The Capture and the Trial of INA men - Treatment of INA prisoners of war

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After the failure of the Simla Conference, British Government wanted to make it clear that they were committed to the realization of their promise of self governance to India. Accordingly on 21st August they had declared the elections for the various legislative councils to be held in the winter. Wavell was intent on making his Executive Council after the main elections. The moribund state of Indian politics was rejuvenated once more with the arrival of the news of death of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and the imprisonment and the impending trial of the INA men, esp. their top brass - G.S Dhillon, Prem Kumar Sahgal and Shah Nawaz Khan. Prior to the issue of INA emerging, Congress was in a rather sorry state. Six years of complete inaction had taken its toll on the party and its leadership. In the words of Dr. R.C Majumdar, "The impending elections served, in a sense, to clear the political sky in India. The Muslims outside the Muslim League could clearly feel which way the wind was blowing and flocked to the standard of the League. The number of Nationalist Muslims who still adhered to the Congress was almost negligible. Thus, on the eve of the election, the two rival Parties—the Congress and the Muslim League—stood face to face, representing, broadly speaking, the Hindu and Muslim elements of the population in India. Both the Parties made elaborate preparations for contesting the election. The Muslim League fought on the single issue of Pakistan. The Congress announced that it would contest the elections on the issue of the immediate transfer of power." Dr. R.C Majumdar made a pointed reference of how the INA trials helped to shape up Congress to get back to the mainstream. He writes in the History of Freedom Movement in India, "The Congress had grave difficulties in fighting the elections. It had been in wilderness for more than three years, its organizations had broken down as many leaders and members were still in prison, and its party funds had been sequestrated by the Government. But, as on more than one occasion in the past, the blunders committed by the Government came to its rescue just at the psychological moment when its fortunes were at a very low ebb. It was the trial of the Indian soldiers who had joined the Indian National Army (I.N.A.) organized by Subhas Bose in Singapore. About twenty-five thousand Indian soldiers —-prisoners of war in the hands of the Japanese, who had joined the I.N.A., were rounded up after the collapse of the Japanese army in Burma. The military authorities, on the basis of evidence in their possession, brought charges against some of the Officers not only of waging war against the King but also of committing gross brutality on the members of the I.N.A. accused of desertion. Accordingly a Military Tribunal was constituted by an Ordinance and the first batch of three accused officers—a Hindu, a Muslim, and a Sikh—were put on public trial in the historic Red Fort at Delhi.

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The then Advocate General of India, N.P Engineer, brought serious allegations against the INA like using force on the prisoners of the war to join the Azad Hind Fauj, killing unwilling soldiers who refused to join INA, torture and other means to get the British Indian soldiers on the side of the INA and also sending the enemies to the concentration camps. Prima facie they all seem to be false allegations and without rational. Nobody can be forced to join an army like INA that survives on the basis of commitment to the cause. Bhulabhai Desai, who had cross examined the witnesses, proved that there were many inconsistencies in their statements, and therefore their statements were unreliable. Several witnesses of the Government like Dilasha Ram or Shahidullah Khan actually gave statements in favour of the defendants and thus made the case against the accused Shah Nawaz, Dhillon and Sahgal, untenable. In the course of the trial it was clearly mentioned that since INA had been the armed military wing of a Government that was accepted and accredited internationally, the soldiers of the Azad Hind Fauj would be entitled to be given the status of Belligerent as per international law. Therefore they should not be tried in a British court. The defendants denied all the charges against them and said that Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose had made it clear that only those who were ready to face extreme hardship and even death, were eligible to join the Azad Hind Fauj. So there was no question of any coercion or threat to induct soldiers in the INA. The cases that were highlighted by the British Government, of killing of the antagonists, were pointed out to be false. The charges of sending enemy soldiers to the concentration camps was also false as the Government could not even prove the existence of any such camp run by the INA or the Azad Hind Government. Dhillon for instance highlighted that several of his soldiers from his regiment, when they were told about the likely hardships, decided to leave the regiment and were all sent back to Rangoon.

