Women against the Raj : the Rani of Jhansi regiment 9789812308085, 9812308083

Citation preview

Reproduced from Women Against the Raj: The Rani of Jhansi Regiment by Joyce Chapman Lebra (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2008). This version was obtained electronically direct from the publisher on condition that copyright is not infringed. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior permission of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Individual articles are available at < http://bookshop.iseas.edu.sg >

The Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) was established as an autonomous organization in 1968. It is a regional centre dedicated to the study of socio-political, security and economic trends and developments in Southeast Asia and its wider geostrategic and economic environment. The Institute’s research programmes are the Regional Economic Studies (RES, including ASEAN and APEC), Regional Strategic and Political Studies (RSPS), and Regional Social and Cultural Studies (RSCS). ISEAS Publishing, an established academic press, has issued almost 2,000 books and journals. It is the largest scholarly publisher of research about Southeast Asia from within the region. ISEAS Publishing works with many other academic and trade publishers and distributors to disseminate important research and analyses from and about Southeast Asia to the rest of the world.

00a RAJ prelimsn.indd

2

7/30/08

3:42:46 PM

First published in Singapore in 2008 by ISEAS Publishing Institute of Southeast Asian Studies 30 Heng Mui Keng Terrace Pasir Panjang Road Singapore 119614 E-mail: [email protected] Website: All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior consent of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. © 2008 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore The responsibility for facts and opinions in this publication rests exclusively with the author and her interpretations do not necessarily reflect the views or the policy of the publisher or its supporters. ISEAS Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data Lebra, Joyce Chapman Women against the Raj : the Rani of Jhansi regiment. 1. Indian National Army. 2. World War, 1939-1945—India. 3. Women revolutionaries—India. 4. Lakshmi Bai, Rani of Jhansi, d. 1858. I. Title. DS442.6 L452 2008 ISBN ISBN ISBN

978-981-230-808-5 (soft cover) 978-981-230-809-2 (hard cover) 978-981-230-810-8 (PDF)

Cover photo: Lakshmi Swaminathan and Netaji reviewing RJR troops. Courtesy of the Netaji Research Bureau. Endpaper: The Map of Burma was prepared by Mrs Lee Li Kheng of the Department of Geography, National University of Singapore. Typeset by International Typesetters Pte Ltd Printed in Singapore by Mainland Press Pte Ltd

00a RAJ prelimsn.indd

4

7/30/08

3:42:46 PM

To the women who dared — The Rani of Jhansi Regiment

00a RAJ prelimsn.indd

5

7/30/08

3:42:47 PM

“I wanted to die for India …” Statement by several survivors of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment

00a RAJ prelimsn.indd

6

7/30/08

3:42:47 PM

CONTENTS

Message from ISEAS Director, Ambassador K. Kesavapany

ix

Foreword by President S. R. Nathan

x

Preface

xii

Acknowledgements

xv

1.

The Historical Rani

1

2.

Bengali Nationalism

10

3.

Bengali Women Revolutionaries

20

4.

Subhas Chandra Bose

32

5.

The Indian National Army

44

6.

Volunteers from the Malayan Rubber Estates

60

7.

The Rani of Jhansi Regiment

71

8.

Deployed to Burma

88

9.

After the War

99

10. Conclusion

00a RAJ prelimsn.indd

7

107

7/30/08

3:42:47 PM

viii

Contents

Epilogue by Professor P. Ramasamy

109

Bibliography

113

Index

121

About the Author

131

00a RAJ prelimsn.indd

8

7/30/08

3:42:47 PM

MESSAGE FROM THE DIRECTOR

I first met Professor Emerita Joyce Chapman Lebra in January 2007 in Kolkata, where the Netaji Research Bureau had organized a Golden Jubilee Conference on Subhas Chandra Bose. The conference’s theme was the effect of World War II on Asian independence. To listen to Professor Lebra was to be reminded of her substantial contribution to the literature on the Indian National Army’s role in Southeast Asia. I thought immediately that she could bring her scholarship to bear on the task of recording, and thereby preserving, the INA’s legacy. I spoke to her, and we agreed that one particular area that needed looking at was the way in which the Rani of Jhansi Regiment had contributed to the INA’s work, both materially and ideationally. The idea of women taking up arms against the Raj was not new: women revolutionaries in Bengal, among other places in India, had blazed the way. The story had been told. But the story of a combat-ready women’s regiment in an anti-colonial army in Southeast Asia needed to be fleshed out to enhance understanding of the INA’s larger contribution to anti-colonialism in this region. That was the point of the book project that I suggested to Professor Lebra to which she agreed readily. ISEAS is pleased to have been involved in the production of this book. K. Kesavapany Director Institute of Southeast Asian Studies Singapore

00a RAJ prelimsn.indd

9

7/30/08

3:42:47 PM

FOREWORD

Much has been written about Subhas Chandra Bose in the annals of India’s Independence struggle. Likewise, the Indian National Army (INA) that he raised in Singapore has also been extensively researched by scholars worldwide. A part of the INA was the all-women “Rani of Jhansi Regiment” that was raised and led entirely by local Indian women in Southeast Asia. Many of the rank and file were from the rubber plantations and housewives. The historical “Rani of Jhansi”, whose bravery in the struggle against the British is well-known to students of Indian history, was what Bose invoked for the women’s regiment that formed part of the INA. The active role in the Independence struggle by women in his mother country has also received attention in this book. This book should be fascinating reading for all interested in Asian history, particularly for those who did not live through the tumultuous era in which the INA also appeared on the terrain of wartime Southeast Asia. This eloquent and evocative account of that Regiment by Professor Joyce Lebra, is a conscientious contribution towards the debate on the INA and the Rani of Jhansi Regiment’s role and gives a better understanding of its contribution to India’s Independence struggle. Professor Joyce Lebra, who has played a crucial role in recording the INA’s history in general, is well-equipped to author this pioneering work on the Rani of Jhansi Regiment. Her meticulous research and imaginative analysis are evident in this book. One of the book’s particular strengths is the way in which she combines research-based evidence on women’s valiant role in history and the heroic spirit that they displayed in the war against the British. The accounts of courageous local Indian women, some of whom left comfortable lives to take part in the struggle, make this book of deep human interest as well. I commend the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies for having embarked on a book that will record for posterity the lives, thoughts and actions of an

00a RAJ prelimsn.indd

10

7/30/08

3:42:47 PM

xi

Foreword

irreplaceable generation of Southeast Asian women, who would otherwise remain unknown and unremembered. I compliment Professor Lebra for having produced such a rich and textured record of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment and the role that it played in the struggle for Indian Independence. S. R. Nathan President of Singapore

00a RAJ prelimsn.indd

11

7/30/08

3:42:48 PM

PREFACE

I was invited to the Golden Jubilee Conference at the Netaji Research Bureau in Kolkata on 23 January 2007. There I met a major speaker, Janaki Athi Nahappan, who during World War II was second in command of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment, part of the Indian National Army. She invited me to visit her in Kuala Lumpur to write her story and the story of the Regiment. I had commented at a session of the conference that a definitive study of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment remained to be written. As I have written two books on the historical Rani of Jhansi and one on the Indian National Army,1 several people at the conference suggested that I write the history of the Regiment. Subsequently I was also invited to visit Dr Lakshmi Sahgal in Kanpur, who commanded the Regiment, an extraordinary woman in her nineties who still practices medicine. She has also written her autobiography.2 This combination of invitations was enticing, but I wondered how I would finance such a study. I then received an offer of a fellowship from Ambassador Kesavapany, Director of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore. With this encouragement, I was on my way to India and Southeast Asia to embark on the project. Regarding the organization of this book, Subhas Chandra Bose was creator of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment as part of the Indian National Army and is key to its story. Since he invoked the name and image of the historical Rani of Jhansi for the name of the Regiment, a brief survey of her life and legend serves as the background for the story of the Regiment. Bose’s revolutionary ideology was nurtured in the fertile soil of late nineteenth and early twentieth century Bengal, the fulcrum of revolutionary nationalism in the subcontinent, and we consider here its generative components. Bose knew many of the Bengali women whose nationalism erupted in revolutionary acts, and he, while encouraging these women, was inspired by the germ of the idea of a unit of women armed to fight for independence. We consider these noteworthy women here.

00a RAJ prelimsn.indd

12

7/30/08

3:42:48 PM

xiii

Preface

Bose himself was a complex though in adulthood single-minded individual, passionately dedicated to attaining India’s liberation from the slavery of colonialism. His early life before he left for Southeast Asia is considered in a chapter. Once Bose reached Southeast Asia, he turned immediately to galvanizing all three million Indians there in the struggle for independence, mostly as civilian support in the Indian Independence League in Singapore, Malaya, Burma, and Thailand. His major effort, however, was revitalizing the Indian National Army, which had earlier origins in the British surrender in Malaya and Singapore and in Japanese intelligence warfare. As the legitimizing organ of the Army, he created the Free India Provisional Government, with a cabinet, bank, and territorial base. The epic struggle of the Indian National Army is an integral part of the history of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment, for the Regiment as part of the INA was trained by INA men, and the fate of the RJR and INA was inextricably intertwined in Malaya and Burma. Creation of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment has been described as Bose’s pet project, his favourite dream. The story of the Regiment is an extraordinary one. The women who responded to Bose’s call to fight for Indian liberation were primarily teenage girls from rubber plantations in Malaya, girls who had never seen India but were nevertheless eager to volunteer at the risk of their lives in battle to see India freed. What we explore here is their motivation, their sense of Indian identity, the reasons they dedicated not only their gold jewellery but their lives in response to Netaji’s appeal. Despite the plethora of books on Bose and the INA, scant mention of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment is found in these volumes, typically not even a mention. Studies by Leonard Gordon and Peter Fay are two exceptions that do contain passages on the Regiment.3 Unfortunately I came to this subject too late to be able to interview many survivors of the Regiment. I was fortunate to spend some time with Lakshmi Sahgal, the commander of the Regiment, in Kanpur, and to visit Janaki Athi Nahappan, second in command, in Kuala Lumpur, as well as to interview her son. Other survivors with written information of their roles were also generous with information — Rasammah Bhupalan, about whom an excellent biography has appeared,4 and Manawati Arya, who has written about Bose with some chapters on the Regiment.5 I was also able to locate and interview a few survivors from the Malayan rubber estates, women who had less education and lived less public lives after the war. It is my hope that this study will help to fill the lacuna in the fascinating story of this exceptional band of young women who “wanted to die for India”, to make India free.

