaporeans are Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose in 1943. generally unaware o Bose’s critique Both Tagore and Bose are regarded o Japanese imperialism. as heroes by Bengalis worldwide. Tagore’s six-day visit to Singapore As the Singapore minister o oreign put him in contact with a key afairs, George Yeo had discussed individual named Tan Yunshan, then with his then Indian counterpart a teacher at a local Chinese school, Pranab Mukherjee “the ormation o who later helped establish the rst a group to study, in a contemporary China studies centre at Visva-Bharati context, the heritage o Bose and the University in Santiniketan. Bose’s Indian National Army in Singapore.” eforts in Singapore provided new This booklet and the orthcoming impetus to India’s reedom struggle. monograph by the editor o this volume, Nilanjana Sengupta, Unlike Tagore, however, the legacy entitled A Gentleman’s Word: The o Bose in Singapore is somewhat Legacy o Subhas Chandra Bose in ambiguous, as can be discerned Southeast Asia, attempt to begin rom George Yeo’s Foreword to this such examination o the heritage o volume. He correctly points out Bose in Singapore. that many non-Indian Singaporeans are unaware o the role Singapore This booklet is also part o the played in India’s reedom movement. Nalanda-Sriwijaya Centre’s eforts Indeed, while Indians in Singapore to study the interactions between – the ormer British army conscripts, Singapore and India through the the indentured labourers, and other examination o archival material in Indian immigrants who joined the India and Southeast Asia. In act, on Indian National Army – saw Bose as the dusty shelves o the West Bengal the leader o an Indian nationalist State Archives there is a huge range movement, the local Chinese were o les and books that are essential more concerned about the spread materials or studying the crucial o Japanese imperialism. Many o relationship between Singapore and them looked at Bose and the Indian Calcutta during the colonial period. National Army through the prisms o They await in-depth exploration and Japanese colonialism and brutality. study. There are also unexplored materials in the National Archives But, Bose himsel had been critical o Singapore that will help us more o the means the Japanese used to ully understand the dynamic and conront Western imperialism. In multi-aceted interactions between 1937, commenting on the Japanese Singapore and Calcutta. Occupation in China, Bose wrote, “But could not all this have been nnn
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N O I T C U D O R T N I
A City and a Soldier: S oldier: Netaji in Singapore NILANJANA SENGUPTA Visiting Research Fellow, ISEAS
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n 6 May 1943 Subhas Chandra Bose arrived by submarine at Sabang, an isolated islet of the coast o Sumatra. Plans o disembarking at the more populous Penang had to be discarded because some Japanese codes had been intercepted by the Allies. His long and arduous journey had lasted almost three months and taken Bose and his adjutant Abid Hasan, halway across the globe, rst in German and then Japanese submarines. Hasan wrote that as he stepped aboard the German U-boat, the envisaged romance o travelling by a submarine ast dissipated: Bose was allotted a bunk in an unenclosed recess in the passage and the “stench o diesel” permeated the air.1 Emilie Schenkl came to Berlin to bid them goodbye. For Bose, ater their long and committed relationship or the previous ten years and the recent birth o his daughter, Anita, it must have been an emotionally dicult parting.2 But as their vessel moved underwater, underwater, suracing only at night to recharge batteries, the leader put in long hours o work preparing or the Indian nationalist struggle that he was to spearhead in Southeast Asia, undeterred by physical or emotional adversities. Almost immediately on arrival, Bose departed or Tokyo, rom where was transmitted his rst radio messages ater a lapse o several months. These messages contributed to the sense o anticipation that preceded his eventual landing at Singapore on 2 July 1943. The drum roll o his impending arrival was heard in the newspapers o the time. Japanese-run Syonan Times hailed
The crew o the Japanese submarine in 1943. Abid Hasan and Bose are in the ront row, extreme let. Photo: Courtesy Netaji Research Bureau.
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Forthcoming book on Netaji by Nilanjana Sengupta, to be published by ISEAS
him as the “Idol o Indian Youth”3 and carried double column headlines announcing his participation in the Indian Freedom Movement: “Subhas Chandra Bose coming...to take active part in Indian Independence move… announcement o arrival in Tokyo signal o victory…The Indian Independence Movement in Toa [East Asia] has the powerul support o Nippon…But it is a movement organised and carried on by the sons and daughters o India who are ree citizens o Toa.”4 News o his radio broadcasts in English and Hindustani, to be aired on “225 metres” also received publicity. Janaki Davar, living at Rie Range, Kuala Lumpur heard o his coming via the local bushtelegraph5 while Bala A Chandran, who would join the Balak Sena, had the news read out to him by his mother rom the Malayalam paper, Kerala Bandhu. Bandhu.6 From this time till January 1944, when the advance headquarters o the Provisio Provisional nal Government were moved to Rangoon, and again or a period towards the end o the war in 1945, Singapore would remain the heartland o Bose’s anticolonial campaign. On 4 July 1943 Bose made his rst public appearance at the Cathay Theatre in Singapore and invited all his countrymen rom “East Asia, to line up in one solid phalanx under one leadership and prepare or the grim ght” that lay ahead.7 This was also the last time he was seen in civilian attire as he ormally accepted the leadership o the Indian Independence League (IIL) rom the veteran leader, Rashbehari Bose. The ollowing day, on 5 July Subhas Chandra Bose appeared at the Singapore Padang, opposite the
In his last note addressed to the Indians o East Asia, who had stood by him through the initial euphoria and the subsequent despondency o deeat, Netaji held out a promise: “The roads to Delhi are many and Delhi still remains our goal…India shall be ree and beore long.” long.” The words have come to personiy an indomitable human spirit in the ace o impossible odds. Municipal Building (now City Hall) to address the “Soldiers o India’s Army o Liberation”. Some 12,000 soldiers o the Indian National Army (INA) as well as a rapturous crowd o civilians had gathered to hear his historic speech: “Let your battle-cry be ‘To Delhi! To Delhi!’ How many o us will individually survive this war o reedom, I do not know. But I do know this ... our task will not end until our surviving heroes hold the victory parade on another graveyard o the British Empire – Lal Kila...o ancient Delhi.”8 SR Nathan, ormer President o Singapore, who was present on the day, recalls the slight drizzle that started midway through the speech. Netaji (“Respected leader”) was not too pleased when some rom the audience got restive and looked or shelter.9 Soon ater, on 12 July, Bose ullled a long cherished dream and addressed the rst recruits o the all-women Rani o Jhansi Regiment (RJR).
1942, under the leadership o Mohan Singh, were now “swept of their eet” and took the combined strength o the INA to more than 40,000.11 There were many amilies where the parents joined the INA and the Rani o Jhansi Regiment, while the younger ones signed up with the Balak Sena. Proessor Wang Gungwu recalls his childhood acquaintances, Rasammah Bhupalan and her sister who let their home in Ipoh to enlist with the Rani o Jhansi Regiment.12
anniversary o his taking over leadership o the movement, he addressed a large gathering in Singapore and on 8 July, laid the oundation stone o the INA martyr’s memorial at the Singapore searont. But with the bombing o Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the war came to a sudden end and on 16 August 1945, Subhas Chandra Bose let Singapore on a nal journey-o-no-return with three o his close compatriots. They travelled rst to Bangkok and then to Saigon. On 17 August he let Saigon aboard a Japanese On 21 October 1943 in Singapore, Air Force bomber, accompanied by his Bose proclaimed the ormation o the deputy chie o staf, Habibur Rahman. Provisional Government o Azad Hind. They transitted at the Taipei airport or Yet again the Cathay Theatre was lled reuelling. The engine o the aircrat to capacity as Netaji and his Cabinet o had been giving trouble and, soon ministers took the oath o allegiance. In ater the plane was airborne, there was a voice choked with emotions the leader a loud explosion and it tilted to the let declared, “In the name o God, I take and eventually crashed not ar rom the this sacred oath – that to liberate India runway. Netaji, who sufered serious and the 38 crores o my countrymen, burn injuries while struggling out o the I, Subhas Chandra Bose, will continue ateul aircrat, breathed his last on 18 this sacred war o reedom till the last August, at a hospital in Taipei: he was yet The 5 July parade set an important breath o my lie.”13 The organizational to turn 49. precedent. In the subsequent months, structure o the Provisional Government Netaji’ss journeys criss-crossed Southeast included in this volume (p. 27), is taken In his last note addressed to the Indians Netaji’ Asia, taking him to Malaya, Burma, rom the writings o SA Ayer and depicts o East Asia, who had stood by him Indonesia, Thailand and French the ministries as well as IIL’s territorial through the initial euphoria and the Indochina. Everywhere the trend was spread across the countries o Southeast subsequent despondency o deeat, noticeably uniorm: he spoke in stirring Asia.14 The Provisional Government Netaji held out a promise: “The roads to English or Hindustani, rapidly translated soon received diplomatic recognition Delhi are many and Delhi still remains into Tamil or the large Tamil-speaking rom nine states o the Axis powers – our goal…India shall be ree and diaspora and the audience responded this would bequeath a constitutional beore long.”15 The words have come with equal ervour, committing their legitimacy to the new government and to personiy an indomitable human services and material possessions to the help strengthen the INA’s case at the spirit in the ace o impossible odds. nationalist cause. These larger-than-lie subsequent Red Fort Trials held by the The INA movement met with apparent INA rallies let a trail o memories and British in India. ailure in the campaigns o 1945 and yet nd repeated mention in oral history managed to leave a legacy or India and records. It was a time when Indian By mid-1945, Netaji returned to the Indians o Southeast Asia as they households took pride in hoisting the tri- Singapore ater an extended period struggled to shed their colonial status. coloured ag and in a ascinating story, spent on the Indo-Burmese battleront. As the Japanese surrendered and the Syonan Sinbun reports that some Indians The tides o war had turned against the INA was disbanded, a large number o looked upon Bose as the “Lord Krishna Axis Powers: in Europe the Germans had the troops were repatriated to India. o the moment” who had appeared to been decisively deeated while in Asia The Red Fort trials o the trio – Shah scourge the evils o colonialism.10 the end o Japanese Occupation seemed Nawaz Khan, Gurubaksh Singh Dhillon imminent. Bose returned, leading the and Prem Kumar Sahgal, held at Delhi As Netaji’s powerul campaigns women o the Rani o Jhansi Regiment in November 1945, triggered powerul continued, the number o volunteers to to saety, ater a horriying retreat public resentment which soon spread the cause soared. Some 18,000 civilians10 through the jungles and monsoon- to units o the British Indian Army, enlisted or the INA while thousands swollen rivers o Burma. Though the war ultimately leading to the subversion o joined the IIL’s branch oces in support was obviously drawing to a close, or Indian loyalty to this supreme tool o unctions. The Indian POWs who had not him India’s independence movement British hegemony in Asia: the Army could committed their allegiance to the INA in was not yet nished. On 4 July, the not be used to suppress the indigenous
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nationalist movements which had sprung up in parts o Southeast Asia as efectively as it had been done beore. Participation in the nationalist struggle invested the resident Indian community o Southeast Asia with a rare sense o dignity and ostered a mushrooming o militant trade unions, making it dicult or the returning British planters to perpetuate their control over what had once been a docile workorce. At the INA camps Indian society came together in a powerul alchemy o new ideas and political views as the partisans were exposed to not only nationalism but diverse radical schools o political thought.16 The Rani o Jhansi movement Janaki Davar leads a Guard o Honour or Netaji. proved to be a pioneering efort at Photo: Courtesy Janaki Nahappan. drawing Indian women out o their veiled image - inspiring some o them to take up mainstream roles or causes o equality and emancipation. Subhas The nal section puts together accessible NOTES available on Bose – the Chandra Bose became a role model or archival material available 1. Abid Hasan, “A Soldier Remembers”, The a new generation o Asian leaders, many oral history recordings, photographs, Oracle, January 1984, Calcutta: NRB, p. 53. o whom were inspired by his oratory newspaper clippings, propaganda Bose’s only leaets and letters that shed resh light 2. Anita Bose, Subhas Chandra Bose’s skills and advocacy o militancy. child, was born in November 1942. on a turbulent period which proved Times, 19 June 1943. In this slim volume being published by to be a turning point in Asia’s shared 3. Syonan Times, the Nalanda-Sriwijaya Centre, Institute history. The interviews with the veterans 4. Syonan Times, 21 June 1943. o Southeast Asian Studies, we attempt o the INA and Rani o Jhansi Regiment 5. Interview with Janaki Athi Nahappan, to recapture the spirit o the movement reveal a very diferent Singapore – it Kuala Lumpur, 23 September 2011. which Bose unleashed in Singapore. In was a time o kampongs and vegetable his narrative, Kwa Chong Guan dwells arms in Bukit Timah, when the Azad 6. Interview with Bala A Chandran, on the diferent layers o memories that Hind Radio was located at the Cathay Singapore, 15 September 2011. Bose evokes – the ocial, the personal building, when the INA men went or 7. “Chalo Delhi, 1943-45” , Netaji Collected and the objective reconstruction o morning runs on Dunearn Road and the Works, Volume 12, 12 , Calcutta: NRB, p. 39. history by academia. In Krishna Bose’s “Ranis” marched down Bras Basah! delightul essay, the past and present seamlessly merge as she writes o her personal travels through Singapore, in pursuit o the invisible “Freedom Trail”. Joyce Chapman Lebra, ater her substantive research on the INA and the RJR, ofers ascinating details on the allwomen regiment that Netaji raised. We round up the essays with a brie excerpt rom Sugata Bose’s recent publication, His Majesty’s Opponent: Subhas Chandra Bose and India’s Struggle Against Empire. Empire . The piece detly captures the rich panoply o thought that contributes to the texture o the biography: it begins with the rationale in Bose’s contentious alliance with the Japanese, describes the very symbolic handing over o the Andaman and Nicobar Islands by the Japanese to the Provincial Government o Azad Hind and ends on a poignant note with a radio message transmitted to Bose, conveying the news o his mother, Prabhabati Debi’s death in Calcutta.