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The British and the allied forces had a nick name for the INA soldiers. They were called JIFC (Japanese Indian Fifth Column) or in short, JIFFs. Writes Peter Fay, "What the (British) Indian Army saw in the rest, the ex-Indian Army men, was a distorted mirror image of itself, men turned by some dreadful combination of circumstance, temptation, and duress into dupes, renegades, utterly faithless men. They could not simply be held until the war was over, then sent back to their families in India. Nor could they all, the many thousands of them, be quietly hanged or shot. A mix of reincorporation, rehabilitation, and punishment was required. To make this operative, some way had to be found of winnowing out the recoverable, then arranging the rest in groups ranked according to the severity of the proposed punishment simple men who, overwhelmed by defeat and the abrupt withdrawal of their British officers, had lost their bearings and behaved like sheep.They were to be denominated “whites,” sent back to their regimental depots, and readmitted into the ranks. Then there would be those who, while entitled to a measure of sympathy and understanding because of the pressure put upon them and the indoctrination they had undergone, nevertheless showed by their manner that they had bent to the one and listened to the other. These were “greys,” bound for special “reconditioning” camps before being allowed, perhaps, to rejoin. Finally, there were those who exhibited by word, deed, or rank a fundamental disloyalty, compounded perhaps by criminal behavior. Let them be called “blacks.” Blacks were not to be returned to their regiments. They were security risks, just as Japanese soldier prisoners were—but doubly so, since the war’s end would not make them “safe” and therefore eligible for repatriation. For them there would remain the question of court-martial and appropriate sentencing. It was the Forward Interrogation Unit that determined whether a man was white, grey, or black. (If black, he was sent at once, if feasible, to CSDIC at Delhi, where he was questioned again with an eye to his probable trial.) He continues, "By early July of 1945, half a dozen shiploads (of INA men) had already gone. When Japan surrendered, the Government of India had no option but to bring home the rest. So as the rains petered out and the cool weather approached, large bodies of Jiffs reached Chittagong and Calcutta by sea and and were carried thence to places all over north India. To Jhikargacha (Jassore) of course, and Nilganj (which is also near Calcutta).To Khadki outside Poona, and Bahadurgarh close to Delhi. To Attock on the Indus two hundred miles northwest of Lahore, Multan on the Chenab two hundred miles southwest, Delhi itself (men likely to be tried or whose testimony might be needed were collected at the Red Fort), and other places, some named in the newspapers and some not. The camp at Bahadurgarh received the blacks from Bose’s German-sponsored Indian Legion."

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Ayer had noted in Unto Him a Witness that when he was put up in a "cage" in the Red Fort, he asked for and got several newspapers and it suddenly seemed to him that the exploits of INA and the Netaji were everywhere and everybody was paying a glowing tribute to the role INA had played in trying to liberate India. Congress party was quick to grab the offer as the God sent opportunity that enabled it to pull itself out of the "ditch into which the Quit India crackdown had flung it" (as per Peter Fay). On the last day of the AICC session Nehru moved a resolution for the instant release of the INA soldiers held in captivity. It would be tragic, the resolution ran, if these men were to be punished for having laboured, "however mistakenly", for the freedom of India. According to the reminiscences of Dilip Kumar Roy who was a great admirer of Pandit Nehru, Subhas made a remark about Nehru that he would always try to play to the gallery. He would always go with the tide and therefore he could be popular with everyone, but that would also mean a compromise of principles and ideals at every step. Nehru also announced for the setting up of an INA Defence Committee by the Congress. In order to gather funds for the rehabilitation of the INA men as well as to meet the administration expenses of fighting their court cases, an INA Funds Committee, later known as the Relief committee, was established which raised funds from the public. Generous contributions poured in from across India. In Calcutta the movie houses donated one day box office receipts. In Cuttack a benefit football match was played until the district magistrate banned it. In Bombay the local funds committee chaired by the Mayor himself, raised Rs. 15,000 in three weeks. In Lukhnow Nehru auctioned oil paintings and raised Rs 1200 in one afternoon. Writes Dr. R. C Majumdar, "The Indian public did not, so long, know anything of the I.N.A., but now came to regard them as a band of patriotic heroes fighting for the liberation. of their motherland, and a wave of sympathy for them swept the whole of India." Congress Defence Committee included several legal luminaries including Nehru himself, Tej Bahadur Sapru, Asaf Ali and Kailas Nath Katju, apart from Bhulabhai Desai.