00a RAJ prelimsn.indd

13

7/30/08

3:42:48 PM

xiv

Preface

Notes 1

2

3

4

5

Joyce Chapman Lebra, The Rani of Jhansi: A Study in Female Heroism in India (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1986); Durga’s Sword (Delhi: HarperCollins, 1995); Jungle Alliance: Japan and the Indian National Army (Singapore: Asia/Pacific Press, 1971). Mention must be made here of a study by Rohini Gawankar, The Women’s Regiment and Captain Lakshmi of INA (New Delhi: Devika Publications, 2003) as the major exception to the dearth of sources on the subject. Lakshmi Sahgal, A Revolutionary Life: Memoirs of a Political Activist (New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1997). Leonard Gordon, Brothers Against the Raj: A Biography of Indian Nationalists Sarat and Subhas Chandra Bose (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990); Peter Ward Fay, The Forgotten Army: India’s Armed Struggle for Independence, 1942–1945 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993). Aruna Gopinath, Footprints on the Sands of Time: Rasammah Bhupalan, A Life of Purpose (Kuala Lumpur: Arkib Negara Malaysia, 2007). Manawati Arya, Patriot: The Unique Indian Leader, Subhas Chandra Bose (New Delhi: Lotus Press, 2007).

00a RAJ prelimsn.indd

14

7/30/08

3:42:48 PM

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am grateful to many people who lent support and guidance in the research that went into this book. First, I wish to thank Ambassador Kesavapany, Director of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, and the Institute for a Visiting Professorial Fellowship and research support that provided me the opportunity to undertake this study. The entire staff of the Institute gave me valuable assistance that was always available and graciously provided. I would like in particular to thank Mrs Y.L. Lee of administration, Miss Ch’ng Kim See of the library, and Mrs Triena Ong and Ms Sheryl Sin of ISEAS Publishing for being unfailing in their support. Members of the research unit of the Institute, particularly Professor P. Ramasamy and Mr Asad-ul Iqbal Latif provided useful historical insights. Perpetua Durack Clancy, Sherry Oaks, Sharon and Tony Siddique, and Jayati Bhattacharya also read chapters and offered helpful suggestions. It was thanks to historians at the Golden Jubilee Conference of the Netaji Research Bureau in Kolkata that the original inspiration for the study occurred, and I am grateful to the family of Professors Krishna and Sugata Bose and the Netaji Research Bureau for providing archival, logistic, and other assistance for this as well as for previous research. I am also obliged to Donald Johnson of the Ames Library on South Asia at the University of Minnesota, and to the staff of the University of Chicago Library South Asia section for assistance in their collections. I extend my heartfelt thanks to survivors of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment who enthusiastically shared memories as I interviewed them: Lakshmi Sahgal, Janaki Athi Nahappan, Rasammah Bhupalan, Manawati Arya, Meenachi, Muniammah, Anjalai, Anjaly, and Ammaloo. I am also deeply grateful to Muthammal Palanisamy and her daughters Rajilakshmi and Ananthalakshmi, not only for translating interviews from Tamil to English but also for hospitality for several days in Rawang to

00a RAJ prelimsn.indd

15

7/30/08

3:42:48 PM

xvi

Acknowledgements

undertake interviews. Muthammal also provided the Rubber Tappers Song. I am grateful to Captain Gandhinathan of the INA for arranging contacts in Penang. I also wish to thank Mr Ishwar Nahppan, Professor Aruna Gopinath, and Regiment survivor Meenachi for making photographs available. Thanks also to Adrian Lee for preparing the photographs for publication. Photographs were also provided to the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies by Professor Sugata Bose and the Netaji Research Bureau on the occasion of the 19 June 2007 launch of the twelve-volume series, Netaji Collected Works. Some of those photographs are included in this volume. Mr Nahappan also provided valuable information on the career of his mother, Janaki, second in command in the Rani of Jhansi Regiment. It goes without saying that responsibility for any errors of fact or interpretation rests with me alone. Joyce Chapman Lebra Singapore, 2008

00a RAJ prelimsn.indd

16

7/30/08

3:42:49 PM

00c RAJphotosn.indd

1

7/30/08

1:44:59 PM

Volunteers for the Rani of Jhansi Regiment Courtesy of the Netaji Research Bureau

00c RAJphotosn.indd

2

7/30/08

1:45:04 PM

Lakshmi Swaminathan and Netaji reviewing RJR troops Courtesy of the Netaji Research Bureau

00c RAJphotosn.indd

3

7/30/08

1:45:08 PM

Four RJR veterans at the INA reunion in Kuala Lumpur, 27 January 2008. Photo taken by the author

Josephine, killed in Burma Courtesy of Meenachi

00c RAJphotosn.indd

4

7/30/08

1:45:09 PM

Rasammah Bhupalan Permission by Rasammah Bhupalan and Professor Aruna Gopinath for photograph reproduced from Footprints on the Sands of Time: Rasammah Bhupalan, A Life of Purpose.

00c RAJphotosn.indd

5

7/30/08

1:45:10 PM

Janaki Davar, second in command of the RJR Courtesy of Ishwar Nahappan

00c RAJphotosn.indd

6

7/30/08

1:45:17 PM

Muniamma saluting in her wartime cap Photo taken by the author

00c RAJphotosn.indd

7

7/30/08

1:45:21 PM

Contemporary photo of line houses Photo taken by the author

Wartime photo of RJR girls Courtesy of Meenachi

00c RAJphotosn.indd

8

7/30/08

1:45:22 PM

1 THE HISTORICAL RANI

The Sepoy Rebellion, or First War of Independence in 1857, was the most written about event in the three centuries and more of British presence in India. While British sources regard the events as a mutiny of sepoys in the British Indian Army in North India, for Indians these events were far more significant, for they signalled the first phase of the struggle for independence. Hundreds of British military memoirs and regimental histories chronicled the events from the British perspective. Indian sources in English are less numerous and describe events of a glorious war fought by valorous martyrs. The war was a watershed in the history of British India, preceded as it was by control by the East India Company and followed by rule by the British Crown. It also marked a turning point in relations between Englishmen and Indians. While before 1857 cordial interpersonal relations and intermarriage occurred; after 1858 hatred, anger, and suspicion escalated on both sides. The war also produced a great impact both on the growth of nationalism and on the English colonial imagination. The causes of the war were numerous and varied, real and imagined, among the troops and more broadly among the populace of North India. Resentment against abuses led to the causes of rebellion — matters of postings overseas that caused sepoys to lose caste, and discrimination in pay, promotion, and access to officers clubs that rankled. Suppression of such social practices as sati, or widow-burning, and thugi, or religious murder, was resented among some classes, as was lifting the ban on cow slaughter. More widespread was fear of forcible conversion by Christian missionaries and rumours that flour sold in the markets contained ground cows’ bones. Another set of circumstances puzzling to men of the Raj was 1

01 RAJ.indd

1

6/26/08

1:40:39 PM

2

Women Against the Raj

the circulation of chapattis from village to village in North India just prior to 1857. And the immediate event that incited action was the issuing of Enfield rifles, whose percussion caps were greased with cow and pig fat and thus defiling to Hindu and Muslim alike. In the decade prior to 1857, several states were annexed as part of a policy of “lapse” enunciated by Governor-General Dalhousie. He assumed control of states whose rulers died without heirs, or who on their deathbeds adopted heirs, as was Hindu custom. Among those states Dalhousie declared lapsed to the Company was Jhansi, first ruled by the Maharaja, and after his death by his young widow, the Rani Lakshmibai, on behalf of the boy adopted as the Maharaja lay dying. The young Rani became a central figure as the events of 1857 and 1858 unfolded. And when the Enfield rifles were issued to the ranks of sepoys, the stage was set for war. Myth and history intertwine closely in the life of the Rani of Jhansi, known in childhood as Manu. Even the date of her birth is uncertain.1 She was born in the holy city of Varanasi to a Karhada Brahmin, Moropant Tambe. Astrologers predicted at her birth that Manu combined the qualities of all three principle Hindu deities: Lakshmi, Durga, and Sarasvati, goddesses of wealth, valour, and wisdom respectively. Her mother died very young, and Moropant was an official at the court of the last Maratha Peshwa, Baji Rao II, who when he was deposed moved to Bithur. There Manu grew up, it is popularly said, in the company of the boys at court, including Rao Sahib, Nana Sahib, and Tantia Tope, all of whom figured in the war of 1857. Manu, or Chhabili, a later childhood name, learned to read and write, unusual skills at the time, even for a Brahmin girl. Even more exceptional and significant later, she became adept at horsemanship and the use of the sword and other weapons, possibly even guns. She was a spirited tomboy who flew kites, ran races, fenced, and jumped. While these were proper skills for boys in highborn court families, they had no place in the socialization of a Brahmin daughter. For whatever reason, Moropant did not steer his motherless daughter in more conventional feminine directions. Moropant was ambitious, and when Chhabili reached puberty he arranged her marriage to the much older Maharaja Gangadhar Rao Newalkar of Jhansi. At the wedding ceremony the priest gave the young Rani the auspicious name of the goddess of abundance and good fortune, Lakshmi, a deity whose worship dated from epic antiquity.2 The Maharaja had no heir, and his two predecessors had also died childless. The Rani Lakshmibai produced a male heir, who however died in infancy. The disconsolate Maharaja died soon thereafter, on his deathbed adopting a heir, as was customary. Lakshmibai inherited the throne in 1853, probably still a teenager. Dalhousie then

01 RAJ.indd

2

6/26/08

1:40:39 PM

The Historical Rani

3

invoked his policy, refused to recognize the adopted heir, and declared Jhansi lapsed to British control. When the political officer at Jhansi informed the Rani, she was stunned and protested to the Governor-General at Fort William. Dalhousie issued a lengthy “minute” on 27 February 1854 detailing his policy of non-recognition of heirs adopted on a ruler’s deathbed. He argued that Jhansi had been misgoverned in the past and the state’s revenues had dwindled in consequence. British officials in Central India recommended that the Rani be granted a pension of five thousand rupees for life. While Lakshmibai was shocked at the British announcement, she may have had some intuition of what was coming, as soon after her husband’s death she initiated conversations with the political agent, Major Ellis, a man with apparent sympathy for the young widow. She was not about to accept the annexation of her state. She wrote several spirited appeals to Dalhousie, citing numerous treaties of 1804, 1817, and 1832 in which the British confirmed Jhansi rulers in their rank and territory. She chronicled the Jhansi assistance to the British in the Burmese War and the conferring of the title Maharaja in gratitude. She noted also that deathbed adoptions were performed according to the Hindu Shastras. In her appeals she was assisted by an Australian novelist and barrister named John Lang. Dalhousie rejected all the Rani’s appeals without specific replies to the numerous points she raised in her well argued memorials. She persisted, and mentioned the roads and bridges which had been built in Jhansi and a police force as proof of good government. She concluded forcefully that the dispossession was a “gross violation … of treaties, that it created unrest among the Princes and Chiefs of upper India”, and that it reduced her state to “subjection, dishonour, and poverty”.3 Dalhousie continued to ignore Lakshmibai’s closely argued, spirited protests and in May 1854, Jhansi lapsed along with Jaloun. A new set of officials stationed at Jhansi represented the Company hierarchy. The Rani was required to vacate the fort she loved, but was allowed to keep the palace as her residence. She disagreed with British officials in matters of the state’s debts and revenue, and she initially refused the pension and threatened to leave Jhansi and return to Varanasi, her birthplace. In several fictional accounts she cried, “I will never give up my Jhansi”, words that have been memorialized in ballads, songs, and poems. Disagreements and negotiations continued between the Rani and British officials. Both Lakshmibai and her subjects protested when the British lifted the ban on cow slaughter, a direct assault on Hinduism. The British also took control of two villages that had supported a temple where the Newalkars