8. “Chalo Delhi, 1943-45” , pp. 45-48.
This volume is urther enriched by extracts o speeches by SR Nathan, ormer President o Singapore, and TCA Raghavan, High Commissioner o India in Singapore, at the launch o Sugata Bose’s denitive biography o Subhas Chandra Bose, His Majesty’s Opponent , and by the Foreword by George Yeo, ormer Minister or Foreign Afairs, Singapore. Subhas Chandra Bose during his Cambridge days in England was wont to recite a slightly modied version o Kipling’s verse “There is but one task or allOne lie or each to give. What stands i reedom all? Who dies i India i India live?” – lines that capture perectly the essence o the ideal by which he would lead his uture lie.
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9. SR Nathan, An Nathan, An Unexpected Journey: Path to the Presidency, Singapore, Singapore , EDM, 2011, p. 105. 10. Syonan Sinbun, Sinbun, 29 October 1943. 11. Sugata Bose, His Majesty’s Opponent , Cambridge MA.: Harvard University Press, pp. 246, 251. 12. Interview with Proessor Wang Gungwu, Singapore, 20 September 2011. 13. “Chalo “Chalo Delhi, 1943-45” , p. 117. 14. SA Ayer was a journalist who became the Minister o Publicity and Propaganda with the Provisional Government. His book, Unto Him a Witness Witnes s narrates his rst-hand experiences o the time. 15. “Chalo “Chalo Delhi, 1943-45” , pp. 407-410. 16. Many o the veterans interviewed or this volume recall being exposed in their INA days to the writings o Bernard Shaw, Marx, Lenin and Fabian Society publications.
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T N E N O P P O S ’ Y T S E J A M S I H F O H C N U A L
His appeal cut across religious, caste and linguistic lines SR NATHAN Former President, Republic o Singapore
Subhas Chandra Bose was a sworn enemy o the British Raj although he could have enjoyed more than a comortable career in in the prestigious Indian Civil Civil Service (ICS) o colonial India. He was an alumnus o Calcutta’s prestigious Presidency College and o Cambridge University, who excelled in his studies. But he resigned rom the ICS on principle, committed as he was to struggle against British rule in India. What he is also remembered or is the election he won to become the President President o the Indian National Congress in 1939, deeating the nominee o Mahatma Gandhi. With his arrival in Singapore in July 1943, he revitalized the Indian Independence League and the Indian National Army (INA) that had been earlier ormed by Captain, later General, Mohan Singh. On 4 July that year, he rose to the leadership o the Indian reedom movement movement based in Southeast Asia. In rallying support or his cause in Southeast Asia, he ofered to those prepared to ollow him “nothing but hunger, thirst, privation, orced marches and death”, and announced to the whole world that India’ss army o liberation had come into being. In October that year, he proclaimed the ormation o India’ the Azad Hind, or Provisional Government o Free India, in Singapore. What I remember o him, was when he appeared at his rst public rally, organised to welcome him in Singapore in early July 1943. 1943. Being Straits-born and very much a product product o the British education system, I received my rst political education and an eye-opener to what the Indian struggle was about. From that speech my perspective o British rule, rule, even in Malaya, took an opposite turn and has remained so to this day. Bose’s exemplary character did play an important role in his extraordinary appeal to the Indians in occupied Southeast Asia. Asia. His charismatic personality personality does not explain all o the public adulation adulation that he aroused in Singapore and beyond. Scholars write that his presence marked the real dawn o mass anti-British politics in Malaya. People ocked to hear him, donated money, jewellery or pocket money, and took up his cause. With his inspiration, docile and subservient Indian workers rose in sel-condence and discipline to become part o his INA and saw action in the Burma/India Front. His appeal cut across religious, caste and linguistic lines so much a part o Indian society then. He brought women into the mainstream o the armed struggle against the British through the Rani o Jhansi Regiment. Although the INA did not succeed in reaching the destination that Netaji desired – “Chalo Delhi”, or “Onward to Delhi” – historians acknowledge that it contributed decisively to the Independence that India nally achieved in 1947. Singapore’s role as the launching pad o his struggle and the INA’s ultimately successul anti-colonial march is a act o history that relates this country closely to India’s India’s Independence struggle. In this book, Proessor Sugata Sugata Bose describes the INA segment o Netaji’s Netaji’s political and military journey with historical passion and literary elan. In act, these are the dening characteristics o the book as a whole. Proessor Bose, despite being a close amily member o Subhas Chandra Bose, has written this book with the same scholarly detachment that he brings to bear on his work as a leading historian at Harvard. I am condent that readers o this book will enjoy enjoy the ascinating story that unolds within its pages.
nnn These speeches were delivered at the launch o o His Majesty’s Opponent: Subhas Chandra Bose and India’s India’s Struggle Against Empire by Sugata Bose, in Singapore on 5 July 2011. The venue o the launch overlooked the Padang where Netaji made his stirring speech on 5 July 1943. An excerpt o Sugata Bose’s book appears on page 24.
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In Bose’s lie story, Singapore was an important platorm TCA RAGHAVAN High Commissioner o India, Singapore
Subhas Chandra Bose, or Netaji, occupies a unique space in Indian political history. In Subhas Chandra Bose’s lie story, Singapore Singapore was not just an important milestone, but also an important platorm. Your presence here today, Mr President, gives our understanding o that period o our history a certain completeness and nality. It is also symbolic both o Singapore’s Singapore ’s special place in the biography and history o Subhas Chandra Bose as also o his own extraordinary personality and sense o national ser vice. In writing this biography, Sugata Bose has accomplished two important things. Firstly, he has lled a large gap in our knowledge o Indian politics and the national movement by adding a rigorous biography o Bose to the existing literature. Secondly, I believe that this work will catalyze more biographies o our historical personages, and thereby animate our history. Pro Bose has thereore achieved that double milestone which all proessional historians strive or: A good work o history which is also a trendsetter in historiographical terms. Finally, may I thank the Institute o Southeast Asian Studies. Finally, Studies. One day in the uture, when the ull history o India’s Look East policy is written, I am sure that the ISEAS and the scholars and researchers who are associated with it will nd a ull recognition o what their scholarly eforts yielded.
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BOOK LAUNCH From let: Salman Khurshid, India’s Law Minister; Pro Sugata Bose; SR Nathan, ormer President o Singapore; Ambassador K Kesavapany, ISEAS Director; and Dr TCA Raghavan, High Commissioner o India in Singapore. Photo by Joyce Iris Zaide.
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Remembering Bose in Singapore KWA CHONG GUAN Chairman, National Archives Board, Singapore On 15 July 1995, S Dhanabalan, the Member o Parliament or Toa Payoh GRC unveiled a plaque at the Esplanade Park, marking the site where an older World War II memorial erected by the Indian National Army once stood. The plaque reads: In the nal months o the Japanese Occupation o Singapore, a memorial dedicated to the ‘Unknown Warrior’ o the Indian National Army (INA) was constructed at this site. The local INA was ormed in 1942 with Japanese support. It sought to liberate liberate India rom the British and consisted mainly o prisoners-o-war rom the British Indian Army. Army. Subhas Chandra Bose, who led the INA rom 1943 onwards, laid a oundation stone at the monument monument in July July 1945. The Urdu Urdu words inscribed on the Monument read: ITTEFAQ (Unity), ITMAD (Faith) and KURBANI (Sacrice). When the British returned to Singapore, they demolished the memorial barely two months ater its installation.
Ofcial Remembering o Bose This marking o the site o the World War II INA memorial by the National Heritage Board was part o a wider project that marked eleven World War II sites in Singapore. Other locations marked included the beaches at Kranji on the north-west coast o Singapore where Japanese orces landed, sites o major battles at Bukit Panjang and on Kent Ridge and also the places in the city were the Japanese gathered the male Chinese population or screening or anti-Japanese activities. This marking o key World War II sites in 1995 continued a longer programme o commemorating World War II as a major turning point o Singapore’s historical development. In 1992 the old National National
Museum (o which I was then the Director) organized a major exhibition marking the 50th anniversary o the start o the Japanese invasion o Malaya and Singapore. Singapore. Concurrent exhibitions were organized by the Singapore Armed Forces at their old Beach Road Camp, home o the Singapore Volunteers’ Corps, commemorating the contribution o the volunteers to the deence o Singapore; and the public opening by the Singapore Heritage Society o the old Ford actory on Bukit Timah Road where General AE Percival surrendered to General Yamashita. Yamashita.