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Gandhiji had written to the Viceroy a note saying that although he did not support taking resort to arms even in self defense, he would nevertheless request the Viceroy to not to ignore what Indians were thinking as he was not blind to the courage and patriotism of the persons. He however would end with a pathetic request, "Let His Excellency decide what is best in the circumstances." The Viceroy himself had developed doubts. He wrote to Pethick Lawrence, "This is the first occasion on which an anti British politician (read Subhas Chandra Bose) has acquired a hold over a substantial number of men in the Indian Army, and the consequences are quite incalculable." Even British officers had warned, "Bose, had filled his men with an ineradicable sense of mission. Defeated, dispersed, captured, they nevertheless remained so bitten by the independence bug as to be beyond rehabilitation."

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Apart from Congress's defence committee, Achhru Ram, father of Prem Sahgal and a judge of Lahore High Court, decided to fight for all the three prisoners. But the star of the show from Defence was Bhulabhai Desai. Sapru had only made a guest appearance. Bhulabhai was a well known member of the Congress and one of the architects of the notorious Tripuri Congress where Subhas was deliberately trampled by the Gandhivadis that included Desai, Acharya Kripalani, Vallabh Bhai Patel, Rajagopalachary, Govind Ballav Panth and others. Bhulabhai was one of those who not only voted, but also actively campaigned against Subhas. Bhulabhai was now almost seventy years old, and his health was poor. Moreover he had fallen out of favour of the Congress Working Committee for his meetings with Jinnah against the wishes of the Congress. He probably had also developed a tinge of repentance and as he came to know more and more about the deeds of Subhas and INA, the Nationalist in him strongly overcame any inhibition that he might have had. The trial was scheduled to open on October 8, but defence sought more time to gather witnesses. One Captain Harichand had informed the British Government that Congress really had no interest for the INA. They had just wanted to take advantage of the impending elections, by looking at the public sentiment that strongly favoured a release of the INA men. This was revealed to Harichand by none other than Asaf Ali himself (Ladlimohan Roy Choudhury - "Azad Hind Fauj er Court Martial o Gana Bikkhobh"). It was also revealed by the British intelligence that Congress was planning to organize a large scale movement capitalizing on the Nation's mood on the Azad Hind Trials, if its demands were not fulfilled. Since the prisoners under trial involved a Muslim and a Sikh, the Muslim League of Jinnah and the Akali Dal had come forward to support the prisoners and even Hindu Mahasabha had come out openly in support for the release. The C in C Claude Auchinleck had thought that the trial was absolutely necessary to ensure that the Indian Army would see and treat them as traitors. The British Government had left no stones unturned to suppress any news about the INA's march and victories on the Indian soil, so Indian public knew next to nothing about them, not until the trial publicized their activities and that of their Netaji. The Indian Army had also had ample opportunities to mingle with the INA forces and had seen them from close quarters, in their encounters in Burma and Malaya. They had met the local Indians and seen the patriotic fervour and heard from them the exploits of the Azad Hind. However when the newspapers in India began to report about the activities of the INA in the context of the trials, it created waves of anger and resulted in an upsurge in public emotion in favour of the INA and Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. SA Ayer, upon his arrival in Delhi from Tokyo to testify at the trials, realised with thrill that the "INA had literally burst upon the country... from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin was aflame with an enthusiastic fervour unprecedented in its history." Dr. Majumdar writes, "The fame of Subhas Bose’s I.N.A. and the fact that the Congress had taken up the cause of the accused excited great interest in the trial throughout India. The official evidence, given in course of the trial, brought home to the Indians, for the first time, the magnitude of the I.N.A. organization set up by Subhas Bose and the heroic feats performed by I.N.A. men. Popular enthusiasm now rose to the highest pitch. When the Muslim League associated itself with the defence of the accused, the agitation became all-India in character. There was great resentment at the persecution of the ‘patriots’ and wild popular demonstrations were held over a wide area, from Calcutta to Lahore and Bombay, and from Lucknow to Madurai, occasionally accompanied by popular outburst of violence and the firing of the police." Punjab had seen massive demonstrations and strikes on the first two days of the trial, with thousands of students demonstrating in Lahore, Lyallpur and Rawalpindi, and "INA days" were observed in Karachi, Madras, Vellore, Salem and other parts of India. In Madurai, two people were killed in police firing, and in Calcutta there was a riot with the police resulting in the death of several persons. There were open hostilities against the Europeans, even to the extent of denying them services and goods by Indian shops. Sir Norman Smith, Director of the Intelligence Bureau, in a confidential note to the Home Department, said, "There has seldom been a matter which has attracted so much public interest and it is safe to say, sympathy."