01 RAJ.indd

3

6/26/08

1:40:39 PM

4

Women Against the Raj

had worshipped. These measures fostered widespread popular resentment in addition to the Rani’s protests. As late as January 1856 she was still protesting in vain to Fort William. It is no surprise that some British officials concluded that she was harbouring resentment. It is relevant here to mention some facts about her lifestyle. While her husband was still alive she obtained his grudging permission to continue her practice of horseback riding and swordplay. She not only enjoyed these pastimes; she enlisted her female palace attendants and trained them in these skills. She spent time in the fort before the English took it and organized parades of her women on horseback, impressing both Jhansi residents and some English observers. Perhaps she had an inkling of how significant her women’s unit would become later. Jhansi was strategically situated at the juncture of four important roads, two of which were major centres of the war in 1857. One ran northeast toward Kalpi, Kanpur, and Lucknow, the other wound northwest toward Agra and Delhi. At this critical point in time the garrison in Jhansi consisted entirely of Indian troops. Sixty English men, women and children resided in Jhansi, feeling secure in the loyalty of the troops, but about whom they had little understanding. On 31 May 1857 two bungalows in the Jhansi cantonment were burned, and rumours circulated about impending treachery in Jhansi and neighbouring districts, but English officers took no action. Sunday, 10 May dawned under a fierce sun in the town of Meerut, some forty miles northeast of Delhi. Two weeks earlier the cavalry, including Brahmins, had refused the greased cartridges and had been subjected to court martial and imprisonment. Servants vanished from bungalows of English officials, and men in the bazaars armed themselves. When the troops were called to parade on Sunday morning, they shot their officers and broke ranks in general revolt. Men from the bazaars burned bungalows and released prisoners from jail. Englishmen, women and children emerging from church service were all murdered. The sepoys left for Delhi. Troops across northern India followed suit, and were joined by Thakur landlords. At Kanpur, Nana Sahib ordered all the English killed and their bodies dumped into a well. In Lucknow some of the English held out in the residency until they were similarly killed. On 30 May, news of events in Kanpur and Lucknow had not yet reached Jhansi, and English officials there still did not agree on the need to take precautionary measures. On 5 June in Jhansi one company of infantry marched to the small Star Fort where ammunition was stored and took control of it. Despite this action, the commanding officer, Captain Dunlop, called for a parade the

01 RAJ.indd

4

6/26/08

1:40:40 PM

The Historical Rani

5

following morning, a parade intended to demonstrate loyalty. By afternoon shots were fired toward English bungalows, and shops were looted. English residents hurried in their coaches toward the fort, where all sixty took refuge. On their first day a few servants brought in food, but by the second day the servants were apprehended, and the refugees were without further supplies. Captain Dunlop sent a message to the besieged saying that the mutiny was only partial. He was shot the next day. Insurgents brought guns to the fort walls and attempted an escalade, but the English fired on them through the parapets. Gordon, one of the officials, dropped a letter to the Rani over the wall and asked that it be taken to her. According to a servant, in reply she stated that she was helpless, that the sepoys had surrounded her palace and accused her of protecting the English. Moreover, the sepoys demanded her assistance. To save her life, the servant said she had sent some men and two guns to the mutineers. The English were advised to leave the fort, though it was not specified how. The English realized that they could not hold out indefinitely, that their only hope is by escaping through the good offices of the Rani. Four men were sent out to her but never returned. On 8 June the English hung out a flag of truce and asked for safe conduct. Someone replied, but exactly who is not known by historians. The English left the fort through the main gate. What followed is one of the horrors of 1857. They were tied together, taken to an area called Jokhun Bagh beyond the city wall, and there they were all dispatched with swords and spears. Their bodies were left for three days, then thrown into gravel pits and covered over. The sepoys were in control of North India, including Delhi. The day after they left Jhansi, the Rani wrote the first of two letters to the British commissioner at Saugar, Captain Erskine, with an account of events and deploring the murders. She expressed regret at being helpless to assist the victims. Two days later she sent a second letter informing Erskine that disorder and plunder were prevalent and asking for government assistance. She wrote that she hoped the rebels “would go straight to hell for their deeds”. Erskine did not doubt her sincerity and replied that he hoped to send officers and troops. Erskine forwarded their correspondence to Fort William, but officials there raised doubts about her role. In Jhansi Lakshmibai went about the business of her state, opening a mint, distributing food and clothing to the indigent, and preserving the public peace. She did not shave her head or discard all her jewellry as was customary for Hindu widows. She became acutely aware of the vulnerability of her position and began enlisting troops, casting cannon, and manufacturing other weapons. Among her troops were Afghan and Pathan mercenaries,

01 RAJ.indd

5

6/26/08

1:40:40 PM

6

Women Against the Raj

who proved their loyalty later. She also created a women’s regiment of her trained palace attendants. She successfully repelled a military challenge from neighbouring Orchha, whose ruler apparently thought Jhansi would be easy picking with a woman ruler. Meanwhile British forces were able to retake Kanpur, followed by Bithur and Lucknow, and finally on 22 September, Delhi was captured by a force from the Punjab under John Nicholson. The army then turned its attention to north central India. The Rani of Jhansi was now viewed by the British as “Jezebel of India”, perpetrator of horrible atrocities, on a par with Nana Sahib and the macabre Kanpur massacre. Jhansi’s political and strategic importance, moreover, made it a prime target of the Central India Field Force. General Sir Hugh Rose, a veteran of the Crimean War, was deputed to subdue Jhansi. His pacification force included nine seasoned generals, and this formidable army was arrayed against the Rani and her allies, including her childhood companions, Nana Sahib, Tantia Tope, and Rao Sahib. Lakshmibai waited in vain for the assistance promised by Erskine during her correspondence. Couriers arrived in Jhansi in March 1858 with the news that British forces had taken neighbouring districts and were advancing on Jhansi. Some of her generals advised her to sue for peace, saying, “The English are masters of the country. No one ever made anything of fighting them.” Moropant and other generals gave opposing advice and strongly advised the Rani to fight. According to some accounts she was still sending couriers to the British but received no replies. She decided there was no option but to prepare for battle. General Rose’s army marched toward Jhansi in a several-pronged attack, each brigade under one of the nine generals. Lakshmibai and her army were ensconced in the fort strengthening their defenses. The siege of the fort continued for several days. On 21 March Tantia Tope marched to Jhansi with a force of twenty thousand, hoping to relieve the siege in a surprise attack. Rose learned of the manoeuvre in advance and prepared his strategy accordingly. Though Tantia Tope had superior numbers, his force was using old slow-firing weapons, and ninety per cent of his men were untrained raw recruits. They retreated to the jungle in a rout, much to the dismay of the watching Rani and her generals. Rose began an escalade of the fort, and the defenders replied in fierce fighting. Some of the English managed to escalade the walls, and the Rani and part of her army escaped over the fort wall under the cover of the night. They rode northeast toward Kalpi and its formidable fort. Rose’s siege of Jhansi succeeded, but he was dismayed at the Rani’s escape from the

01 RAJ.indd

6

6/26/08

1:40:40 PM

The Historical Rani

7

heavily guarded fort and extremely concerned about her whereabouts. Her escape over the wall, and her dash northeast on horseback with her army and subsequent battles at Koonch, Kalpi, and Gwalior are memorialized in songs, ballads, paintings, statuary, and folklores, not only in Jhansi, but in many parts of India. In late April Rose took the road toward Kalpi, a critical fort because it housed a cache of arms and ammunition. Kalpi was also an important crossing of the Yamuna River and could threaten the British communications with Kanpur. It was moreover the headquarters of Rao Sahib. At Koonch Rao Sahib took command of the army which included Tantia Tope and the Rani, disappointed not to have commanded herself. Rao Sahib dismissed her advice to go after the British on the offensive. Instead they fought a British flank attack in a brief battle and had to retreat toward Kalpi. The rebel force had one advantage: they were not as exhausted by the blazing heat of summer as the English, many of whom suffered heat stroke and had to be carried on stretchers, a fate to which Rose himself fell victim. He regarded the summer sun as the Rani’s best ally. The rebel army took up defenses in the Kalpi fort, which they saw as their last hope, since it was known that the Maharaja Scindia at Gwalior was loyal to the English. The Kalpi fort built in the tenth century has walls nine feet thick, and beyond the city and temples a labyrinth of deep ravines which could inhibit the advance of an army, by whatever means of transport. Tantia Tope, after the rout at Koonch, had gone in disguise to Gwalior in an attempt to win over Scindia’s well-disciplined army of ten thousand. Rose considered the European-trained Gwalior Contingent the best army in India. The rebels prepared five lines of defense around the fort, and Rose’s strategy was to attack from several directions, including his favourite tactic, a flank attack. The rebels advanced through the ravines under cover of smoke. Rose had a camel corps and Sikh infantry but suffered severe losses when the Enfield rifles became leaded and would not fire. He ordered a bayonet charge and camel corps advance into insurgent lines. His strategy again worked against the larger rebel force, and the fort offered them no safety. They departed toward Gwalior. Rose considered the campaign for Central India concluded, and his doctors ordered him to Bombay for treatment. Before he could leave, however, news arrived which altered his plans. Tantia Tope had been gathering intelligence in the Gwalior bazaars, and he rejoined the Rani and Rao Sahib eight miles from Gwalior. He proposed a stand at Gwalior, confident that the Gwalior Contingent would join them