INA in Singapore under Bose, and also the establishment o the Rani o Jhansi Regiment. Regiment. A major major part o the exhibition examined the INA’s campaign to go “Onward to Delhi” (Chalo Delhi), as its slogan slogan proclaimed. proclaimed. The underlying underlying intent o the exhibition was, as the National Archives o Singapore stated, to show “the historical journey o the INA and its role in India’s struggle or reedom. The INA episode demonstrates the common cause that was orged in the 1940s between the nationalists in India and their compatriots in Singapore.” Social Memories o Netaji
Bose and the INA he led were remembered at a level o deeper These ocial and public rememberings reections about Singapore’s shared o Subhas Chandra Bose’s time in histories with the region in a 2003 Singapore is derived in part rom a more National Archives exhibition entitled extensive network o social memories Chalo Delhi: The Historical Journey o the o an older generation o Indians who Indian National Army , organized with personally saw and heard Bose or Netaji the support o the National Archives as they named him, and were then drawn o India. The exhibition outlined to support the Indian Independence the British India background to the League and and the INA he led. The social Indian nationalist struggles and how memories o this older generation o their militant strategy challenged MK Indians resident in Singapore were Gandhi’s more pacist approach in the rst captured in an oral history project nationalist struggle or independence. undertaken by the Oral History Centre in Subsequent sections o the exhibition the 1980s. The Centre Centre was established traced the establishment o the second in 1979 under the aegis o the National
Bose laid a oundation stone at the monument in July 1945. The Urdu words inscribed on it read ittefaq (unity), itmad (aith) and kurbani (sacrifce). When the British returned to Singapore, they demolished the memorial barely two months ater its installation. The original INA monument. Photo: Courtesy National Archives o Singapore
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Archives to interview people who had personally witnessed or participated in the key events or institutions that dene Singapore history, especially o events or which there is scant and ragmentary documentary records. Documenting the Japanese Occupation through the social memories o those who lived through it became a major project o the Oral History Centre. Centre. The several hundred hours o interviews with scores o interviewees not only Singapore residents, but also Allied prisonerso-war and Japanese ocials and military commanders, now constitutes a substantive archival record o the Occupation. The inormation in these interviews enabled the Archives to mount a successul exhibition on the Japanese Occupation o Singapore in 1985, and in 2006 to install a permanent exhibition on the Occupation in the old Ford Factory.
‘Chalo Delhi’ or Onward to Delhi was the Indian National Army’s slogan. Photo: Courtesy Netaji Research Bureau
would simply remove their gold jewellery and threw [them] at his eet. That was their contribution toward his war eort. He was a very impressive speaker, very ery and he held the crowd in his control, nobody moved until he nished speaking.”
A pervasive theme in almost all the interviews with Indians was the emotional impact which hearing and meeting Netaji had on them. Several decades later, their memories o Netaji These oral history interviews capture are still still vivid. vivid. Here are are some some memories memories the drama o a personal experience rom people who remember Netaji’s with Bose and make or a more personal understanding and remembering o rally at Singapore’s Padang in 1943: Bose in Singapore than is contained in Narayana Karuppiah (then 17): “…it the ragmentary documentary sources. was a grand meeting. Most o the Indians were at the Padang. And while he was Academic Reconstructions o Bose addressing us, there was a heavy rain. And some people brought an umbrella to Over and above the public and ocial put on his head. Immediately he smacked remembering o Bose and the social and threw o the umbrella. It was also memories o those who personally raining, he was standing in the rain. And experienced him, are the academic the people also were in the rain. They did reconstructions o how Bose should not move even an inch. And we were there be remembered on the basis o the until he completed his speech. It was a extant evidence making or a veriable really long speech, i I am not mistaken a and objective account o Bose. Sugata two or three hour hour speech. It was really a Bose’s epic biography o Netaji, entitled His Majesty’s Opponent; Subhas Chandra magnetic speech.” Bose and India’s Struggle against Empire Damodaran:: “The whole Padang was ofers an insight into locating the INA Damodaran ull o people, the whole Padang. Padang. And it leader in the context o Indian and happened to be a very heavy rain...And I British Empire history. But or Southeast very well remember, somebody hold an Asia and Singapore, the scholarly umbrella to Netaji. So, he brushed it away accounting o Bose and the Indian and asked, ‘Can you provide umbrellas or National Army is about the tension between the INA as the rallying point all these people?’ o the Indian diaspora’s hopes or the Oh, that meeting was over and heavy rain, motherland and the INA as but one o we all walked back home, rom Padang the numerous volunteer and personal armies established and trained by the right up to Nelson Road we walked.” Japanese as part o their war strategy Joginder Singh (then 24): “…when o building resistance groups against Subhas Chandra Bose spoke, women the returning Allies. Joyce Chapman
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Lebra’s work Japanese Trained Armies in Southeast Asia, Asia, recently reprinted by the Institute o Southeast Asian Studies is still the benchmark study in this area. In summary, there are then at least three diferent rememberings o Bose in Singapore. These are the ocial public remembering o Bose in the context o Singapore’s World War II history and shared histories with the region, and second, the personal social memories o a generation o Indian residents drawn to Bose and the INA as a vehicle or their hopes or India. The third is the academic reconstruction o a precise and objective narrative o the time Bose spent in Singapore. LINKS Oral history interviews, alongside other archival material on Netaji and Singapore related topics can be searched at the ‘Access to Archives Online’ website at www. a2o.com.sg. Archival Resources concerning Singapore’s war-time experiences can be accessed at www.s1942.org.sg See p. 26 o this volume or more archival material.
nnn Kwa Chong Guan is a co-author o Singao Singapore: A 700-year History: From Early Emporium to World City and editor o S o S Rajaratnam on Singapore: From Ideas to Reality. More recently he co-edited China-ASEAN co-edited China-ASEAN Sub-Regional Cooperation: Progress, Problems and Prospects and also Goh Keng Swee: A Public Career Remembered.
In his Footsteps... KRISHNA BOSE Chairperson, Netaji Research Bureau, Kolkata
S During the night o 19-20 October 1943, Netaji wrote the Proclamation o the Provisional Government o Free India. He had a keen sense o humour and announced that all the signatories to the proclamation o Irish Independence were later shot dead. “Who knows what destiny has in store or us?”, he said and burst into laughter.
ingapore played a prominent role in India’s last war o Independence. During the Second World War, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose established the Provisional Government o Azad Hind (Free India) in Singapore and there gave his stirring call, ‘Chalo Delhi’ to the Indian National Army. The INA or Azad Hind Fauj began its march towards India, determined to liberate it rom British rule. Netaji had arrived in Singapore on 2 July 1943 to a tumultuous welcome. The song, ‘Subhasji, Subhasji’ that greeted him, proclaimed to the world that the light o Asia had arrived to liberate India and with his arrival there was new hope or the regeneration o Asia. My rst visit to Singapore was in November 1979. The city had changed since the war. But the history o India’s reedom struggle still seemed to be strewn all over Singapore. In Boston, there is a ‘Freedom Trail’ marked in red, which visitors ollow to see the landmarks o the American War o Independence. On that visit to Singapore, my husband Sisir Kumar Bose and I, seemed to ollow an invisible Freedom Trail, which took us to all the historic sites connected with the memory o the great reedom ghter. It was like leang through a history book. Sidhatmanandaji, the Head o the Ramakrishna Mission Ashram, told us: “You must begin with the Mission o Singapore.” He did not mean the mission building in which we were sitting with him. We were staying at the Ramakrishna Mission guest house, under the afectionate care o Swamiji. This was a new building. The old Ramakrishna Mission building still existed with its puja room and Lecture Hall, which Netaji had requently visited. On our arrival at the old ashram at Norris Road, Sthitanandaji took charge and showed us around.
heard so much about Netaji’s late-night visits to this room rom SA Ayer and Abid Hasan. Both said he looked remarkably serene and calm when he emerged rom his meditations. SA Ayer had told us that Netaji was not a religious man in the ordinary sense o the term. But he had a deep spiritual aith. It was this aith that sustained him in times o crisis. Everyone knew he carried a small Gita and a rosary o rudraksha beads with him. But nobody ever saw him perorm any religious rites in public. Faced with a crisis in the war situation, he would simply go to the puja room, take of his uniorm, put on a silk dhoti and sit down in meditation. When he emerged he passed on a healing touch to Ayer, Abid and others. At times, they too were under great stress. One ne morning in Singapore, we stood beore a closed gate on Meyer Road. We could see the lawn and an impressive two-storey building beyond the gate. My guides were hesitant about going in without permission. Impatient at their hesitation, I just pushed the gate and marched in, amidst a chorus o protests rom behind, “Take care, there may be dogs inside!” The lawn was not very well-maintained. Thorny grass got caught in my sari. Netaji used to play badminton here with his colleagues or Raju, his personal doctor. There was a stone table with stone chairs around it. I visualized Netaji: tired ater a game resting there with a cup o tea.
I had ocused my camera or a shot o the house when suddenly the house came alive. There There was laughter and the sound o ootsteps. The ront door opened with a bang and a Chinese couple and two children walked straight into my camera’s view. I told them that long ago a relative had lived in this house and asked i we could just look around. The gentleman recovered rom his initial First we went to the puja room. It was still surprise and said, “Oh yes, go ahead.” in use. The smell o owers and ‘dhup’ The amily got into a car and drove out. (incense) gave me an eerie eeling. I had Silence gripped the house again.
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In this house Netaji had resided as the Head o the Provisional Government o Free India. During the night o 1920 October 1943 he had written the Proclamation Proclam ation o that Government, sitting in the same house. SA Ayer, Ayer, in his writings, has recounted that historic night. Netaji sipped black cofee and continued to write in long hand. Abid Hasan and NG Swami took turns to bring the pages to Ayer who went on typing. At the break o dawn the proclamation was ready.
Standing on the steps o the Municipal Building he declared: “Today is the proudest day o my lie. Today it has pleased Providence to give me the unique privilege and honour o announcing to the whole world that India’s Army o Liberation has come into being.”