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The trial lasted for 8 weeks. The main arguments put forth by the Government were that the Azad Hind Fauj in general and the prisoners under trial in particular, were guilty on three counts - They were 1) guilty of high treason, of desertion from Indian Army to help a foreign army, the Japanese, to act as collaborators and traitors 2) they had instigated and in several cases had murdered themselves those who had refused to comply with their plan, i.e they had tortured or killed British Indian Army soldiers who had refused to join them 3) They had perpetrated heinous crimes against their own men, by executing them on charges of treachery and disobedience. In the Court Martial there were seven members, including Major General A.B Blaxland. There were four British and three Indian Army members. Judge Advocate was Col. F.C.A Kerin. Waiting members included two British and two Indian Army members. Military Prosecutor P. Walsh was appointed to help the Advocate General N.P Engineer. The Government witnesses include Lt. D.C Nag, who held important positions in the Azad Hind Government. The Defence had planned for around 112 witnesses but did not need them as the Government witnesses had provided many crucial evidences in favour of the defence. Several Japanese officials were called to offer their testimony, who included Hachiyya, Katakura and Matsumoto. Former Azad Hind Government representatives like S.A Ayer, Lt. Col A.D Loganadhan, Dinanath of Azad Hind Bank etc. had been called to testify. Apart from Dhillon, Sahgal and Shah Nawaz, charge sheet was filed against three more INA soldiers - Captain Abdul Rashid, Subedar Shingara Singh and Fateh Khan. Soon they were joined by Burhanuddin. Writes Peter Fay, "The reconquest of Burma had been the Indian Army’s greatest triumph. That it should encounter there a force composed of men who had once belonged to it, constituted perhaps its greatest disgrace. The disgrace could be expunged, and the honor of the Indian Army made whole again, only by bringing to justice some, at least, of the leaders of this traitor force. A process for doing this had been set in motion. Buffeted from the outside by a rising public outcry that Congress Party orchestrated, half paralyzed on the inside by muddle, weariness, and the necessity of arranging in haste what would normally be done with magisterial deliberateness, the process faltered."  

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In the trial of the top three, the defendants as well as the Japanese witnesses testified how they had responded to Netaji and in glowing terms depicted the courage, the patriotism, and the leadership of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. Shah Nawaz for instance proved false the allegation against him that he ordered the execution of one Mohammad Hussein for treachery, proving in the court that Hussein was convicted but was not shot as his sentence was commuted. The Government had revealed how Burhanuddin, one INA officer, had flogged to death one of the soldiers Joga singh for a petty transgression. But it was proved to be an exception attributed to a particular person. Shah Nawaz also revealed how British Army had forced them to surrender in Singapore by giving them up to the Japanese, how they had fought on equal terms in Burma and in Imphal despite severe shortages, how the INA had to endure many hardships that they had willingly borne for a cause, that of India's freedom, and how they had been motivated to that cause by their Supreme Commander and leader, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. Prem Sahgal and Dhillon in their defence stated very clearly their motivation and proved that the allegations against them were baseless. Finally Bhulabhai rose to argue the case. In a ten hour long summation, disregarding his own failing health, Bhulabhai argued that it was "not a case of three individuals waging war against the King, but the right of the Indian National Army — the organised army of a duly-constituted Provisional Government of India — to wage war for India’s liberation." Bhulabhai reminded the British of the fight of the Maquis, the French revolutionaries, against German occupation. While the secret rebel army laid down its life to protect its motherland, The French emperor was a willing collaborator of the Germans. Did by rebelling against the ruling emperor the Maquis become traitors? And yet, the same Maquis were supported by the Britain. He reminded the court that when Garibaldi battled against the Italian monarch, England had given him Nationalist status. He reminded the British that Col. Hunt had handed over forty five thousand Indian prisoners of war in the Farrer Park in Singapore, without any consideration of what was going to happen to them. So the British Emperor himself did not do his duty to his men. Therefore the question of treason did not arise. A revolutionary war, waged for the liberation of a people, if properly declared and conducted, gave those waging such a war the rights of belligerents, as Britain had in the past conferred to the Bolivarian rebels in South America, of the Confederate Army in the US Civil War, or of the Dutch, Polish and Yugoslav governments-in-exile during World War II (even while they had no territory to call their own and Azad Hind Provisional Government had legitimate territories and it was recognized by no less than nine countries of the world).