01 RAJ.indd

7

6/26/08

1:40:41 PM

8

Women Against the Raj

rather than remain loyal to Scindia and the English. His assessment proved correct. Rose’s force had suffered huge casualties from sunstroke, but he was advised to send a force to Gwalior to support Scindia. Gwalior, like Jhansi, was strategically significant, athwart the Grand Trunk Road and a telegraphic link between Bombay and Agra. The Gwalior fort was one of the most imposing in the subcontinent, built on a precipitous igneous rock rising three hundred feet above the surrounding dusty plane. It was nearly two miles long and several hundred feet wide. The fort’s two gates were protected by steep roads and domed turrets. It seemed impregnable. When the rebel force rode toward Scindia’s army they shouted, “Deen!” [“Religion!”] and heard an answering yell from the Gwalior troops. The Rani, Rao Sahib and Tantia Tope were delighted; this meant the Gwalior army would join them. The rebels entered the fort in triumph. On 3 June Rao Sahib held a grand durbar and feast in the fort. Fanfares of trumpets, shouts of joy and Vedic prayers rang through the fort walls. One person was notably absent from the celebrations. Lakshmibai, concerned about Rose’s army, admonished Rao Sahib for celebrating before victory and left the fort in disgust. She drilled and inspected her troops and studied the surrounding terrain. Rose also studied the lay of the land and learned that the fort’s most vulnerable approach was to the south and east. He ordered his force into position on 16 June and two days later ordered the attack to commence. The sole obstacle to the advancing English squadron was the Rani and her troops occupying the hilly ground between Kotah-ki-Serai and Gwalior. She faced the attackers in full battle dress, dashing into action without hesitation. Indian versions of Lakshmibai’s last battle relate that one of her court women, Mundar, fought at her side. The Rani was struck a fatal blow, the exact manner of her death uncertain, but related variously in many songs and ballads. Her death in battle as a martyr gave birth to a legend still celebrated in India and Southeast Asia, where in 1943 Subhas Chandra Bose named his women’s regiment after her. Her courage in battle was recognized by General Rose, who in his battle report wrote that she was the “best and bravest of the rebels”. Tantia Tope was hanged at Shivpuri where a statue of him stands today, Rao Sahib was captured, and Nana Sahib disappeared, some say into Nepal. The English had survived the major challenge, a challenge that altered the nature of their presence in India. The Crown assumed administration of India from the Company.

01 RAJ.indd

8

6/26/08

1:40:41 PM

The Historical Rani

9

Since her martyr’s death, the legend of the Rani has had a history and dynamism of its own. Invoking her name in literature of the last half of the nineteenth century was a symbol, a code for nationalism when the press was controlled. The vitality of her legend bespeaks its multiple sources in nearly all definitions of the feminine and goddesses of the Hindu pantheon — Shakti, Kali/Durga, the Divine Mother, and more. Her story has inspired generations of artists and poets and served the growth of nationalism for over a century. Bengali women revolutionaries including Pritilata Waddedar, Bina Das, and Kalpana Dutt derived inspiration from her story and invoked her name in awe. Subhas Chandra Bose recognized the potency of the name of the Rani of Jhansi when he called on Indian women in Southeast Asia to rally to the armed struggle for independence, to take up arms against the British just as the Rani Lakshmibai had done in 1858.

Notes See discussion by the author in Joyce Chapman Lebra, The Rani of Jhansi: A Study in Female Heroism in India (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1986); and the historical novel, Durga’s Sword (Delhi: HarperCollins, 1995). See discussion in Niranjan Ghosh, Concept and Iconography of the Goddess of Abundance and Fortune in Three Religions (Burdwan: University of Burdwan, 1979). Joyce Chapman Lebra, The Rani of Jhansi: A Study in Female Heroism in India (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1986), pp. 36–38.

1

2

3

01 RAJ.indd

9

6/26/08

1:40:41 PM

2 BENGALI NATIONALISM

Bengali nationalism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was in some respects distinctive, and in other ways it shared features in common with a burgeoning nationwide movement. The nationalist movement encompassed a broad spectrum of conviction, from moderates willing to work for reform within the British framework, to revolutionaries who believed direct action was the only path to independence. Revolutionary activities were a response both to the writings of Bengali intellectuals and also to the actions of British officialdom. The 1905 partition of Bengal into East and West, partially along a Hindu-Muslim divide, was a British action that prompted a sharp response. The partition was preceded by two other unpopular measures in Bengal, the Calcutta Municipal Bill and the Universities Bill, both designed to tighten British control. The reaction to partition was immediate. English goods were boycotted in protest, not only in Calcutta stores but also elsewhere in Bengal. Response to unpopular and repressive measures was led by the Bhadralok, the English-educated elite. Calcutta, or Fort William as it was initially called, as the centre of East India Company control in India, was also a major focus of the introduction of English education. The influential educator, poet, artist and novelist, Rabindranath Tagore, and others of the Bengali literati participated in anti-partition protests. Aurobindo Ghosh, prominent later as founder of Auroville in Pondicherry, joined Bipin Chandra Pal in editing a paper called Bande Mataram in which he advocated meeting violence with violence. He also wrote articles for a revolutionary journal, Jugantar,1 published by a group of the same name, and agreed with the revolutionary Tilak in his strategy of fostering secret 10

02 RAJn.indd

10

6/26/08

1:41:40 PM

Bengali Nationalism

11

organizations and mass festivals. Aurobindo, Pal, and Lala Lajpat Rai, together with the Maharashtran Chitpavan Brahmin Tilak, were early leading lights of a militant style of nationalism. “Sunnyasins must be ready to die for the goddess in her modern incarnation as the nation”, wrote Aurobindo.2 Aurobindo’s Anglicized father had sent him to England at the age of seven, and there he had remained in school and college for fourteen years. He returned not as his father expected but with a profound dislike for England. He spent some time in Calcutta, where he met C.R. Das and other leaders and also kept in touch with the Irish expatriate, Sister Nivedita. He was imprisoned in Alipore jail for a year following the Alipore Bomb Case, and while there he dreamed that he had a God-ordained spiritual mission. In 1910, he therefore withdrew from politics and moved to Pondicherry to find his ashram. Sister Nivedita came to Calcutta from Ireland in 1898. She was warmly welcomed for her spiritual ideas by Bengali literati. Tagore called her “a mother of the people”, and Swami Vivekananda felt she would be helpful in his plans for women’s education, which he felt required “a tiger”.3 She joined Aurobindo’s secret society and wrote Kali: The Mother to mobilize readers for nationalistic work. Her house became a secret meeting place for revolutionaries.4 Most incendiary and influential of all Bengali nationalist literature in the late nineteenth century was Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s novel Anandamath [Abbey of Bliss]. The Bengali poem Bande Mataram sung by characters in the novel was set to music by Rabindranath Tagore and was widely adopted as the first national anthem. The hymn was sung defiantly often in prison by Bengali revolutionaries in the 1930s and 1940s, sung by members of the Indian National Army in Southeast Asia during World War II, and is sung even today at major events in Kolkata. In its revolutionary impact the song is comparable to the Marseillaise of the French Revolution, Chee Lai of the Chinese Communist Revolution, or Yankee Doodle of the American Revolutionary War. In the early years of the twentieth century, a few educated women emerged from the seclusion of their homes to advocate social reform, particularly education for women, abolition of child marriage, and remarriage for widows, many of whom, though children who had never seen their husbands, were forever forbidden to remarry. Some women, among them Sarojini Naidu and Annie Besant, saw the franchise as the key to improvement in the status of women. Numbered among other early advocates of reforms for women were Pandita Ramabai, Sarala Devi, Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, and Manmohini Zutshi Sahgal. These early reformers were encouraged by

02 RAJn.indd

11

6/26/08

1:41:41 PM

12

Women Against the Raj

a handful of British expatriate women, notably Annie Besant, Margaret Cousins, and Sister Nivedita. Annie Besant, a Theosophist proud of her Irish ancestry, was a committed advocate of Indian nationalism and Hindu values and was highly respected among nationalists. She organized a Ladies’ Congress in Madras and encouraged other women’s organizations. She founded the Home Rule League and collaborated with the Home Rule League founded by Tilak in 1916. Besant delivered a series of lectures titled ‘Wake Up, India!’. For her activities she was imprisoned with other nationalists, and on her release was elected Congress President in 1917, the first women to hold that position. Besant was an inspiration to many women as she linked Hindu revivalism with women’s activism for the first time.5 Margaret Cousins in 1926 founded the Women’s India Association, promoting women’s education, widow remarriage, and several other legal issues. She supported the Sarda Bill to ban child marriage by raising the age of consent, in 1924, to fourteen. This act, however, is still not universally observed in practice in India where traditionally, respectable families married their daughters off before they reached puberty. It was Mohandas Gandhi who, on his return from South Africa in 1919, brought both men and women out of their homes in large numbers in a nation-wide protest against British rule. He mobilized the nation with his call for satyagraha [soul force], referred to in the West as passive resistance. He urged resistance to force by refraining to respond to violence in kind. His wide appeal drew women out of the seclusion of their homes in the thousands to participate in the swadeshi movement, boycotting English goods produced in the mills of Manchester from India-grown cotton and sold back to India at high prices. Rather than buying or wearing foreign clothing, he advocated weaving and wearing khaddar [hand-woven cotton]. He provided the model himself, symbolically sitting at the spinning wheel. He also urged picketing liquor shops, another appeal that caught on widely among women not only in Bengal and Bombay but also more widely. One of the most popular issues on which Gandhi mobilized mass support was the salt tax. In 1930, he led a band of seventy-eight satyagrahis on a 240-mile trek to the sea at Dandi, gathering more supporters en route as people joined the half-clad Gandhi walking purposefully, staff in hand. Others living in coastal areas followed Gandhi’s example of manufacturing salt from the sea by hand. One of the more dedicated devotees who supported his march to Dandi, if not actually joined it, was Sarojini Naidu, the poetess who later became the first Indian woman Congress President. Gandhi did not encourage women to join him in this march.

02 RAJn.indd

12

6/26/08

1:41:41 PM

Bengali Nationalism

13

Sarojini Naidu was born in Hyderabad, the daughter of a scientistphilosopher and a poetess. She had already earned fame for her poetry before entering Madras College at age twelve, and at sixteen she was sent to England to study, first at King’s College, London, then at Girton College, Cambridge. She remained in England for three years. She made an iconoclastic inter-caste marriage at a time when it was frowned on; their marriage was performed according to the Brahmo Marriage Act of 1870. She numbered among her friends Tagore, C.R. Das, and Nehru. She led a delegation to England to propose women suffrage, and made the case in England as a Home Rule deputy in 1919. In 1921, she joined riots protesting the visit of the Prince of Wales. She addressed the Calcutta Congress in 1917 on the role of women in the nationalist movement. She was arrested and jailed more than once. In 1939, she became Congress President and was an inspiration to many later women nationalists and activists, not only in India but years later in Southeast Asia as well, encouraging them to act beyond their domestic roles.6 Another of Gandhi’s strategies against British oppression was the fast, which he employed several times, often when in prison. He calculated that this tactic would be successful, as he realized that the English could not allow him to die because of their actions. “You cannot fast against a tyrant”, he commented famously. Other political leaders followed his example with equal success, including Subhas Chandra Bose. Gandhi felt his satyagraha and swadeshi campaigns were especially suited to women, conditioned as they were to suffering and sacrifice. For him the submissive Sita, epitome of loyalty, chastity, and courage, was the ideal woman. He feared women’s sexuality and felt it was necessary to use strict self-discipline to guard against it. Gandhi knew that women’s participation would subject them at times to arrest and imprisonment, and at first he was reluctant to see women suffer. Later he came to feel that this was suffering which women as well as men could endure for the sake of swaraj [independence], the goal of all nationalists. Middle-class housewives throughout the country joined the satyagraha campaign in large numbers, courting arrest, and were imprisoned in the thousands. He and other nationalists emphasized the need for sacrifice for the nation. The success of Gandhi’s appeal was not limited to Bengal. It was nation-wide, and large numbers of supporters and their organizations were also found in Bombay, the Punjab, and elsewhere. Sacrifice has ancient antecedents in India, sacrificial ritual being central to Vedic religious observances. Sacrifice for the nation in the early twentieth century assumed both spiritual and political value for Gandhi and other nationalist leaders and their followers.