The next day Netaji gave Ayer the ull list o signatories to the document. Netaji had always had a keen sense o humour and told them that all the signatories to the proclamation o Irish Independence were later shot dead. “Who knows what destiny has in store or us?”, he said and burst into laughter. Our Freedom Trail led us next to the Cathay Cinema. On 21 October 1943, Netaji read out the proclamation to a packed hall there: “In the name o God, in the name o bygone generations who have welded the Indian people into one nation, and in the name o the dead heroes who have bequeathed to us a tradition o heroism and sel-sacrice, we call upon the Indian people to rally round our banner and strike or India’s reedom”. He was overwhelmed with emotion while he took the oath to lead the reedom struggle till the last breath o his lie. Earlier in the year, on 4 July, the Cathay Cinema had witnessed another historic meeting. The veteran reedom ghter Rashbehari Bose had handed over to Netaji the leadership o the Azad Hind Movement. Netaji accepted the honour and the responsibility in a stirring speech in Hindustani. He said that on the day that India won reedom it would be or the people o India to decide what kind o government they wanted and who would lead them. For him personally, the only reward would be the liberation o his motherland.
The next day, 5 July, he stood at the Padang and took the salute o the Indian National Army. Standing on the steps o the Municipal Building he declared: “Today is the proudest day o my lie. Today it has pleased Providence to give me the unique privilege and honor o announcing to the whole world that 5 July 1943. Bose salutes his INA troops as Maj Gen Mohammad Zaman Zaman Kiani looks on. India’s Army o Liberation has come Photo: Courtesy Netaji Research Bureau.
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into being.” On 6 July Japan’s General Tojo stood by him and witnessed the military parade. Netaji addressed a huge public gathering on 9 July where he gave the call to all expatriate Indians in Southeast Asia or Total Mobilization. The slogan was: “Total Mobilization or a Total War”. The civil population responded with great enthusiasm. The day we visited Farrer Park in Singapore, we actually saw the cradle o the Azad Hind Movement. In February 1942, it was here that Major Fujiwara o the Japanese Army accepted the surrender o 45,000 British-Indian Army soldiers rom their British commanding ocer. In an unusual speech, Fujiwara declared that the soldiers would not be treated as prisoners o war; they could ght or their motherland’s liberation rom colonial rule. The rst INA, however, did not last long. It was Netaji’ss arrival a year later that had an electriying efect on the Netaji’ army as well as the civil population and a glorious chapter o India’ss reedom struggle unolded in war-torn Singapore. India’ The other great achievement o Netaji in Singapore was the ormation o the women’s wing o the army, the Rani o Jhansi Regiment. Netaji had envisaged it during his 93-day submarine journey rom Europe to East Asia. He gave it shape under the leadership o Lakshmi Sahgal (nee Swaminathan), Janaki Athi Nahappan (nee Davar) and others soon ater his arrival in Singapore. We We were shown a two-storey house surrounded by a high wall where the rst 300 recruits o the women’s Regiment were housed and trained. The women o the Rani o Jhansi Regiment subsequently proved their courage and ortitude in dicult times. Our Singaporean riends took us to the seashore, pointed to an empty space and said: “Here stood the Martyrs’ Memorial.” It had been Netaji’s wish to erect a memorial to the unknown soldiers o the Indian National Army. He chose a place by the seaside and laid the oundation in July 1945. By the rst week o September Colonel Cyril John Stracey o the INA built the Memorial there. On his arrival in Singapore, the rst thing that Mountbatten did was to blow up the Memorial with dynamite. A very shocking act indeed; proessional militaries normally do not show disrespect to enemy dead. But Mountbatten wished to humiliate the Indian patriots who had served in the Azad Hind Movement. When the Memorial was blown up, the INA soldiers and civilians who had gathered there were overwhelmed with grie. A soldier
It was in this house, on Meyer Road, that Netaji wrote the historic Proclamation o Independence through the night o 19 Oct 1943. Photo by Krishna Bose
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distraught with grie shouted: “Mountbatten, you did this to us today, one day you will be blown up like that.” Many INA ocers recalled this incident when three decades later Mountbatten was assassinated in a bomb blast by the IRA. The riendly government o Singapore built a small memorial at the spot later. Many visitors rom India go and pay their respects there. Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose had arrived in Singapore on 2 July 1943. He let his Meyer Road residence residence or the last time on 16 August 1945. We retraced our steps on the Freedom Freedom Trail to Meyer Road, where he spent the last ew days o his eventul sojourn in Singapore. Netaji was in Seremban when news reached him o the imminent surrender o Japan. Atom bombs had been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August. News also reached him that the Soviet Union had joined the war against Japan. He drove back to Singapore and reached his Meyer Road home in the evening. Ayer accompanied him. In another car, Major Alagappan, Colonel Enayet Kiani and others ollowed. General Mohammad Zaman Kiani and Colonel Habibur Rahman joined them at the Cabinet meeting at the south acing verandah on the rst oor. Raghavan, Thivy and Swami arrived rom Malaysia. From the night o 12 August to the early morning o 16 August the cabinet was in session continuously. There were many important decisions to be taken. Netaji’s greatest concern was the saety o the women o the Rani o Jhansi Regiment. He was also worried about the uture o the young INA cadets who were in the Military Academy o Tokyo. The boys would be stranded there, he eared. But or the Cabinet the most dicult decision was planning where Netaji Netaji would move move subsequently. subsequently. Netaji himsel wished to stay back in Singapore and surrender there with his army. But his colleagues thought that would be much too risky; the vengeul British would not spare Netaji’s lie. There was some discussion that he might go underground in Thailand and emerge later at a suitable time. But no nal decision could be reached. The Cabinet adjourned or some time on the evening o 14 August. Netaji went to see a drama perormance by the Rani o Jhansi Regiment, on the lie o Rani Lakshmibai o
Netaji at the inauguration o the Boys’ Home at the Ramakrishna Mission in Singapore in 1943. Photo: Courtesy Netaji Research Bureau.
Jhansi, the heroine o the 1857 Revolt. The packed hall burst into applause when Netaji arrived. At the end o the perormance all present sang the Indian national anthem. Japan ormally surrendered on 15 August. In the morning, in the middle o the Cabinet meeting, Colonel Stracey arrived with the designs o the Martyrs’ Memorial. Netaji approved one o the designs and enquired i the memorial could be erected beore the AngloAmerican orces arrived. “Certainly, Sir,” Colonel Stracey replied and let ater a smart salute. The others looked at Stracey with wonder mixed with disbelie.
Netaji let Singapore early in the morning o 16 August 1945 or what he himsel described as “an adventure into the unknown.”
During the deliberations on that day and the ollowing night it was decided that Netaji would leave Singapore the next morning. Netaji let Singapore early in the morning o 16 August 1945 or what he himsel described as “an adventure into the unknown.” As his plane took of, the curtain came down on the saga o Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and Singapore.
nnn Krishna Bose, distinguished academic and author o several books on Netaji, has been a three-term member o the Indian Parliament and chairperson o the Parliamentary Committee o External Aairs rom 1999 to 2004. She is currently Chairperson o the Netaji Research Bureau, an Institute o Internation International al Aairs ounded by her husband Sisir Kumar Bose at Netaji’s ancestral house in Kolkata.
The INA Headquarters on Chancery Lane. Photo: Courtesy Netaji Research Bureau.
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The Rani o Jhansi Regiment JOYCE CHAPMAN LEBRA Proessor Emerita, University o Colorado
S
Dozens, then hundreds, o teenage girls rom the rubber plantations o Malaya and Burma also volunteered – girls who had never seen India, yet eagerly gave their lives to Netaji and the Rani o Jhansi Regiment.
ingapore was electried when Subhas only hal the population. His appeal met an Chandra Bose arrived rst by German, instantaneous reception in the hearts and then Japanese submarine in the summer minds o young women as they responded o 1943. On 4 July he issued his stunning to volunteer not only their own services but summons beore a packed audience also, with the well-to-do, their gold jewelry. to all Indians in Southeast Asia to rise and join the struggle to ree India rom The rst woman to answer Netaji’s Netaji’s call was Dr the bonds o British rule. His reputation Swaminathan--coincidentally also named or revolutionary political acts in India Lakshmi--a young medical doctor who had and his total dedication to the cause o come to Singapore in 1940. The daughter liberating India had preceded him. Those o a prominent English-educated Madras who heard his sonorous call, not only in barrister, she was already a nationalist and Singapore but in Malaya and Burma as had heard Netaji’s broadcasts rom Tokyo well, were electried and responded in soon ater his arrival in Southeast Asia. Ater the hundreds, then thousands. thousands. His appeal she heard him in Singapore, she met with drew soldiers o the Indian National Army two prominent community leaders and and civilians as well, all eeling the magic together they devised a surprise or Netaji. o his charisma and responding without She managed to round up twenty women hesitation. to create a guard o honour or the12 July parade. The Indian National Army, though ounded initially by a young Japanese That morning (12 July) Netaji and the Indian major, Iwaichi Fujiwara, in cooperation residents o Singapore saw a remarkable with Mohan Singh o the British Indian sight: a women’s guard o honour in white Army,, had languished when Mohan Singh saris presenting arms to Netaji. He was Army encountered diculty dealing with the thrilled. The Rani o Jhansi Regiment (RJR), Japanese occupiers ater Fujiwara was he was certain, would inspire Indians posted elsewhere. everywhere, and he envisioned the RJR marching in the vanguard o the INA as Netaji’s battle cry was, “Chalo Delhi!” and they crossed the Burma border on to Indian his stentorian voice reverberated with the soil. words, “I you will always ollow me in lie as well as in death, then I will lead you on Lakshmi was then called to Netaji’s oce, the road to victory and reedom.”1 Ocers where she listened intently as he explained and men o the Indian National Army his goals, his opposition to the caste system pledged their loyalty to Netaji and ormed and his aspirations or a multi-racial, multithe nucleus o burgeoning numbers o linguistic, and multi-religious India. He the INA. asked her i she would be willing to take command o the RJR and then i she needed But Netaji had something more in mind time to consider. She did not need time, or the emale hal o the population. At as her decision was already made. Totally public meetings o 6 and 9 July, he revealed energized, she launched into action the his pet project when he called on all next day, provided with a staf car, oce, Indian women to rise and, “complete the and unds to begin recruitment. work the Great Rani undertook in l857.”2 In invoking the name o the legendary Training began, with INA instructors and Rani Lakshmibai o Jhansi or his women’s ries in some cases captured by Japanese Regiment, he evoked many cultural orces. Lakshmi was incensed when General themes and memories and reincarnated Renya Mutaguchi, rom a culture where the historic Rani Lakshmibai o Jhansi in women had no place in military tradition, the Rani o Jhansi Regiment. There was no asked her i women o the Regiment could way he elt that reedom could be won by actually ght. “O course! What is required is
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The Ranis o Bose’s INA. Photo: Courtesy Netaji Research Bureau.
That morning (12 July) Netaji and the Indian residents o Singapore saw a remarkable sight: a women's guard o honour in white saris presenting arms to Netaji. He was thrilled.
17 July 1943 edition o the Azad Hind newspaper.
Propped on an easel is a photograph o Rani Lakshmibai o Jhansi, who was the inspiration or these brave young soldiers o Netaji’s Rani o Jhansi Regiment. Photo: Courtesy Netaji Research Bureau.