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It is difficult to say what the British Government aimed to achieve through an open trial. Auchinleck had written to the India Office in mid-October, “that when the evidence comes to be made public, as it will be made public because the trials are going to be open to the public, some of those gentlemen out there who have been so loud in their sympathy for the I.N.A. may sing a different tune. I think it will be difficult for them to defend murderers and torturers of people of their own race simply because they remained loyal to their salt." Writes Peter Fay, "There were two arrows in Sir Naushirwan’s quiver, the treason charge, and the charge of murder and/or abetting of murder. But as the tales were told, it became more and more apparent that they had nothing to do with Sahgal, Dhillon, and Shah Nawaz. In his closing address Engineer admitted as much. Kerin made it explicit. “There is not and never has been,” he advised the court, which as required listened to him before it retired to reach a verdict, “the least suggestion that these three accused before you were ever personally engaged in the ill-treatment of prisoners, or even that they were at any time present when men were tortured or ill-treated." In this respect Ayer's testimony was most useful as he narrated all the voluntary activities done by the Azad Hind Government's people, without any threat or coercion, like raising money, recruiting and training people, sending tonnes of rice for Bengal famine and so on. Even the witnesses of the prosecution had nothing to say against the three accused officers. One of them, Dilasa Khan, remembered Shah Nawaz saying that if they noticed any Japanese soldier mistreating any Indian woman, that soldier had to be stopped and if needed shot, because the fight was for the freedom of India and not for the well being of the Japanese. A report on Nov 17 by the Governor of Punjab, Bertrand Glancy declared that in the eyes of the Punjabis, who comprised of the most of the men in the Indian Army, Sahgal, Dhillon and Shah Nawaz were heroes. The report said that the public did not take the charges against them of murder and abetment of murder, seriously. Calling them traitors simply fed their popularity. The report stated that if a sentence of death was pronounced and was actually carried out, the British Government in Punjab would face agitation worse than that preceded the Amritsar (Jallianwalah Bagh) massacre of 1919, violence more serious than any seen during the Quit Indian Movement of 1942. The forcible suppression if any would prejudice for years any hopes of a constitutional settlement in India. Sir George Cunningham, Governor of the North-West Frontier Province, suggested something that Glancy had stopped short of. Auchinleck, he wrote, ought to announce that “as Indian opinion is opposed to the trial of these persons (Sahgal, Dhillon, and Shah Nawaz), he wipes the whole thing out and takes no further proceedings against anyone.” Announce it now, he urged the C.-in-C. Halt the first trial and cancel any that are scheduled to follow." Auchinleck wrote to the Viceroy on 26th Nov, 1945, "I know from my long experience of Indian troops how hard it is even for the best...that there is a growing feeling of sympathy for the INA."