02 RAJn.indd

13

6/26/08

1:41:41 PM

14

Women Against the Raj

Widespread demonstrations, picketing and protests met with harsh reprisals from the British-controlled police. Beatings, arrest, and imprisonment were common, at times even torture, as thousands of men and women were sent to prison. Gandhi and his wife Kasturba, Nehru and his wife Kamala, C.R. Das, Subhas Chandra Bose, Sarojini Naidu and other luminaries spent years in prison, often multiple times. Nationalists often participated in demonstrations hoping for arrest and imprisonment, which came to be regarded as a bona fide of nationalism. Support for Gandhi’s campaigns was generated in part by his personal charisma and spiritual persona. Nationalism was also fostered by successive oppressive acts on the part of officialdom, not only the partition of Bengal. In 1919, the Rowlatt Act was mandated, providing restrictions on civil rights and imprisonment without trial for “seditious acts”. Gandhi led a hartal against these acts, and protests spread throughout the country. In Amritsar, thousands of protesters gathered in a park, Jallianwallah Bagh, which had a single exit. A British general, R.E.H. Dyer, ordered the police to fire on the peaceful protesters. Unable to escape in the melee, four hundred unarmed men and women were gunned down. This massacre caused widespread outrage throughout the country and helped to stimulate the Gaddar movement of Punabi Sikh nationalists abroad. Stunned, Gandhi called off the hartal and urged collection of funds for victims’ families. In England, General Dyer was pensioned handsomely. While protests against the partition of Bengal were largely localized, demonstrations against British acts in 1919 and especially against the Jallianwallah massacre were nationwide. Rabindranath Tagore relinquished the knighthood that he had accepted in 1915 in protest. The Punjab, Bombay, Calcutta, and, to a lesser extent Madras, were all centres of mass demonstrations followed by widespread imprisonment. In Bengal especially, nationalists began to question Gandhi’s passive stance and urge a more aggressive response to British violence against satyagraha demonstrators. Ideological legitimization for direct action by Bengali revolutionaries was readily accessible from several traditions. One potent source was the ideology of the Cosmic Mother, of India as Mother, Bharat Mata, in the manifold representations of the Mother. The origins of Mother centrality in Hindu culture date from prehistoric antiquity, to the iconography of earthy mother figurines from Mohenjodaro and Harappa. The Mother is of the earth and the land, the nation and its boundaries. From ancient times through the centuries the Divine Mother effloresced into at least sixteen different deities. Mother worship evolved over centuries out of assimilation of heterogeneous elements, and the cult is continuous throughout prehistoric and

02 RAJn.indd

14

6/26/08

1:41:42 PM

Bengali Nationalism

15

historic times. While in Vedic religion male deities predominate, the Vedic goddess Aditi is regarded as mother of gods and of the universe. The Divine Mother of more modern times is the result of a mixture of Aryan and preAryan beliefs. As Kinsley has it, the fact that not only Kali but also Krishna are dark, wild, and disordered, points to primordial, non-Aryan origins; and Kali, emerging from Durga and a servant to Durga, is finally absorbed into Durga.7 While the Mother is revered throughout India, it is in Bengal that the ideological, literary, and religious incarnations of the Mother reached their most complex and distinctive expression and in turn informed political organizations and their activities. The Mother is the most powerful of Hindu feminine prototypes, far more potent than the submissive wife ideal, and is a paradigm that is invincible. The Mother has also been described as a safe object for the passion of her citizen/sons because of her asexuality, her perfection, and her potential victimization.8 The power of the Mother is further enhanced, if that were possible, by the cosmic power of the universe, Shakti, which is also female. Hence, the conviction of Bengali revolutionaries that, despite temporary setbacks, they would ultimately triumph over the British and gain the freedom for Bharat Mata to which they aspired, was unwavering, as exemplified by Subhas Chandra Bose and others. Many of the Bhadralok have written paeans to Mother India and to individual mothers. Subhas Chandra Bose began letters to Basanti Devi, wife of his mentor, C.R. Das, ‘Revered Mother’. Keshab Chandra Sen, another Bengali, wrote that the Mother is a more apt representation of God than the Father.9 Tagore wrote several poems eulogizing the Mother. The Puranas mention that the goddess is worshipped in one hundred and eight holy places under different names. The smallpox goddess is one form of the Divine Mother, universally adored and feared in villages for her dual functions. Among the many manifestations of the Mother Goddess are Uma, Kali/Durga, Chamunda, Chandi, Bhairavi, Amba, and Indira. Many Hindu deities are dyadic, representing two opposite characteristics. The Divine Mother is both protector and at times also punisher. Kali/Durga is another prime example, both ferocious avenger and granter of peace. The goddess Chandi is also an apt example, generally a war goddess but also part Great Mother. Durga in fact subsumes other deities, including Chandi, by various names in certain parts of India. Kali is especially potent in Bengal. With her eight arms and ferocious black visage, she is worshipped annually at a major Kolkata festival, Durga Puja. In iconographic representation, Kali is adorned with decapitated remains and stands in cremation grounds as harbinger of Death. Kali in

02 RAJn.indd

15

6/26/08

1:41:42 PM

16

Women Against the Raj

some representations holds in her left arms weapons of destruction but on her right gestures peace and gentleness. Kali is also Mistress of Time in her association with death, but on the other hand bestows benison on those who see clearly the transience of pain and suffering. Chatterjee suggested in his watershed novel even before the partition of Bengal that Kali was a representation of Bengal.10 For Ramakrishna, Kali was everything, including the nation, Bharat Mata. The early nineteenth century British official, William Sleeman, uncovered bands of thugi waylaying and murdering travellers as a form of Kali worship, and began a campaign to stamp out the thugi and their murders. Kali worship, however, remained and remains widespread in Kolkata today, though without the thugi component. For every Indian, India is a Motherland, but for Bengalis, conflating Mother and nation became political dynamite. The Mother had been raped by England, in the metaphor of Ramakrishna, and the violation was intolerable and had to be dealt with by force. Bengalis transformed nationalism into a religion and religion into revolutionary nationalism in a kind of political mysticism. In Bengal, nationalism became not simply the political programme of Tilak or the swadeshi or salt campaign of Gandhi, but “a deep, poignant cry, wrung out of the unbearable agony of the Mother and reflected in the soul of the patriot”.11 Bengalis, impelled by this ardour, questioned the efficacy of Gandhi’s non-violent resistance, questioned not only in writing, but increasingly in direct action. Inspired by the writings of Aurobindo, B.P. Pal, Ramakrishna, and Vivekananda, and full of the ringing tones of Bande Mataram, Bengali men and later women formed groups of like-thinking activists and plotted against the lives and institutions of the British. Subhas Chandra Bose’s feminism and revolutionary nationalism were incubated from his youth in this atmosphere of Mother worship, in Gandhi’s mobilization of women for satyagraha, in the precedent of Bengali women revolutionaries, in the historic examples of the Rani Lakshmibai, Chand Bibi and other queens who fought for their kingdoms, in the ideology and iconography of Kali/Durga and other vengeful female deities, and in the writings of Aurobindo, Vivekananda, and Ramakrishna. Bose more than once repeated the oft-quoted ancient lawgiver Manu, saying, “Where women are honoured the gods are happy. In a society where women are not respected all efforts come to naught.” Like Vivekananda, Bose wanted child marriage ended, purdah abolished, women given the option to remain single, and girls provided education and physical training, including the use of the lathi and the dagger.12 Subhas Chandra Bose’s early feminism, passion for freedom, and

02 RAJn.indd

16

6/26/08

1:41:42 PM

Bengali Nationalism

17

obsession with self-sacrifice were nourished in this Bengali atmosphere, and in turn transferred to the anti-colonial nationalism of Indians in Southeast Asia during World War II. Bengali revolutionaries, including Subhas Bose, were angry at Englishmen who had described Bengalis as weak and cowardly, as distinct from the “martial races”, among whom the British numbered Pathans, Sikhs, and Gurkhas communities heavily recruited for the British Indian Army. For Bose this description by Macaulay was a powerful incentive to action. As the twentieth century opened, two major revolutionary organizations were born in Bengal, Anushilan founded in 1902 by Pramatha Nath Mitra, and its offshoot Jugantar, a federation of regional units, including Dhaka, whose programme was to prepare for armed uprising. Deshabandhu Chittaranjan Das, mentor to Subhas Chandra Bose, was a vice-president of Anushilan, whose members were inspired by the writings of Aurobindo. Aurobindo was also a leading light of Jugantar. A surge of revolutionary activity was ignited by the partition of Bengal. While the partition prompted direct action, the Japanese victory over Russia the same year provided a positive inspiration to revolutionaries in India and elsewhere in Asia. In December 1907, Anushilan members attempted to blow up a train carrying the Lieutenant Governor of the new province of East Bengal. This and several other assassination attempts in 1906 and 1907 were aborted. College students, inspired by the writings of Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, and Aurobindo flocked to secret societies centred in gymnasia organized to develop physical prowess and also to inculcate the spirit of self-sacrifice. These societies were devoted ultimately to achieving independence by force. They collected funds, captured arms and ammunition from armouries, and also manufactured arms, including bombs. Sister Nivedita offered to train young boys in the techniques of the Irish Sinn Fein at her home in Calcutta, for a time out of the eyes of the police.13 The secret societies maintained discipline and secrecy in part by initiation ceremonies. Hemchandra Kanungo wrote that Aurbindo initiated him by getting him to repeat Sanskrit hymns and swear by the Gita that he would do everything to liberate India from foreign domination. Another member reported that Aurobindo initiated him with a sword, Gita and the vow that, “So long as I live and so long as India does not become free, I will maintain the vow of Revolution. If I let out any information or do any harm to the secret society, death will ensue at the hand of a secret murderer.”14 During World War I secret societies operating underground turned to Germany to import arms, but this Indo-German Plot leaked out, and

02 RAJn.indd

17

6/26/08

1:41:43 PM

18

Women Against the Raj

Jitendranath Lahiri and M.N. Roy were unsuccessful in their efforts in Germany.15 Anushilan, under the leadership of the revolutionary Rash Behari Bose, planned a soldiers’ revolt with support from workers and villagers. Members of Anushilan contacted all cantonments of the Army, and many sepoys promised to join. The plot, however, was leaked to police by one Kripal Singh, and many were imprisoned under the 1915 Defense of India Act. The Rowlatt Act, together with the Amritsar Massacre of 1919, ushered in a new, heightened phase of revolutionary protest in Bengal. The 1930s saw an intensification of revolutionary actions by both men and women that continued until these activities declined with the 1942 Quit India movement. During this decade, several young women played prominent roles as revolutionaries. We turn next to their ideas and actions.