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Now they had a chance not only to escape monotony, but...to live with a purpose and, i necessary, to die or a cause.
training and discipline. We have both,” she reedom o one’s country….”I wanted to die replied with spirit.3 Lakshmi then spent or India.”5 several weeks speaking at rallies in Kuala Lumpur and Ipoh, visiting reluctant well-do- Training o the RJR was rigorous and do parents to convince them to allow their gruelling. Military drill and weapons protected daughters to join the struggle. In training were part o a daily regiment that Kuala Lumpur she recruited Janaki Davar began at 6 a.m. Weapons included ries, and her sister, Papathi and in Ipoh she ound hand grenades, bren guns, tommy guns, Rasammah and Ponnammah Navarednam pistols, mortars, anti-aircrat guns and and others. Most o the ocer corps o the bayonets. In the aternoon INA ocers RJR was drawn rom this group o well- gave lectures on military history. Route educated young women rom Singapore, marches at night, carrying backpacks, were Malaya, and Burma. Lakshmi remarks part o the curriculum. In the evening the o them, “There were quite a number o girls organized variety shows and plays, young women rom comortable homes, including one written and produced by who in normal times would not have had Lakshmi, entitled “Freedom o Death.” any purpose in lie and would have lived in rened and placid domesticity…Now they In December 1943, Netaji moved the had a chance not only to escape monotony, headquarters o both the INA and the Free but...to live with a purpose and, i necessary, India Provisional Government to Rangoon, to die or a cause,” Lakshmi explains.4 and he called on Lakshmi to open a camp or the RJR in Thingangyun, a Rangoon The seeming anomaly was that dozens, suburb. Instructors and nurses were part then hundreds o teenage girls rom the o the Rangoon contingent o the RJR. rubber plantations o Malaya and Burma They travelled overland, partly on the Thaialso volunteered, girls who though they Rangoon Railway, the notorious “death had never seen India, nevertheless eagerly railway.” Lakshmi also established a branch dedicated their lives and perhaps deaths o the Indian Independence League to to Netaji and the RJR. Lie on the rubber recruit civilian volunteers to collect hospital estates, it may be noted, was arduous. supplies, and dry dr y rations or troops. Training Training Moreover, these young women identied or the Ranis intensied in Burma and neither with the oreign rulers nor with included ring live ammunition. the indigenous populace. With Netaji’s added multi-aceted appeal, they gained On 30 March 1944, the passing out parade a sense o identity, not only as Indians, but o RJR ocers was held, and the eight as Indians with the goal o liberating India. ocers who had passed the INA ocers’ For all these women, whether educated test were commissioned, making the RJR or not, youth was a time or idealism ocially a part o the INA. In April 1944, the and adventure. As many as a thousand rst unit o the RJR moved 600 miles urther embraced the opportunity. north to the new headquarters o both the INA and Free India Provisional Government When Janaki Davar heard Netaji speak at a at Maymyo. On 15 April Lakshmi let or rally in Kuala Lumpur, she hastened to the Rangoon with two other ocers and six podium and was the rst to remove her other ranks by truck convoy, sleeping in gold earrings and place them at his eet, trucks at villages en route. and others soon ollowed suit. At home she worried that her mother would notice that On the evening o 3 May, the RJR barracks she was without her jewelry, but her ather were bombed and reduced to rubble. The deended her against her mother’s wrath, women had heard the bombers and rushed and Janaki persuaded her parents to invite out to their air raid shelter, enabling all to Lakshmi to tea. Janaki joined the regiment survive. The Eneld ries were too heavy and rose to be the second in command or slightly-built Tamil girls and were by o the RJR and played a crucial role in the this time replaced by lighter Canadian or training o troops and during the retreat Dutch ries captured by the Japanese in rom Rangoon. Indonesia. Rasammah Navarednam, who signed The major part o the history o the RJR up in Ipoh with two sisters, explains occurred between March 1944 and August her motivation. “We were already 1945, when the war ended. By this time psychologically and emotionally and and even earlier the INA and Japanese intellectually prepared. You had the desire troops were on the deensive, unable to to be part o this great movement or push back British Indian troops who had air
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Janaki led RJR troops on an epic 26-day retreat through the jungles o Burma and Thailand, initially on a goods train, but when it was bombed, slogging through the mud and jungles on oot. The Rani o Jhansi Regiment, the rst women’s women’s army in Asia. Janaki in ront row, rst woman rom right. Photo: Cour tesy Janaki Nahappan.
cover and superior supply lines. Heavy INA casualties coming into hospitals rom the ront occupied nurses and even troops o the RJR. Added to these logistic problems was the weather actor, when monsoon rains rendered the jungles nearly impassable and inested with leeches and snakes. Lakshmi and others were eager to join their INA brothers on the ront lines, and with our others she appealed to Netaji with a petition signed in their own blood. By this time, however, the retreat south rom Maymyo had begun. When Netaji announced the retreat to the RJR, many made agonized protests. “No, I don’t want to go back. I want to ght or India,” Janaki said to Netaji. Retreat, however, was unavoidable. Janaki commanded RJR troops on an epic 26-day retreat through the jungles o Burma and Thailand, initially on a goods train, but when it was bombed, slogging through the mud and jungles on oot. They carried heavy backpacks and oten went without ood. “Going is heavy, we are night birds,” Janaki recorded in her diary. “There are plenty o guerrilla troops in the area and we must be prepared to ght.”6 Netaji accompanied the 500 girls on the long march, and Janaki elt she had to take care o him, as he was heedless o his own welare and health. During the train journey o the march, two girls were killed when the train was attacked, the only atalities sufered by the RJR. Rather than join the march back, Lakshmi told Netaji she preerred to go where she could be o service, and her story continues at a hospital in
Kalaw and other points or several more months in Burma. At one point when she and two others were captured by Japanese orces and tied to a tree, she expected to be executed. Instead, she was saved when a Japanese ocer recognized her rom a photograph in a magazine and ordered her released. She survived to continue her medical practice and to work or the welare o veterans and women in Kanpur, India. In 2002 she ran on the CPIM ticket or president o India, not with the expectation o winning but to ensure that Indians never orget the contribution o the INA and RJR to independent India. She continues to stress passionately that the Rani o Jhansi Regiment ought not only to liberate India rom oreign rule but also to ree women rom subjugation to men. In his revolutionary summons to battle to all Indian women in Southeast Asia, Netaji encapsulated many echoes and cultural elements: reverence or the Cosmic Mother and Bharat Mata, belie in the cosmic emale power o Shakti, aith in the plethora o mother goddesses, the appeal o the symbol o martyrdom in the shedding o blood, and the agency o gender. The act that rumours o Netaji’s survival as a sannyasi (ascetic) somewhere in Asia abound and that India will not allow the Netaji legend to die is a recognition that what he, the INA and the Rani o Jhansi Regiment ought or is still vitally relevant or India today. This legacy stands as a model o equality and harmony or Indian democracy.
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NOTES
1. Major General AC Chatterji, India’s Struggle or Freedom, Calcutta: Chuckerverty Chatterji, 1947, p. 75. Much o the discussion presented here derives rom two publications by Joyce Chapman Lebra: The Indian National Army and Japan, Singapore: Institute o Southeast Asian Studies, 2008 reprint; and Women Against the Raj: The Rani o Jhansi Regiment , Singapore: Institute o Southeast Asian Studies, 2008. 2. Subhas Chandra Bose, Testament o Subhas Bose: Being a Complete and Authentic Record o Netaji’s Broadcasts, Speeches, Press Statements, etc., etc. , Delhi: Rajkamal Publications, 1946, pp. 193-194; Rohini Gawankar Gawankar,, The Women’s Regiment and Captain Lakshmi o INA , New Delhi: Devika Publications, 2003, p. 162. 3. Interview with Lakshmi Sahgal, Kanpur, 23 March 2007; also see Lakshmi Sahgal, A Revolutionary Lie: Memoirs o a Political Activist , New Delhi: Kali or Women, Women, 1997. 4. Sahgal, A Revolutionary Lie, Lie, pp.141-142. 5. Interview with Rasammah Bhupalan, Kuala Lumpur, Lumpur, 17 April, 2007. See also Aruna Gopinath, Footprints on the Sands o Time; A Lie o Purpose, Kuala Lumpur: Arkib Negara Malaysia, 2007. 6. Peter Ward Fay, Forgotten Army: India’s Armed Struggle or Independence, Independence , Ann Arbor: Univ o Michigan Press, 1993, p.373.
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Proessor Joyce Chapman Lebra has taught the history o Japan, India, and Asia-Pacic women at the University o Colorado. She is the author o 14 works o non-ction and ction and has lectured widely around the world.
A Rani on Horseback Conversations Con versations with Datin Janaki Athi Nahappan Na happan Captain Janaki’s still vivid memories bring her days in the Rani o Jhansi Regiment to lie. An interview by NILANJANA SENGUPTA.
W E I V R E T N I
n a p p a h a N i k a n a J y s e t r u o C : o t o h P
Captain Janaki Davar.
member. A second generation migrant to Malaya, Janaki had never seen India (and would not visit India till November 2000, when she went to collect the Padma Shri conerred on her by the Indian President) and yet the country came alive in the word-pictures so detly drawn by Bose. Emotionally moved, Janaki raised her st to the cries o atin Janaki Athi Nahappan, still “Bharat mata ki jai! ” and went up to the ondly called Captain Janaki by her raised platorm where Bose and Captain old acquaintances, lives not ar away Lakshmi were seated. She was the rst rom the steel and glass spires o woman to respond to the INA’s call and the Petronas Towers. Yet the ow o next morning’s papers carried the news contemporary lie seems to have let o her donating her personal jewellery her house largely untouched. The Datin, to the cause. Huge posters lined at 86, lives her lie surrounded by Netaji Ampang Street or Chetty Street (as it memorabilia: an old portrait o Netaji was then called because o the Chettiars anked by AC Chatterjee, MZ Kiani and living there) o Kuala Lumpur. Other Habibur Rahman stands with her amily women signed-up thereater – Buddhist photographs, a glass mural o the Rani Josephine and Christian Stella who came o Jhansi adorns her living room wall rom Rie Range and would die an early and the mention o the leader’s name death during the retreat; Anjalay who never ails to bring an unexpected joined rom the Senthul district o Kuala rush o tears to her eyes. She browses Lumpur; Ahilandam, born o a Chinese through dusty volumes o sepia toned mother and an Indian ather who sent photographs and as she does so, images her 10-year-old daughter away to careo a bygone era unold, an era when givers in Madurai beore enlisting as a patriotism was palpable, awakening the Rani. Janaki had unwittingly pioneered Indian community to new convictions a trend. and challenges… The Rani o Jhansi Camp in Singapore: Joining the Rani o Jhansi Regiment: Janaki and her sister Papathi moved to Janaki was 18 when one aternoon the Rani o Jhansi Camp on Waterloo in July 1943 she stole to the Selangor Street in Singapore, much to the dismay Padang to hear Subhas Chandra Bose. It o their amily. They would spend the was a large gathering o mostly Indians next six months here in intensive military – plantation workers squatted on the training, preparing or the onward march ground in ront while the women stood to the Indo-Burma border battleront. at a dident distance. Netaji arrived in Camp lie or these girls, brought up in an open car with two outriders at the relative luxury in an upper-middle class ront and spoke in Hindustani which household, was not easy. They lived in was largely incomprehensible to this attap sheds, slept on narrow wooden young girl, though she eagerly heard planks and had no blanket or pillow till the Tamil interpretation o the speech an uncle living in Singapore brought by Mr Chidambram, a senior League them these little amenities. Breakast
Janaki would ride on horseback rom the RJR camp at Helpin Road to the army hospital at Mingaladon, around 15 miles away away.. One day Netaji stopped her enroute and said, “Ms Davar, Davar, let me show you a ew things about good horsemanship.”