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The court pronounced its verdict. The accused were guilty of waging war against the King Emperor, but not of murder or of abetting murders or tortures. The sentence on all three was cashiering (dismissal from the service), forfeiture of pay and allowances, and transportation for life. Later the C in C Auchinleck remitted the transportation of life sentence and made them free. On the next day in Delhi a huge rally was organized in the honour of the INA heroes by the Congress in which Asaf Ali presided. More than hundred thousand people gathered in the rally. When the three officers came out of their train in the Lahore station on 5th January, 1946, they received a triumphant welcome from a huge crowd, despite section 144 imposed. The police did nothing to stop the crowd, India had progressed far from the days of the Jalliawanwala Bagh. The table had turned. Slaves were no longer slaves. Peter Fay rightly observed in the Forgotten Army that the victorious armies are granted ceremonial triumphs, defeated armies were not. The INA of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose had snatched victory from the jaws of defeat and had almost united and liberated India, exactly as he had predicted and promised to them two and half years back. The second and third trials and all subsequent trials were moved to the Delhi Cantonment. Burhanuddin was found guilty and sent to seven year's of rigorous imprisonment. Similarly Shingara Singh's and Fateh Khan's trials were delayed and their sentences were set aside after independence. One case of interest was that of Abdul Rashid. Rashid had sought help only from Muslim League and he claimed that he had joined because "he could see that Mohan Singh and his Sikh and Hindu friends intended to ride into India on the backs of the Japanese and, once there, make it a place where no decent Muslim could hold up his head. He had joined, as other Muslims he assured the court had joined, so that they could arm themselves against this conspiracy." Rashid's sentence brought the Muslim students together on the streets along with the Hindus, but with a difference. The Muslim students wanted to chant Pakistan Zindabad, instead of the customary Jai Hind (Peter Fay). It just showed how powerful the Muslim League had become and how it had indoctrinated and poisoned the youth. The supposed communal harmony that the INA trials had created broke to pieces soon. Writes Peter Fay as an astute observer, "For three years the Congress was proscribed and almost dormant. The Muslim League was not. Its membership swelled. Its organization hardened. It announced that it alone spoke for Muslims, and torpedoed Wavell's Simla Conference by insisting that all five Muslim seats on the Viceroy’s Council be filled by League men. It entered the Central and Provincial elections of late 1945 and early 1946 determined to make the point again, this time at the polls, and took every Muslim seat in the Central Legislative Assembly and nine out of every ten seats reserved for Muslims in the Provincial Legislative Assemblies. Though Congress Muslims survived (Asaf Ali entered the Central Assembly with a handy win in his Delhi open constituency), it was clear, now, that in most provinces they would continue to do so only if Hindus voted for them." In Bombay the police prevented a procession in support of the INA not to proceed through the Muslim quarters. In Jhansi, a Bose birthday procession passing through a Muslim quarter was attacked. Hooligans attacked Shah Nawaz with slogans like Pakistan Zindabad. Thus the vision of a united India that Netaji had hoped for, came to an end quickly and abruptly owing to the sinister designs of the Muslim League and the duplicity of Congress.

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On 12 April, 1942, in a Delhi press conference Nehru declared that if Subhas proceeded with his force he would be resisting Subhas because he believed Subhas's army to be dummy force under Japanese control. Gandhi said that "in fact I believe that Subhas Bose will have to be resisted by us." Communists and the M.N Roy's party had directly opposed Subhas. So none of them were in fact a willing friend of the INA and Subhas. Dr. Majumdar is extremely blunt in asserting that, "There are some grounds to believe that the Government decision to put the I. N. A. men on' trial met with gratified approval, even from the Congress leaders." There were suspicions in some quarters that the Congress deliberately used the I.N.A. as an election stunt. Dr. Majumdar argues that, Whether this is true or not, there is not the least doubt that the Congress swept the polls at the crest of the wave of enthusiasm created by the I. N. A. trial. Last words were spoken by Nehru and Patel. The same Nehru who had vowed to fight Subhas's army had they brought the Japanese to India, had stood up for its defence, and remained in its support only until the elections. In a meeting in Calcutta for the INA week celebration Patel rose and explained to the crowd that the men and women of the Indian National Army deserved to be recognized for their courage and self-sacrifice, but not because they had taken up arms and fought for India’s freedom. Their greatest accomplishment, he said, had been the suppression of communal divisions. Because of this the Congress welcomed them and had a place for them. But there was a condition to meet. If they wished to enter the Congress fold they would have to adhere to the Congress creed—’’and put their swords back into the scabbard", in short, erase the memory and legacy of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. Some INA men including Shah Nawaz did just that, others like Dr. Pabitramohan Roy chose not to respond and remained an outcast. Still others, like M.Z Kiani and Habibur Rahman, migrated to Pakistan.

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