Notes Arun Chandra Guha, Aurobindo and Jugantar (Calcutta: Sahitya Sansad, 1975), pp. 15–23. Barbara Southard, “The Political Strategy of Aurobindo Ghosh: The Utilization of Hindu Religious Symbolism in the Problem of Political Mobilization in Bengal”, Modern Asian Studies 14, no. 3 (1980), pp. 353–76. Santana Mukherjee, Sister Nivedita in Search of Humanity: A Study in Social and Political Ideas (Calcutta: Minerva, 1997), pp. 16–25. Vijay Agnew, Elite Women in Indian Politics (Delhi: Vikas, 1979), p. 62. Radha Kumar, The History of Doing: An Illustrated Account of Movements for Women’s Rights and Feminism in India, 1800–1990 (Delhi: Zubaan, 2004), pp. 54–55. Radha Kumar, The History of Doing: An Illustrated Account of Movements for Women’s Rights and Feminism in India, 1800–1990 (Delhi: Zubaan, 2004), p. 56; Padmini Sengupta, Sarojini Naidu: A Biography (New York: Asia Publishing House, 1996), pp. 271–72. David Kinsley, The Sword and the Flute: Kali and Krishna (Berkeley, C.A.: University of California Press, 1975), p. 152; Shashi Bhusan Das Gupta, “Evolution of Mother Worship in India”, in Great Women of India, edited by Swami Madhavananda and Ramesh Chandra Majumdar (Mayavati, Almora Himalayas: Advaita Ashrama, 1982), pp. 49–59. Paola Baccheta, “Hindu Nationalist Women as Ideologues: The ‘Sangha’, the ‘Samiti’, and their differential concepts of the Hindu Nation”, in Embodied Violence, Communalizing Women’s Sexuality in South Asia, edited by Kumari Jayawardena and Malathi de Alwis (London: Zed Books, 1996), p. 144. Charles Heimsath, Indian Nationalism and Hindu Social Reform (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1964), p. 95.

1

2

3

4 5

6

7

8

9

02 RAJn.indd

18

6/26/08

1:41:43 PM

Bengali Nationalism

David Kinsley, The Sword and the Flute: Kali and Krishna (Berkeley, C.A.: University of California Press, 1975), pp. 128, 142–44. Maganlal Amritlal Buch, The Rise and Growth of Indian Militant Nationalism (Baroda: Atmaram Printing Press, 1940), p. 187. Letter from Bose in Mandalay jail to Hemendranath Das Gupta, in Vivekananda’s Influence on Subhas, edited by Nanda Mookerjee (Calcutta: Jayasree Prakashan, 1977), pp. 41–42. Tirtha Mandal, The Women Revolutionaries of Bengal 1905–1939 (Calcutta: Minerva, 1991), pp. 13–14. Bimanbehari Majumdar, Militant Nationalism in India and its Socio-Religious Background, 1897–1917 (Calcutta: General Publications, 1966), pp. 99–100. Tirtha Mandal, The Women Revolutionaries of Bengal 1905–1939 (Calcutta: Minerva, 1991), p. 16.

10

11

12

13

14

15

02 RAJn.indd

19

19

6/26/08

1:41:43 PM

3 BENGALI WOMEN REVOLUTIONARIES

Revolution was seen by many nationalists following the partition of Bengal as legitimate and inevitable. Women as well as men imbibed the same incendiary brew of Mother- and Shakti-worship, of Kali/Durga reverence, and of the associated mission of self-sacrifice for Bharat Mata. Women raised their voices in and out of jail singing Bande Mataram,1 and many expressed their thoughts in journals and diaries, inspired by the writings of Aurobindo, Vivekananda and Ramakrishna and by the examples of the Rani of Jhansi and other heroines who had fought for their states throughout history. Several secret organizations were central to the activities of early revolutionaries in Bengal and elsewhere. At the end of the nineteenth century, a secret society known as Sanjivani Sabha [Life-giving Society] attracted Rabindranath Tagore, Aurobindo, and Bipin Chandra Pal to its membership. Though it mandated secrecy, it was not involved in violence. Physical drill, lathi, sword and dagger-play were among its practices. The emphasis on physical training was a feature of all secret societies, including those which later did resort to violent action. Two organizations founded a few years later were more revolutionary in intent and were central to many acts of terrorism over the next two decades, particularly in Bengal: Anushilan, founded in 1902, and Jugantar, which split off from Anushilan in 1908. Anushilan was founded by Pramatha Nath Mitra, its president, and Aurobindo and Chittaranjan Das were vicepresidents. Rabindranath Tagore’s elder brother Jyotindranath and Sister Nivedita were among the early members. The Dhaka branch of Anushilan 20

03 RAJn.indd

20

6/26/08

1:43:54 PM

Bengali Women Revolutionaries

21

was led by Rash Behari Bose, the revolutionary who later left for exile in Japan. Anushilan fractured apart over the issue of collection of funds, although an equally cogent factor was the timing of action. Barindra Kumar Ghosh was in favour of immediate action, while Mitra advocated a more cautious approach. Ghosh led dissenters into Jugantar. In both groups, military-style organization prevailed, with initiation vows, discipline, and secrecy strictly maintained. After World War I these organizations attracted some Muslim support. Sister Nivedita’s early membership in Anushilan was exceptional; women were generally not admitted to secret societies until a few years later. One of the earliest women converts to revolution was Bhikaiji Rustom Cama, known as Madame Cama, daughter of a well-to-do Parsi merchant. An unsatisfactory marriage and adequate financial resources gave her the freedom to pursue her own causes. She attended the International Socialist Congress in Stuttgart in 1907 and convinced Congress to support independence. Her group started the European version of the monthly, Bande Mataram, which was published in Geneva. She smuggled revolvers into India hidden in children’s toys. In a speech at India House in London she said, “Three years ago it was repugnant to me to even talk of violence. … But owing to the heartlessness, the hypocrisy, the rascality of liberals, that feeling is gone. Why should we deplore the use of violence when our enemies drive us to it?”2 She lived in London and Paris until the Government allowed her to return to India finally, when she was seventy-four and ill. Another woman revolutionary active in the first decade of the century was Kumudini Mitra, who in 1907 organized a group called Suprabhat, named after a Tagore poem idealizing death in the pursuit of liberation.3 Even earlier Sarala Devi, daughter of Rabindranath Tagore’s fourth daughter, trained a group of friends to sing Bande Mataram at the 1904 session of Congress in Calcutta. She studied at Bethune College, almost an incubator for many later women activists. She also edited a monthly Bharati in Calcutta. In 1905, she organized a performance of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s Anandamath, in which the famous hymn was sung, and the heroine, dressed in armour, fought against Muslim invasion. She was also inspired by Aurobindo’s attack on constitutional methods and opened a martial arts academy to train young men to revolt against British rule. Sarala got her friends to vow on a map of India that they were prepared to sacrifice their lives for independence. In 1910, she married and moved to Lahore where she founded an organization to spread education and medical treatment for women.4 Lahore, somewhat later, became a scene of radical activity. The Lahore Congress, convened in 1929, was presided over by Jawaharlal

03 RAJn.indd

21

6/26/08

1:43:54 PM

22

Women Against the Raj

Nehru. The Lahore Student Union was founded by Bhagat Singh, and in 1929 Manmohini Zutshi Sahgal, a member of the Nehru family, became president. Students wore Indian flags on their lapels, and some were expelled from Maclagan Engineering College. The Student Union supported Engineering College students, and the college principal asked Manmohini to resign. In the Lahore Conspiracy Case the following year, Bhagat Singh and twenty others were sentenced to death. Bhagat Singh, Raj Guru, and Sukhdev were in fact hanged, which prompted widespread protests throughout the country. Lakshmi Swaminadhan, at the time in Madras, recalled that she was very angry. Manmohini and her sisters courted arrest by picketing shops. “It was great fun to be in prison”, she wrote, “with so many women from different parts of the country, we were kept busy and life was interesting.”5 Another woman who turned to revolution was Lila Nag. She studied at Dhaka University following graduation with honours at Calcutta University and resorted to political action when, in 1923, she organized the Dipali Sangha with Hemchandra Ghosh. The goals of the Dipali Sangha were to create a feminist consciousness to arouse women’s political and social awareness.6 Nag’s initial focus was women’s education, which prompted her to start primary and secondary schools. She adopted more revolutionary goals with her classmate, Anil Roy, in a group called Sri Sangha. Hemchandra Ghosh decided that the organization was expending too much energy on cultural activities, and that the party needed to concentrate on political revolution. He advised Anil and Lila to leave the party. Anil and Lila later married. Hemchandra Ghosh was associated with Subhas Chandra Bose, and in 1928 merged his party with the Bengal Volunteers, which separated from the Sri Sangha. Ghosh was in contact also with Anushilan and Jugantar and met Surya Sen, from whom he learned of plans for the Chittagong Raid. Hemchandra has been described as a mastermind of much revolutionary strategic planning, a godfather of Bengali revolutionaries.7 The years 1928 through 1934 saw a surge in terrorist plots and activities. Anushilan and Jugantar restricted their membership initially to men, who argued that women were not reliable or trustworthy. Secret societies operated under the leadership of dadas [bosses], who competed for membership but made no effort to attract the lower castes or women. However, as police surveillance resulted in increasing numbers of arrests and imprisonment, it became apparent to leaders of underground societies that women might be useful and less apt to attract police attention. Moreover, several women students were anxious to convince their male counterparts that they were capable of anything that men could accomplish. Women were