D
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was an unappetizing helping o ragi while the langar langar commanders commanders dished up something equally unappealing or the other meals o the day. Every aternoon the girls travelled in open trucks to the Bidadari Camp or their military training and would return only in the evening. Yet, despite the obvious discomorts, they did not take long to get accustomed to camp lie – at night they would get together to sing patriotic songs and soon orged new ties o riendship. Under orders o Netaji, no male was allowed entry into their camp – the sentries at the ront gate were emale and so were the visiting doctors. Female tailors came in the initial days to t out the girls in their new uniorms. Each camp resident received two sets – one was ull length or ormal occasions while the other set consisted o shorts and hal sleeved shirts. The uniorms in the beginning were a plain khaki and the INA tri-colour bands were added only later. Janaki recalls the initial hesitation o her camp colleagues to wear the uniorm and walk the streets o Singapore or their route marches. It was Netaji’s words o encouragement which helped them persist, despite the jeering crowds at Bras Basah Road. While at Singapore, Janaki and the girls gave a perormance at the Cathay Theatre. Janaki played hersel – a young girl leaving home to join the nationalist cause. As the girls sang ‘Kadam ‘Kadam kadam badaye ja’ (March together towards victory) and donations or the INA poured in, what mattered most to Janaki
n a p p a h a N i k a n a J y s e t r u o C : o t o h P
Janaki leading the Guard o Honour or Aung San and his wie. Photo: Courtesy Janaki Nahappan.
was the applause she received rom Netaji.
surviving INA soldiers when the British bombed the army hospital at Myang. They had travelled in a goods train and Last days in Singapore: taken reuge in leech inested paddy elds, been bullied by the communist Janaki returned to Singapore in August guerrilla and spent nights huddled in 1945 ater the gruelling retreat rom way-side schools and villages during the Burma – she and her group o girls return journey. Janaki led her platoon o had walked or 26 days under constant girls to saety and ensured they reached enemy re to reach Moulmein and their homes in diferent towns in Malaya. then taken a goods train to Thailand. By the time she reached Singapore, the Netaji had been with them every step Japanese had surrendered and Netaji o the way, walking at the head o the was preparing to leave on yet another column. During the last year and a hal undisclosed journey. Janaki recalls: “He they had seen lie at its worst in war-torn gave me a signed copy o his photograph Rangoon. The Ranis had nursed the ew and said, ‘Don’t ‘Don’t worry, Janaki. The British will never get me - dead or alive.” That was the last time she saw him.
Ahilandam (left ), ), born o a Chinese mother and an Indian ather, sent her 10-year-old daughter away to caregivers in Madurai beore being recruited as a Rani. Janaki had pioneered a trend. 23
Janaki considers Netaji as one o the greatest leaders till date, “who worked more than anyone else” and to whose call she would not hesitate to respond even today.
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Nilanjana Sengupta is the author o the orthcoming book A book A Gentleman’s Gentlema n’s Word: Word: The Legacy o Subhas Chandra Bose in Southeast Asia. She has been a reelance eature writer or several leading Indian dailies and is now Visiting Research Fellow at ISEAS.
T C A R T X E K O O B
Roads to Delhi SUGATA BOSE Gardiner Proessor o Oceanic History and Aairs , Harvard Har vard University
Upon his return to Singapore on 25 Reprinted by permission o the publisher rom HIS MAJESTY’S OPPONENT: SUBHAS CHANDRA BOSE AND INDIA’S STRUGGLE AGAINST EMPIRE by Sugata Bose, pp. 263266, Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press o Harvard University Press, Copyright © 2011 by the President and Fellows o Harvard College. Speeches rom the Singapore launch o the book appear on pp. 10-11 o this volume.
November 1943, Netaji plunged into into the nal preparations or the march towards India. In the second week o December he made a nal swing through Indonesia to garner the support o Indians based in Jakarta and Surabaya on the island o Java as well as those living in Borneo and Sumatra. This tour completed Bose’s attempt to reach Indians living in nearly all parts o Japanese-occupied Asia. While Japan was clearly the colonial aggressor in Northeast Asia with a dark record o oppression in Korea and China, the situation in Southeast Asia was more complex. Even here the Chinese in Malaya and Singapore elt the brunt o Japan’s wartime brutalities. Yet in this vast region Japan had also played an instrumental role in deeating and destroying the mystique o Western imperial powers – the British in Burma and Malaya, the French in Indo-China, the Dutch in the East Indies, and the Americans in the Philippines. In IndoChina the Japanese ound it expedient to work with the Vichy French and shited too late in 1945 to supporting some Vietnamese nationalists. This enabled the communists in the Viet Minh to adopt the nationalist mantle. Elsewhere, the Japanese supported Asian nationalists to a greater or lesser degree. The The Indians, the Burmese, the Indonesians and some Malays and Filipinos took advantage o the Japanese undermining o Western colonial authority to advance their own independence movements movements.. In Indonesia Mohammad Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta had been released rom long years in Dutch prisons by the Japanese. They accepted Japanese help to build their civilian administration and train their military between 1942 and 1945. Even though the Indonesian proclamation o independence did not come until August 1945, wartime developments would make a Dutch reconquest o Indonesia as dicult as
24
the re-assertion o British colonial rule in Burma. That Japan had undermined the British and other Western colonial powers in Southeast Asia was what mattered to Bose, despite the deplorable Japanese aggression towards the Chinese and other Asians. Bose’s provisional government extended its protective umbrella over Indians living in all these lands. It obtained de jure control over a piece o Indian territory when the Japanese handed over the Andaman and Nicobar islands in late December 1943, even though de acto military control was not relinquished by the Japanese admiralty. Bose redeemed his rash promise o setting oot on Indian soil beore the year’s end by arriving in Port Blair on 29 December 1943, or a three-day visit to these islands. As usual his visit was steeped with symbolism. The British had imprisoned some o India’s greatest revolutionaries in the notorious Cellular Jail on the Andaman island where many had spent a rigorous lie sentence and not a ew had been sent to the gallows. Netaji paid tribute to the revolutionari revolutionaries es who had sufered there and likened the opening o the gates o Cellular Jail to the liberation o the Bastille. He hoisted the Indian tricolour at the Gymkhana grounds in Port Blair to the singing o the national anthem. Beore his departure he renamed Andaman as ‘Shaheed’ (‘Martyrs’) and Nicobar as ‘Swaraj’ (‘Freedom’) islands.1 During a visit to Bangkok a ew days later he appointed AD Logonadan the Chie Commissioner o these islands. The Thais, Hugh Toye writes, were “at their best, charming, hospitable, generous, eager to do honor to one who, none dared doubt, would soon march invincibly into India”.2 Beore the close o 1943, Netaji’s secret agents had already reached Calcutta. Soon ater his arrival in Singapore, he had elt the need or a wireless link with Bengal. The spies that the Japanese
had sent into India had not been very successul. Bose tried to assert control over intelligence operations based in Penang and Rangoon and put NG Swami in charge o what came to be called the Azad School. Four well-trained intelligence operatives – Bhagwan Lu, Harbans Lal, Kanwal Singh and Kartar Singh – had accompanied Swami Swami on the journey rom Europe to Asia on the blockade runner, SS Osorno, in March 1943. Bose, Swami and Hasan now put these our together with another our trained in Penang and dispatched this group o eight under the leadership o SN Chopra towards India on board a Japanese submarine on 8 December 1943.3 The group landed with their sophisticated wireless equipment, weapons and money on the Kathiawar coast o Gujarat on the night o 22-23 December 1943. They were instructed to split into our pairs and head towards Bengal, the North-West Frontier, the United Provinces in northern India, and Bombay. Late in December, Bhagwan Lu under the cover o his pseudonym TK Rao, called at Woodburn Park in Calcutta to see Sisir Kumar Bose, the nephew who had driven Subhas during his January 1941 escape. Ater a spell in prison or taking part in the Quit India movement, Sisir was then home-interned with permission to travel to Medical College or his studies. The amily was in mourning as Prabhabati, the matriarch, had just passed away. Rao handed Sisir a handwritten message in Bengali rom Subhas on the letterhead o the Indian Independence League at 3, Chancery Lane in Singapore dated “Sri Sri Kali Puja” 29 October 1943, the day o the worship o the mother goddess Kali. Subhas had told Sarat and Sisir that his messages in Bengali would be genuine, while those in English might be intended to mislead the British. Both Sisir and his mother Bivabati recognized Subhas’s handwriting. Sisir then put Rao in touch with those members o the underground organization Bengal Volunteers who had managed to stay out o prison.4 In January 1944, radio contact was successully established between Calcutta and Subhas Chandra Bose in Burma. One o the earliest messages transmitted did not contain any valuable military intelligence. It conveyed the news o Prabhabati’s death. “You look tired,” Debnath Das said to Netaji that evening. “No, I am not tired,” Bose replied. “I heard today that I have lost my mother.”5
Netaji strides out o the notorious British Cellular Jail in the Andamans in 1943. He likened the opening o the gates o the jail to the storming o the Bastille. Photo: Courtesy Netaji Research Bureau.
NOTES 1. “Netaji in Andaman, 29-31 Decembe Decemberr 1943: A Report” in The Oracle, Oracle, 16, no. 1, January 1994, pp. 11-13. 2. Hugh Toye, The Springing Tiger: A Study o Subhas Chandra Bose, London: Cassell, 1959, p. 100. 3. “Statement o Kartar Singh” File No. 276/INA (NAI); Toye, The Springing Tiger , pp. 87-88; KK Ghosh, The Indian National Army: Second Front o the Indian Independence Movement Movement,, Meerut: Meenakshi, 1969, pp. 160-161. 4. Sisir Kumar Bose, The Great Escape, Calcutta: Netaji Research Bureau, 2000, pp. 48-49; Santimoy Ganguli, Sudhir Ranjan Baksi, Dhiren Saha Roy, Ratul Roy Chowdhury and Sisir Kumar Bose, “Netaji’s Underground in India during World War II: An Account by Participants in a Daring and Historic Undertaking” in The Oracle, Oracle, 1, no. 2, April, 1979, pp. 7-14; Sisir Kumar Bose, Bosubari, Calcutta: Ananda, 1985, pp. 159-163; “The Landing o the ollowing eight Japanese Agents rom a submarine on the Kathiawar Coast on the night o 22/23 December December,, 1943”; Criminaire Criminaire,, New Delhi to McDonough, War Emergency Department, Colombo,, January 13, 1944; “Statement o Kartar Colombo Singh”; JC Wilson, “Landing o Japanese Agents”; AW Macdonald, “The JIF Landing in Kathiawar – December 1943”; D Stephens “The 1939-1945 War and the Indian Police”; EW Wace, “Indian National Army” (“Indian Police Collection”, Mss. Eur. F. 161/6/3, IOR/BL); Richard Tottenham, Tottenham, “Extract rom Home Department War Histories” (“Indian Police Collection”, Mss. Eur. F. 161/4/4, IOR/BL). 5. Sisir Kumar Bose, Bosubari , p. 159.
