Netaji Subbash Chandra Bose’s Relation with Japan in Historical Context and Contemporary Perspectives

Subhash Chandra Bose was one of India’s greatest freedom fighter. He revived the Indian National Army, popularly known as ‘Azad Hind Fauj’ in 1943 which was initially formed in 1942 by Rash Behari Bose. He provided an influential leadership and kept the spirit of nationalism burning during the slack period of national movement in India. Netaji was a patriot to the last drop of his blood. In his passionate love for the motherland, he was prepared to do anything for the sake of liberating his country. Subhash Chandra Bose is a legendary figure in Indian history. His contribution to the freedom struggle made him a brave hero of India. However, there has been controversial debates about Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose’s political views in his struggle for India’s freedom till date. This paper studies about 1. Controversy on Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose’s political views; 2. Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose’s relation with Japan from contemporary perspectives; and 3. Subhash Chandra Bose’s relation with Japan in comparison with that of Phan Boi Chau in Vietnam. Received 9th December 2020; Revised 2nd March 2021; Accepted 20th March 2021

A Contextual Review of the Selected English Writings on Japan’s Secret War Theatre, 1941-1945

This article explores the English writings, which have substantially examined the Japanese secret war, abroad Indian revolutionaries’ collaboration with the Japanese intelligence networks, and British counter-intelligence amid World War-II. Further, the paper spotlights the formation of the Indian National Army (INA), the role of Subhash Chandra Bose, and other Indian revolutionaries settled in Southeast Asia and Far East Asia. However, the British portrayed those revolutionaries as ‘Japanese Inspired Fifth Column’ (JIFC) through their propaganda agencies and efficient organizational setups, including Indian troops. The article also spotlights the covert activities of Japanese in British India, which gathered military and strategic information, and dispatched it to Tokyo. The British thwarted the Japanese espionage networks as well as activities by recruiting the Indians as the double agents, prior they were furthering Japanese interests in India. Unfortunately, the history of British India, English Empire in India and the WW-II bypasses the contribution of abroad Indian revolutionaries and their associations with Japanese-intelligence networks, and their impact upon the Indian nationalist movement during WW-II.

Gandhi's Newspaperman: T. G. Narayanan and the quest for an independent India, 1938–46

The expansion of the colonial public sphere in India during the 1930s and 1940s saw the nation's English-language press increasingly serve as a key site in the struggle for freedom despite British censorship. This article examines the journalistic career of T. G. Narayanan, the first Indian war correspondent and investigative reporter, to understand the role of English-language newspapers in India's quest for independence. Narayanan reported on two major events leading to independence: the Bengal famine of 1943 and the Second World War. Drawing on Michael Walzer's concept of the ‘connected critic’, this research demonstrates that Narayanan's journalism fuelled the Indian nationalist movement by manoeuvring around British censors to publicize and expand Mahatma Gandhi's criticism of British rule, especially in light of the famine and war. His one departure from the pacifist leader, however, was his support of Indian soldiers serving in the Indian National Army and British Army.

The “Right to Wage War” against Empire: Anticolonialism and the Challenge to International Law in the Indian National Army Trial of 1945

This Article treats the Indian National Army Trial of 1945 as a key moment in the elaboration of an anticolonial critique of international law in India. The trial was actually a court-martial of three Indian officers by the British colonial government on charges of high treason for defecting from the British Indian Army, joining up with Indian National Army forces in Singapore, and waging war in alliance with Imperial Japan against the British. In this trial, the defense made the radical claim that anticolonial wars fought in Asia against European powers were legitimate and just and should be recognized as such under international law. The aim of this Article is to draw attention to the understudied role of anticolonial movements in challenging the premises of international law in the aftermath of World War II.

Collaborators! Aftermath of Wartime Support for the INA among Indians in China

This article discusses the plight of the Indian community in China after the World War II. During the World War II, a sizeable number of Indian immigrants in China had been mobilised under the banner of the Indian National Army (INA), which was fighting for freedom from British colonial rule in alliance with Japan. This article seeks to understand the complex problems faced by the Indians in China in the aftermath of the War both because of the general dislocation they had suffered on account of war and occupation, and also because of their active or passive participation in a movement seen as ‘collaborationist’. It looks at how, for the British, Chinese and even Indian authorities, the issue of their status as ‘collaborators’ coloured the humanitarian issue of providing relief to a severely afflicted community. It also attempts to show how the wartime political activities of Indians in China not only had immediate consequences for them but also in some cases had an afterlife, which lasted for quite a few years after the War.

The Transnational Mission of an Indian War Correspondent: P. R. S. Mani in Southeast Asia, 1944–1946

This article, based on new archival materials, reconstructs the experiences and observations of an Indian war correspondent from 1944 to 1946 as he covered the advance of Indian soldiers of the British-led Indian Army from northeast India, through Burma to Malaya at the war's end, then to their eventual deployment with the South East Asian Command in Java after the Japanese surrender. As it transpired, Captain P. R. S. Mani worked as an enlisted public relations officer of the British-led Indian Army but also sustained his commitment as a patriotic Indian nationalist, who gathered intelligence on the Indian diaspora in Southeast Asia and on the impact of Subhas Chandra Bose's Indian National Army. Relatively little scholarship has focused on Asian war journalism. Mani's tension-ridden role as a self-styled ‘Indian Army observer’ provides an illuminating insight into the way in which Britain's lines of communication were appropriated and subverted during wartime and beyond, and into the way his own nationalism was reshaped by his unofficial transnational activities.

Meanings of Treason in a Colonial Context: Indian Challenges to the Charges of ‘Waging War against the King’ and ‘Crimes against Peace’

In November 1945, the British colonial authorities convened a court martial of members of the Indian National Army, which had fought alongside the Japanese in the Asia-Pacific War. Three defendants were charged with ‘waging war against the King’ – the equivalent of treason, set out in Section 121 of the Indian Penal Code.At the heart of the case was the question of allegiance. The chief defence counsel, Bhulabhai Desai, had the task of presenting a legitimate – i.e., non-treasonable – exception to the duty of allegiance to a state during a war. Drawing on Hobbesian themes, Desai insisted that a specific event – the fall of Singapore – had convinced the surrendered Indian troops of the British Army that Britain was no longer capable of protecting their interests. Further, he questioned the very premise of the ‘waging war against the King’ charge, by arguing that during a war of liberation the justice of the challenger eclipsed the security of the challenged.Desai's approach influenced Radhabinod Pal, who would take these arguments to the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. Pal, like Desai, took as his starting point the differing interests of the powerful states and their colonies. He argued that the Allies’ motives for creating the new charge of ‘crimes against peace’ were highly suspect, considering their own history of violence towards the non-Western world. Would it not potentially immobilize the struggle against colonialism? And,paceHobbes, could not a colonized state's duty of allegiance to the society of states be relinquished?