03 RAJn.indd

22

6/26/08

1:43:54 PM

Bengali Women Revolutionaries

23

therefore admitted to perform ancillary, subsidiary functions: passing coded messages, acting as couriers, smuggling weapons, providing funds, acting as housekeepers for male colleges, arranging secret meetings, and in a few cases, even preparing bombs. A number of women, however, went beyond these activities that conformed more to traditional ascribed female roles and took direct revolutionary action. One man who decided to give women a chance was Surya Sen, who founded the Indian Republican Army (IRA), modelled after the Irish IRA. Sen broke with Anushilan when it sided with Gandhi and gradualism. Sen became convinced that the use of force was indispensable for expelling the British from India. In 1929, he supported Subhas Chandra Bose and used Congress as a cover for revolutionary activity. Bose was already looking to women as a neglected potential resource, and the para-military unit of women in the Bengal Volunteers watered the seed of his thinking about the possibility of a women’s military regiment as a focus of Indian unity against the British. This women’s unit was a harbinger of his later creation, the Rani of Jhansi Regiment. Bose may have influenced Sen regarding the viability of women in political action. Sen’s IRA included ex-political prisoners, and he found it difficult to build an organization with revolutionaries so well known. This was his rationale for admitting a few carefully selected women for specific tasks. Sen was an exception in providing guidance and leadership to the young women he admitted. As in the early protests against the partition, the Rowlatt Acts, and Amritsar massacre, again it was British repressive acts that sparked revolutionary action. The Bengal Ordinance of 1924 facilitated the arrest of protestors and activists. The Simon Commission’s report of 1928 was especially objectionable, since no Hindu, Muslim, Sikh or Parsi was asked to serve on the Parliamentary Commission. Members of the Simon Commission, including Clement Atlee, were greeted in India with black flags and shouts of “Simon Go Back!” Subhas Chandra Bose was active in organizing the Simon Commission protest. Bina Das, his teacher’s daughter, organized a strike of students at Bethune College. Bina’s sister Kalyani organized a separate group of women students, the Chhattri Sangha which welcomed students from several schools in addition to Bethune College. Bose attended at least one of their meetings and encouraged their activities.8 Bose then led a group of protestors at the 1928 Congress, where he organized the Volunteer Corps, sometimes called Bengal Volunteers, including a unit of women wearing uniforms of green saris with red borders to march with men in a procession to inaugurate the Congress. He requested the

03 RAJn.indd

23

6/26/08

1:43:55 PM

24

Women Against the Raj

Chhattri Sangha to enlist volunteers for this women’s unit. He appointed Latika Ghosh colonel of this proto-military unit, and she enlisted three hundred students from Bethune College and the Victoria Institution, in addition to teachers with the Calcutta Corporation.9 Latika Ghosh was an Oxford-educated teacher who had been active with Basanti Devi in the Gandhian satyagraha campaign. Ghosh founded the Mahila Rashtriya Sangha on Subhas Bose’s advice and helped organize demonstrations against the Simon Commission. Prabhabati Bose, Subhas Chandra’s mother, was president of the Mahila Rashtriya Sangha and Latika was secretary.10 Prabhabati also helped Latika organize the demonstrations. Ghosh argued that the education of women was a prerequisite for swaraj, and urged readers of her articles to remember the power of Shakti and Durga, and not to forget the Rajput queens who took their own lives in jauhar rather than be captured when their men went out into battle.11 When Bose spoke to Latika Ghosh and other young women, he used the metaphor that Bengal and all India was a house on fire, which demanded the action of women to put it out. Women would have to leave the protection and security of their homes, to move beyond the shelter of domestic respectability, he argued in the 1920s and later.12 1930 was a bloody year in assassinations in Bengal, with the killing of several English officials. The Inspector General of Dhaka Police, the Inspector General of the Bengal Prison in Calcutta, the Session judge of Alipore, three district magistrates of Midnapore, and the Magistrate of Comilla were all assassinated. In the process, many revolutionaries were wounded, killed or sentenced to death. Most dramatic of all revolutionary acts of 1930 was the raid on the Chittagong Armoury on 18 April 1930, planned by Surya Sen and carried out by members of the Indian Republican Army. Surya Sen first sought to distract the police by issuing a statement that citizens should cooperate with civil disobedience. The Chittagong Armoury, telegraph office, police barracks and rail lines were all attacked simultaneously, and fighting continued for several days before government authority was restored. The Chittagong group realized in advance that government forces would arrive, that conflict was inevitable, and that they would have to sacrifice their lives courageously. They referred to the prospect as “the programme of death”. Their hope was that this event would inspire the youth of India to emulate their action. This was in fact what happened.13 The raiders wanted to prove that although most revolutionary calculation was based on the premise that the English could not be dislodged without help from outside, they themselves could fight the government without

03 RAJn.indd

24

6/26/08

1:43:55 PM

Bengali Women Revolutionaries

25

foreign aid. They thought their heroic fight would be “blazoned forth all over the land and inspire new generations to fight for the freedom of the motherland”. For a week Chittagong would be free.14 Kalpana Dutt described the Chittagong group as “the best of the revolutionaries”. These actions and Dutt’s later conversion to communism indicate that she clearly did not conform to what some have described as adherence to the feminine ideal among women activists.15 Kalpana Dutt had attended Calcutta University and wrote that she and her famous friend Pritilata Waddedar were inspired by the example of the Rani of Jhansi. Both Kalpana and Pritilata participated in the raid, but they escaped when Surya Sen went underground. Priti and Kalapana were both dressed as males during their underground days. Kalpana was influenced too by Roman Rolland’s I Will Not Rest and by Dan Breen’s My Fight for Irish Freedom. After the raid Kalpana had to keep moving. She prepared explosives to be used in Sen’s plan to blow up the walls of the jail where the Chittagong raiders were imprisoned. She also rigged land mines and learned to turn the switch to ignite them.15 “Underground life was hard and uncertain”, she wrote, “but Surya Sen never allowed anyone to suffer from want of good food.”16 Kalpana and others of the IRA were under continual police surveillance, but for some months authorities had no evidence against her. When Surya Sen’s group was about to be captured in 1933, Kalpana offered to surrender so that the rest of the group could escape, but all were arrested and sentenced. Kalpana was sent to a women’s prison, where she found other women revolutionaries also incarcerated: Shanti Ghosh, Bina Das, and Suhashini Devi, the latter arrested for sheltering revolutionaries. Kalpana’s death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, and she actually spent six years in jail. While in prison, Dutt was visited by Gandhi and received letters from Tagore and the missionary C.F. Andrews, who wrote that she was his daughter in a previous life. Kalpana praised the Calcutta group and noted, “For this entire group there was but one inescapable road, the way that communism shows to revolutionaries all over the world. … The futility of terrorism as a political policy dawned on most of the terrorists, and they came over to communism.”17 She herself became a communist after her release from prison in 1939. Kalpana, Bina Das, and other women wrote of the difficult decision they faced in deciding on the life of a revolutionary. They were aware that taking the drastic step of leaving their families would cause their families financial loss and alienation from other family members and friends. They decided, nevertheless, that such sacrifice was necessary in the interests of the Motherland. Shakti and Kali called them to action.18

03 RAJn.indd

25

6/26/08

1:43:55 PM

26

Women Against the Raj

Most startling of the revolutionary actions of Bengali women was the shooting of the Magistrate of Comilla in December 1931 by Shanti Ghosh and Suniti Chaudhuri, often described as sisters. What was shocking was that Shanti was fifteen and Suniti fourteen years old. Shanti and Suniti joined the Comilla branch of Jugantar and were coached in the use of weapons until they were so skilled that they were able to hit their mark, and the British Magistrate who was their target in fact died. In May the same year the two had asked Subhas Chandra Bose if he would like to see women in action. Bose was impressed and recalled the action of the two teenagers when he later referred to two recruits in the Rani of Jhansi Regiment as Shanti and Suniti in acknowledgment of the courageous action of these earlier teenagers. When Shanti was growing up, her philosophy professor father sat with his children singing patriotic songs. He took his daughter to political meetings and urged her to follow in Sarojini Naidu’s footsteps.19 Despite his nurturing of his daughter’s patriotism, Shanti did not take her father into her confidence when she and Suniti planned the assassination and practiced shooting in deserted places. These two teenagers were inspired by other assassinations against alien rule and in turn became models for the actions of later women. They were arrested and when in court they heard their sentence, “transportation for life”, they were disheartened. Suniti wrote, “We are not at all happy. …” It was, she thought, “Far better to die like a hero than to live like a horse in a stable.” Tagore and C.F. Andrews appealed to the authorities not to send these teenage girls overseas.20 After her release Suniti, interestingly enough, studied medicine and became a physician. Another revolutionary event that stunned the English was the assault on the Pahartali Railway Officers Club on 23–24 September 1932. Again the plan was hatched by Surya Sen. Kalpana Dutt wanted to take part but was persuaded to go home, were she was arrested and out of action. Surya Sen entrusted the leadership of the group of eight boys in the night attack to Pritilata Waddedar, Kalpana’s friend. British offices and their wives gathered at the club on Saturday nights to drink and dance. Pritilata led the group in the daring night attack on the club. One English woman was killed and four other people were wounded. Pritilata grew up reading about the Rani of Jhansi, about Russian girls who joined the revolution and were hanged, and about literary heroines. She studied at Dhaka University and joined Lila Nag’s Dipali Sangha. She told her cousin about the Rani of Jhansi and asked why she could not also fight for freedom?21 Police photographed Pritilata and put her under house arrest, but she managed to escape and evade police. A reward of five hundred rupees was announced for her arrest.