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Subhas had told Sarat and Sisir that his messages in Bengali would be genuine, while those in English might be intended to mislead the British.
S E V I H C R A E H T H G U O R H T
A Glimpse into History Archival research by Jayati Bhattacharya, Kyaw San Wai, Lu Caixia
Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s Bose’s stirring declaration o the establishment o Arzi Hukumat-eAzad Hind or the Provisional Government o Free India in 1943 at Singapore’s Cathay Cinema ( see the photogr photograph aph below ) was reported extensively by the media o the time. Singapore, at the centre o Bose’s wartime activities, possesses a rich archive o documents, photographs, letters, newspaper clippings, oral history records, propaganda leaets and other data, which illuminate Bose’s eforts to ree India rom colonial rule. The NSC team, assisted by the National Archives o Singapore and the Netaji Research Bureau, Kolkata, has trawled through a wide range o archival records to put together a portrait o that tumultuous moment in history.
21 October 1943, Subhas Chandra Bose proclaimed the ormation o the Provisional Government o Free India at Singapore’s Cathay Cinema. Photo: Courtesy ISEAS Library.
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S E V I H C R A E H T H G U O R H T
Arzi Hukumat-e-Azad Hind The government o Azad Hind had its own currency, court and civil code, which provided credibility to its struggle against the British. But it lacked any sovereign territory. However, However, once it gained control o the Andaman and Nicobar Islands rom Japan in 1943, and came to occupy parts o Manipur and Nagaland, it possessed the main elements required or a legitimate government. Although the movement did not survive the death o Subhas Chandra Bose, the tide o nationalism it inspired contributed contributed very substantially to India’s independence.
THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT OF AZAD HIND NETAJI SUBHAS CHANDRA BOSE Head of State Provisionall Government of Azad Hind Provisiona
u a e r u B h c r a e s e R i j a t e N y s e t r u o C
Premier, Supreme Commander Indian National Army
1ST DIVISION 2ND DIVISION
OFFICERS TRAINING SCHOOL RANI OF JHANSI REGIMENT
INDIAN NATIONAL ARMY
WAR
President
FOREIGN
Indian Independence League
FINANCE
3RD DIVISION COMMAND TROOPS
MINISTRIES
CABINET
PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT OF AZAD HIND
REVENUE MAN POWER SUPPLY
INDIAN INDEPENDENCE LEAGUE
B a s e d o n S A A i y e r ’ s
WOMEN’S AFFAIRS PUBLICITY & PROPAGANDA
TERRITORIAL BRANCHES THAILAND INDO-CHINA CHINA MANCHURIA JAVA SUMATRA BORNEO PHILIPPINES JAPAN
U n t o H i m a W i t n e s s
Bose’s Cabinet: The Provisional Government Government o Free India had its own Cabinet ( photograph above ) with Bose as Head o State. The The various ministries and the departments they oversaw were clearly structured. Lt Col AC Chatterjee was Minister o Finance while Dr Lakshmi Swaminathan was Minister in charge o Women’s Women’s Organizations, besides being in charge o the Rani o Jhansi Regiment. SA Ayer looked ater broadcasting and publicity. publicity.
“By early April 1944, the Azad Hind government was issuing postage stamps (above (above let ) or use in the liberated zones, and was printing sample currency notes (above (above right ). ). I anything, Bose’s Bose’s plans or postwar reconstruction in India I ndia had run ahead o successul implementation o a war strategy.” – Pro Sugata Bose, His Majesty’s Opponent (p. Opponent (p. 273). Allegedly a ship carrying the stamps printed in Germany was torpedoed on its way to Japan. Images: Courtesy Herbert A. Friedman There was also an Azad Hind Bank, capitalized at several million rupees rom donations by wealthy Indians, evidence o which exists in receipts like the ones on the let. Images: Courtesy Herbert A. Friedman
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S E V I H C R A E H T H G U O R H T
Syonan Days, INA, and the Press Newspaper articles published in Singapore and Malaya over the period o 1941 to 1945 in English, Chinese, Japanese and Tamil Tamil reected the socio-political environment o the time, highlighting the alliances, the declaration o war and the contests in diferent battle zones during the Japanese Occupation and through the duration o the War. War. During the Japanese Occupation o Singapore, or Syonan as it was then called, the Japanese had absolute control over the press and the radio. The Straits Times was renamed The Syonan Times and was published by the Syonan Shimbun-kai, with a morning Japanese edition and an English edition in the aternoon. The Japanese edition, priced at ve cents, was initially called the Syonan Sinbun, Sinbun , and a year later, the Syonan Shimbun. Shimbun . A Chinese edition came out under the name Syonan Jit Pau, , while a Malay edition was called the Pau Berita Malai . Another Malay edition, the Malai Sinpo, Sinpo , was published rom Kuala Lumpur. Azad Hind , the mouthpiece o the Indian Independence League, was in circulation rom February 1942, and provides interesting inormation on sources o unding or the INA. The numerous advertisements suggest robust support rom Indian businesses in Singapore. A Tamil edition o Azad o Azad Hind circulated Hind circulated within the Tamil community. These newspapers are useul historical sources or understanding Subhas Chandra Bose’s sojourn in Singapore, as well as the nature o his engagement with Japan, Asia and the world.
Newspaper images: Courtesy ISEAS Library Library..
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T H R O U G H T H E A R C H I V E S
Propaganda leaets To recruit men and women into the INA in Southeast Asia, the Indian Independence League and To the INA distributed leaets to the Indian community to highlight British colonial exploitation. exploitation. At the same time, the Japanese also ran their own propaganda campaign which sought to instigate Indian troops to rise up against the Allied powers, the British in particular.
Right : This Japanese leaet shows an angry Indian soldier bayoneting a British soldier. The The text, in Hindi, Bengali and Urdu reads: “Use “Use your weapons against the tyrannical Englishmen. The Indian National Army is coming. Join them and march towards New Delhi!“
The leaet above shows two scenes in India: on the let is death and destruction ater Indians have gone to war or the British and on the right the happiness and prosperity that would result were Indians to reuse to ght or the Allied orces. The Japanese designers o this leaet had scant knowledge o an Indian liestyle accounting or the incongruities in the depiction. The text, in Hindi and Bengali, reads: “As slaves o the British – Hunger and Death rule. Ater independence – Happiness and Peace rule.”
Above : This Indian Independence Above: League cartoon shows Churchill riding on the back o an Indian soldier who is killing his own people and walking on the allen body o Mahatma Gandhi, while Roosevelt stands in the background,, collecting money. Part o background the text in Hindi reads: “All the wealth o the British is yours – which has been stolen rom you. Snatch all o your money and wealth rom the British. The British are looting India using Indians.”
Above: Another Japanese antiBritish leaet that shows an English couple easting while Indians lie dead on the oor oor.. The text in Hindi and Bengali reads: “Kill all the British who are sucking Indian blood.”
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All images: Courtesy Herbert A. Friedman
11
S E V I H C R A E H T H G U O R H T
The brave young men and women who ought or India’s reedom These young men, women and boys gave their lives, their youth, their homes, their savings, or a homeland some had never seen. The valour displayed by INA soldiers in Southeast Asia inspired innumerable Indians. Nilanjana Sengupta spoke with some o these valiant men and women whose memories o their days in the INA have never aded. P h o t o : C o u r t e s y J a n a k i N a h a p p a n
In August 1945 ater the gruelling retreat rom Burma, Captain Janaki and her group o girls had walked or 26 days under constant enemy re to reach Singapore. They had travelled in a goods train, taken reuge in leech-inested paddy elds, were hounded by Communist guerrillas, spending nights huddled in wayside schools and villages. Despite these odds, Janaki led her platoon o girls to saety and ensured that they reached their homes in Malaya.
Janaki Davar was 18 when she was stirred by Netaji’s speech and joined the Rani o Jhansi Regiment. Photo: Courtesy Janaki Nahappan
Lakshmi Swaminathan was a well-established and successul gynaecologist in Singapore when she gave up her thriving practice to lead the troops o the Rani R ani o Jhansi Regiment. Photo: Courtesy Netaji Research Bureau
30
Right : Balak Sena, the youth wing o the INA. According to Bala Chandran, this photograph o the Balak Sena was presented to Pandit Nehru when he visited visited Singapore Singapore in 1946. Photo: Courtesy Kishore Bhattacharya.
Let : Then and now, Ramiah (in dark trousers) and Ponnampalam. Ponnampalam remembers seeing Indian men being taken away in trucks to work on the treacherous Siam-Burma railway. When the Japanese invaded, he signed up or the INA. He was only 16. Ramiah remembers the day the train that he was in charge o was attacked near Johore and all the military supplies stolen. Photo: Madan Kunnavakkam
The young boys o the Balak Sena were trained to inltrate the British Indian Army and gather intelligence at the Indo-Burma border border.. Photo: Courtesy Ramiah
Above let : Kishore Bhattacharya with his uncle CD Bhattacharya (seated ). ). In their amily, the older generation joined the INA and the younger generation the Balak Sena. Photo: Courtesy Kishore Bhattacharya Above right : Kishore Bhattacharya with lmmaker Shyam Benegal at the ISEAS-sponsored screening o Bose o Bose The Forgotten Hero in 2010 at the Cathay Cinema. “I wept through the entire lm,” lm,” the INA veteran told reporters ater the screening. Photo: Courtesy Kishore Bhattacharya
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S E V I H C R A E H T H G U O R H T
Memories o the INA “When Bose came, I walked 10 miles to hear him speak” – INA veteran Kishore Bhattacharya
“Those days our spirits were diferent you know. We We happily survived on a daily breakast o soya beans ried in vegetable oil and a lunch o soya beans and ubi. We just wanted to see a ree India.” – Girish Kothari “I didn’t know Hindi so I caught only a ew words rom Netaji’s rousing speech but I was still moved to tears. That That night I could not go to sleep. I knew I had to do something. The next morning I was at the INA headquarters to join the Balak Sena, the youth wing. I was 14.” – Bala Chandran “Camp lie was rigorous and well-organized. There was not a ree moment to laze around. At a time when there were rampant ood shortages in town, ood in the camp was by and large good and sucient. At the Ocer Training School we stayed in dormitories where 40 to 50 cadets slept together on the oor with a thin cotton mattress and sheet, with no pillow.” – Girish Kothari
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Bose’s Bose’s rally at the Padang in Singapore on 5 July 1943.
“
During our INA days we were exposed to the writings o Bernard Shaw and Karl Marx and to the ideals o the Fabian Society and the American and French Revolution[s]. At the Ofcer Training School we attended history lessons on the Indian Independence struggle and learnt about great leaders.”
– INA veteran Girish Kothari P h o t o : C o u r t e s y I S E A S L i b r a r y
In this letter addressed to “My Dear Boys”, Bose writes about sending “a “a bundle o ‘Papar’ (or poppadums (or poppadums rom Bengal)” or the cadets in Tokyo. In another letter, he wrote: “I look orward to the happy day when you will return to India – it will be AZAD HIND when you return – as ull-edged Soldiers and as guardians o India’s independence. ind ependence.”” – Copy o letter: Courtesy the National Archives o Singapore
“The Balak Sena School held regular classes with emphasis on Indian history. I played the role o Shahid Bhagat Singh’s second-in-command in a play staged by the Balak Sena. The play became amous and we would be invited or perormances to other camps like Seletar and Bidadari camps. We would all travel in lorries. I remember going or morning runs down Stevens Road and Balmoral Road.”
“There was an Indian amily in our kampong – they sold their house and donated all their possessions to the INA. All the members joined. The two young daughters joined RJR, one o whom I saw later playing the drum at the head o the women’s march. I passed the RJR HQ a number o times at Waterloo Street and noticed that even the sentry at the gate o the camp was a lady. The RJR women visited the Kampong on Sundays in their natty uniorms. The elderly men and women o the Kampong didn’t like that at rst.” – Bala Chandran
– Bala Chandran
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Select Bibliography Ayer, S.A. Story o the INA, India: National Book Trust, 1997.
Own Words, New Delhi: Vikas, 1978.
Ayer, S.A. Unto Him a Witness: the Story o Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose in East Asia, Bombay: Thacker, 1951.
Gopinath, Aruna. Footprints on the Sands o Time: Rasammah Gopinath, Bhupalan, A Lie o Purpose, Malaysia: Arkib Negara Malaysia, 2007.
Bakshi, Akhil. The Road to Freedom: Travels through Singapore, Bakshi, Malaysia, Burma, and India in the Footsteps o the Indian National Army, New Delhi: Odyssey Books, 1998.
Gordon, Leonard A. Brothers Against the Raj: A Biography o Indian Gordon, Nationalists: Sarat and Subhas Chandra Bose, New York: Columbia University Press, 1990.
Bayly,, Christopher A. & Timothy N. H arper. Forgotten Armies: Britain’s Bayly Asian Empire and the War with Japan, London: Penguin Books, 2005.
Jog, N.C. In Freedom’s Quest: A Biography o Subhas Chandra Bose, Jog, Bombay: Orient Longmans, 1968.
Bayly, Christopher A. & Timothy N. H arper. Forgotten Wars: The End o Bayly, Britain’s Asian Empire, London: Penguin Books, 2008.
Kesavapany K., A. Mani & P. Ramasamy ed. Rising India and Indian Communitiess in East Asia, Singapore: Institute o Southeast Asian Communitie Studies, 2008.
Bhargava , Moti Lal. Dr . Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose in Southeast Asia Bhargava, and India’s Liberation War (1943-45), Kerala: Vishwa Vidya Publishers, 1975. Bhattacharya, S.N. Netaji Subhas Bose in Sel Exile, New Delhi: Bhattacharya, Metropolitan Book Company Pvt. Ltd., 1975. Bose,, Mihir. The Last Hero, London; New York: Bose York: Quartet Books, 1982. Bose, Romen. A Will or Freedom Bose, Freedom:: Netaji and the Indian Independence Movementt in Singapore and Southeast Asia 1942-1945, Singapore: VJ Movemen Times, 1993. Bose, Sisir & Sugata Bose ed. Essential Writings o Netaji Subhas Bose, Chandra Bose, Calcutta: Netaji Research Bureau/ Oxord University Press, 1997.
Khan, Shah Nawaz Maj. Gen. My Memories o INA & its Netaji, Delhi: Khan, Rajkamal Publication, 1946. Khan, Shah Nawaz. The INA Heroes, Autobiographies o Maj. Gen. Khan, Shah Nawaz, Col. Prem K Sahgal and Col. G S Dhillon o the Azad Hind Fauj, Lahore: Hero Publications, 1946. Kiani, Mohammad Zaman Maj. Gen. India’s Freedom Struggle and Kiani, the Great INA, New Delhi: Reliance Publishing House, 1994. Lati, Asad-ul Iqbal. India in the Making o Singapore, Singapore: Singapore Indian Association, 2008. Lebra, Joyce Chapman. The Indian National Army and Japan, Lebra, Singapore: Institute o Southeast Asian Studies, 2008.
Bose, Sisir & Sugata Bose ed. Netaji Collected Works, 12 volumes, Calcutta, Netaji Research Bureau, 1995-2007.
Lebra, Joyce Chapman. Japanese Trained Armies in South East Asia, Lebra, Singapore: Institute o Southeast Asian Studies, 2010.
Bose, Subhas Chandra. Selected Speeches o Subhas Chandra Bose, New Delhi: Government o India Publication Division, 1962.
Lebra, Joyce Chapman. Women against the Raj: The Rani o Jhansi Lebra, Regiment , Singapore: Institute o Southeast Asian Studies, 2008.
Bose, Subhas Chandra. The Mission o Lie, Calcutta: Thacker Spink, Bose, 1953.
Majumdar, R.C. Three Phases o India’s Struggle or Freedom, Majumdar, Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1967
Bose, Sugata. His Majesty’s Opponent: Subhas Chandra Bose and Bose, India’s Struggle Against Empire, Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press o Harvard University, 2011.
Maw, Ba. Breakthrou Breakthrough gh in Burma, Memoirs o a Revolution, 19391946, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968.
Bose, Sugata. Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy , London; New York: Routledge, 2011. Chakravarty, S.R. & Madan C. Paul. Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose: Chakravarty, Relevance to Contemporary World , New Delhi: Har-Anand Publication, 2000.
Mookherjee, Nanda. Vivekananda’s Infuence on Subhas, Calcutta: Mookherjee, Jayashree Prakasan, 1977. Muggeridge, Malcolm ed. Ciano’s Diary, 1939-1943, London: Muggeridge, William Heinemann, 1947. Naw, Angelene. Aung San and the Struggle or Burmese Naw, Independence, Thailand: Silkworm Books, 2001.
Chandler, Malcolm & John Wright. Modern World History, Heinemann Educational, 2nd Review Edition, 2001.
Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose – A Malaysian Perspective, Kuala Lumpur: Netaji Centre, 1992.
Chatterji, A.C. Maj. Gen. India’s Struggle or Freedom, Calcutta: Chatterji, Chuckervertty, Chatterjee, 1947. Corr,, Gerard H. The War o the Springing Tigers, London: Osprey, 1975. Corr
Puthucheary,, Dominic & K.S. Jomo ed. No Cowardly Past – James Puthucheary J Puthucheary: Writings, Poems, Commentaries, Malaysia: SIRD, Petaling Jaya, 2nd edition, 2010.
Das, Hari Hara. Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose: The Great War or Political Das, Emancipation. Jaipur: National Publishing House, 2000.
Ram, S. & R. Kumar. Role o INA and Indian Navy, New Delhi: Ram, Commonwealth Publishers, 2008.
Das, Khosla & Madan Gopal. Last days o Netaji, Delhi: Thomson Das, Press, 1974.
Roy, Dilip Kumar. Netaji – The Man, Reminiscences, Bombay: Roy, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1966.
Das, S.A. & K.B. Subbaiah. Chalo Delhi – An Historical Account Das, Account o the Indian Independence Movement Movement in East Asia, India, 1974.
Roy, Dilip Kumar. The Subhas I Knew, Bombay: Nalanda Roy, Publications, 1946.
Dhillon, G.S. Colonel. From My Bones: Memoirs o Col G S Dhillon, Dhillon, Delhi: Aryan Books International, 1998.
Sarani, Abid Hasan. The Men rom Imphal , Calcutta: Netaji Sarani, Research Bureau, 1971.
Edwardes, Michael. The Last Years o British India, Cleveland, World Edwardes, Pub. Company, 1964.
Sahgal, Lakshmi. A Revolutionary Lie, Memoirs o a Political Activist, Sahgal, New Delhi: Paul’s Press, 1997.
Fay, Peter Ward. The Forgotten Army: India’s Armed Struggle or Fay, Independence, Independenc e, 1942-1945, Ann Arbor: Univ o Michigan Press, 1993.
Seth, Amritlal. Jai Hind: The Diary o a Rebel Daughter o India with Seth, the Rani o Jhansi Regiment, Bombay: Janmabhoomi Prakasan Mandir, 1945.
Forbes, Geraldine. Traditional Symbols and New Roles: The Women’s Forbes, Movement in India, Delhi: 1979. Fujiwara, Lieutenant General Iwaichi. F Kikan: Japanese Army Intelligence Operations Operations in Southeast Asia during World War II, Heinemann Educational Books, 1983.
Sivaram,, M. The Road to Delhi, Rutland, Vermont and Tokyo, 1967. Sivaram Som, Reba. Gandhi, Bose, Nehru and the Making o the Modern Som, Indian Mind, India: Penguin Viking, 2004. Thivy, John A. The Struggle in East Asia, Calcutta: Netaji Research Thivy, Bureau, 1971.
Ghosh, K.K. The Indian National Army: Second Front o the Indian Ghosh, Independence Movement , Meerut: Meenakshi Prakashan,1969. Gopal, Madan. Lie and Times o Subhas Chandra Bose As Told In His
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Toye, Hugh. Subhas Chandra Bose – The Springing Tiger, Bombay: Jaico, 1959.
Also published by the Nalanda-Sriwijaya Centre is the booklet
Tagore’s Asian Voyages. It is available or download at http://nsc.iseas.edu.sg
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The Nalanda-Sriwijaya Centre at the Institute o Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, pursues research on historical interactions among Asian societies and civilizations. It serves as a orum or comprehensive comprehen sive study o the ways in which Asian polities and societies have interacted over time through religious, cultural, and economic exchanges and diasporic networks. The Centre also ofers innovative strategies or examining the maniestations o hybridity, convergence and mutual learning in a globalizing Asia. Nalanda-Sriwijaya Centre Institute o Southeast Asian Studies, 30 Heng Mui Keng Terrace Pasir Panjang, Singapore 119614 Tel: 65-68702447 Fax: 65-67756259
NSC EVENTS
NETAJI SUBHAS CHANDRA BOSE The Singapore Saga Selected writings, rare photographs, oral history and archival documents on Subhas Chandra Bose and Singapore’s Singapore’s role in the struggle for India’s India’s freedom.