03 RAJn.indd

26

6/26/08

1:43:55 PM

Bengali Women Revolutionaries

27

After she graduated from Dhaka University, Pritilata became a teacher. Her father was a clerk in a municipal office, and the family was not well off. Her father entrusted his salary to Priti, who kept the key to the family cash box. When Surya Sen needed fifty rupees she handed over her father’s monthly salary to Sen. Her teacher’s salary supported her parents and four younger siblings. She was an articulate revolutionary and wrote many pamphlets used by Sen’s IRA.22 She was aware that her revolutionary lifestyle put her family in financial jeopardy but it was a decision she felt she had to make. Kalpana described her best friend Priti as reluctant to kill a goat for a feast, but quoted her saying, “When I am ready to give my own life for the country’s freedom I won’t hesitate a bit in taking somebody’s life too if necessary. But I shall not be able to kill a poor harmless creature just like that.”23 Pritilata believed that there should be no distinction between the sexes in the fight for the nation’s freedom. “If sisters and brothers can stand side by side in a satyagraha movement, why are they not so entitled in a revolutionary movement?” she asked.24 She demonstrated that she was willing, more than willing, to die for India’s freedom. Before she left for the Pahartali Club she turned to Surya Sen and said, “Bless me that I may join the group of martyrs after accomplishing my task.”25 Pritilata was wounded in the assault on the club. When another member of the group noticed that Priti was not escaping with them, he ran back and urged her to hurry. She replied, “All of you, escape. Do not tarry. Hit the enemy time and again and try to overthrow them, this is my last request. Go with my good wishes to you all; give my respects to Masterda [Sen].” Pointing her finger skyward she added, “That is my destination; the martyrs are calling me.” With that she took the cyanide she had with her and died. Later a picture of Krishna was found sewn into her clothing. Pritilata also left behind a condemnation of the British, who had caused political, economic and social ruin. “We have been compelled to take up arms against the lives of any and every member of the British community, official and non-official”, she wrote. In a leaflet found on her body she wrote, “I earnestly hope that our sisters would no longer nurse the view that they are weak. Armed women of India will demolish a thousand hurdles, disregard a thousand dangers, and join the rebellion and the armed struggle for freedom.”26 Bina Das was another woman nurtured in the provocative atmosphere of Bengali nationalism and inspired by the Chittagong raid. Her father, Benimadhab Das, was an educator who numbered among his students Subhas Chandra Bose. The young Subhas was a visitor on occasion to her father’s house, and Das regarded the boy as one of his favourite students. Professor

03 RAJn.indd

27

6/26/08

1:43:56 PM

28

Women Against the Raj

Das regaled his daughters Kalyani and Bina with tales of ancient heroes. He supported the Bengal Volunteers and at times sheltered revolutionaries. Bina studied at Bethune College and she and Kalyani were active in the Chhattri Sangha, where they were taught lathi use and other physical skills. During her student days, Bina read about the Italian revolutionaries Mazzini and Garibaldi. It was no surprise when Bina joined the Bengal Volunteers at the 1928 Congress session in Calcutta. She was still in touch with Bose and also joined the demonstration against the Simon Commission. She became depressed by the torture and murder of some Chittagong raiders in prison but also inspired by their bravery. Bina decided to assassinate the Governor of Bengal, Sir Stanley Jackson, as he presided over the commencement ceremony as Chancellor of Calcutta University. She kept her plan secret from her sister Kalyani and the rest of the family. She obtained a revolver from a Jugantar member but, unlike Shanti and Suniti, had no opportunity to practice with it before the event. She hoped to fire at the governor as he handed her the diploma, but she was unable to get closer than ten feet. She missed and was immediately arrested. At her trial her father advised her to accept responsibility and not to involve others.27 In the courtroom Bina made her famous statement, “I felt I would go mad if I could not find relief in death. I only sought the way to death by offering myself at the feet of the country.”28 She noted that she had no personal animosity toward Jackson, but since he was a member of the colonial establishment, he bore some of the culpability. She was sentenced, first to transportation for life, then to nine years in prison. Newspapers condemned Das’s action, but the government did not dare to hang her or other women revolutionaries.29 Some authors have remarked on the difficulty of assessing the selfimage of these women revolutionaries.30 The problem arises in part from the ambiguity of the Hindu feminine ideal. Were they propelled by the Sita prototype — loyal, domestic, chaste, submissive, but also with some courage? Or did they derive inspiration from the panoply of invincible female deities — Mother, Shakti, Durga/Kali, Lakshmi, Saraswati, Chandi, and others? Is this perceived ambivalence really a problem? Did these women feel they were choosing one prototype over the other? Or did the political circumstances in which Bengalis found themselves in the years following 1919 simply prompt violent action without angst, without much soul searching? Fortunately, we have some evidence, clues to their thoughts at the time. When Pritilata Waddedar left her family in financial difficulty to die at Chittagong, when she and Kalpana Dutt lived secret underground lives

03 RAJn.indd

28

6/26/08

1:43:56 PM

Bengali Women Revolutionaries

29

with male counterprarts and dressed in male garb, when Shanti and Suniti wished for the death sentence, when Bina Das fired at Governor Jackson, realizing that her action would cause problems for her family — these are actions and thoughts which do not comport readily with the Sita archetype. Assuredly, these women did not employ the rhetoric of contemporary feminist discourse. Consider, however, Lila Nag speaking of women’s emancipation, or Kalpana Dutt and Prtilata both saying they were inspired by the Rani of Jhansi, or Pritilata saying, “I wonder why there should be any distinction between males and females in a fight for the cause of the country’s freedom … why they are not entitled [to stand side by side] in a revolutionary movement?”31 Or reflect on the words of Sarala Devi when she wrote, “In reality women are the creators, the protectors, and the destroyers, not men.”32 These sentiments cannot be readily conflated with articulations of the traditional feminine ideal of the loyal, submissive, Sita prototype. Bina Das sounded similarly and singularly unconcerned with marriage at an age when most women and their families had matrimony primary among their concerns. “My object was to die, nobly fighting against the despotic system of government which has kept my country in perpetual subjugation”, she said at her trial. Five decades later she said, “If I had to do it again, I would.”33 These are not the words of a Sita-inspired traditional woman. She, Pritilata, Kalpana, and others were clearly answering the call of a different drummer, ready to give their lives like the heroes of Chatterjee’s novel or the Rani of Jhansi. Not all Bengalis, however, approved their revolutionary actions. Tagore’s revolutionary heroine in his Char Adhyaya decided she had been misguided to resort to political activity, and the hero welcomed her return to dedicated domesticity.34 Cornelia Sorabjee asserted that these revolutionaries were acting under Western influence, while Sarojini Naidu and Begum Shah Nawaz insisted that the Indian women’s movement was not a feminist movement like the one in the West.35 In other words, these authors wished to establish the distinctive identity and integrity of Indian activists. Again there was ample room within the template of Indian feminine ideology to accommodate the sentiments expressed by these revolutionaries without resorting to the Sita syndrome. These were genuine revolutionaries changing the image of women’s potential without the use of gendered language. The focus of these revolutionaries was not on gender, rather it was on their sacrifice for the freedom of Bharat Mata. In the thread of history they were heirs of the Rani of Jhansi and precursors of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment. Subhas Chandra Bose connected the thread.

03 RAJn.indd

29

6/26/08

1:43:56 PM

30

Women Against the Raj

Notes Shaileshwar Nath, Terrorism in India (Delhi: National Publishing House, 1980), pp. 14–15. Radha Kumar, The History of Doing: An Illustrated Account of Movements for Women’s Rights and Feminism in India, 1800–1990 (Delhi: Zubaan, 2004), pp. 46–47. Amitabha Rakshit, translator of a volume of Tagore’s poems, Remembrances and Recollections: A Selection of Tagore’s Writing (Calcutta: Papyrus, 2007), asserts that Tagore never wrote a poem by that name (conversation in Boulder, Colorado, 28 August 2007). Radha Kumar, The History of Doing: An Illustrated Account of Movements for Women’s Rights and Feminism in India, 1800–1990 (Delhi: Zubaan, 2004), pp. 39–40. Geraldine Forbes, Manmohini Zutshi Sahgal: An Indian Freedom Fighter Recalls Her Life (Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1994), p. 82. Bharati Rayed, ed., “The Freedom Movement and Feminist Consciousness in Bengal, 1905–1929”, in From the Seams of History: Essays on Indian Women (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 208. S.C. Sen Gupta, India Wrests Freedom (Calcutta: Sahitya Samsad, 1982), pp. 10–13, 25, 57–88. Geraldine Forbes, “Mothers and Sisters: Feminism and Nationalism in the Thought of Subhas Chandra Bose”, Asian Studies 2, no. 1 (1984), pp. 23–32. Tirtha Mandal, The Women Revolutionaries of Bengal, 1905–1939 (Calcutta: Minerva, 1991), p. 19; Geraldine Forbes, Women in Modern India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 136. Bharati Ray, ed., “The Freedom Movement and Feminist Consciousness in Bengal, 1905–1929”, in From the Seams of History: Essays on Indian Women (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 199. Geraldine Forbes, Women in Modern India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 136. Geraldine Forbes, “Mothers and Sisters: Feminism and Nationalism in the Thought of Subhas Chandra Bose”, Asian Studies 2, no. 1 (1984), pp. 23–32. R.C. Majumdar, History of Bengal: Part Two, 1905–1947 (Calcutta: G. Bharadwaj, 1981), p. 272. Kalpana Dutt, Chittagong Armoury Raiders: Reminiscences (New Delhi: People’s Publishing House, 1979), p. 1. Geraldine Forbes, “The Ideals of Indian Womanhood: Six Bengali Women during the Independence Movement”, in Bengal in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, edited by John R. McLane (East Lansing: Asian Studies Center, Michigan State University, 1975), pp. 59–75. Tirtha Mandal, The Women Revolutionaries of Bengal, 1905–1939 (Calcutta: Minerva, 1991), pp. 96–101.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

03 RAJn.indd

30

6/26/08

1:43:57 PM

Bengali Women Revolutionaries

Kalpana Dutt, Chittagong Armoury Raiders: Reminiscences (New Delhi: People’s Publishing House, 1979), pp. 1–13, 63. Vijay Agnew, Elite Women in Indian Politics (Delhi: Vikas, 1979), pp. 65–66. Tirtha Mandal, The Women Revolutionaries of Bengal, 1905–1939 (Calcutta: Minerva, 1991), pp. 34–35. Ibid., pp. 74–79. Ibid., pp. 89–90. Kalpana Dutt, Chittagong Armoury Raiders: Reminiscences (New Delhi: People’s Publishing House, 1979), pp. 47–50. Ibid. Geraldine Forbes, Women in Modern India (Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 131. Tirtha Mandal, The Women Revolutionaries of Bengal, 1905–1939 (Calcutta: Minerva, 1991), p. 94. Tirtha Mandal, The Women Revolutionaries of Bengal, 1905–1939 (Calcutta: Minerva, 1991), p. 94; Sandip Bandyopadhyay, “Women in the Bengal Revolutionary Movement, 1902–1935”, Manushi, no. 65 (1991), p. 32. Tirtha Mandal, The Women Revolutionaries of Bengal, 1905–1939 (Calcutta: Minerva, 1991), pp. 102–03. Radha Kumar, The History of Doing: An Illustrated Account of Movements for Women’s Rights and Feminism in India, 1800–1900 (Delhi: Zubaan, 2004), p. 87. Tirtha Mandal, The Women Revolutionaries of Bengal, 1905–1939 (Calcutta: Minerva, 1991), pp. 87–88. Tanika Sarkar, Bengal, 1928–1934: The Politics of Protest (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 154; Geraldine Forbes, Women in Modern India (Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 141. Geraldine Forbes, Women in Modern India (Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 141. Bharati Ray, ed., “The Freedom Movement and Feminist Consciousness in Bengal, 1905–1929”, in From the Seams of History: Essays on Indian Women (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 212. Anuradha Dutt, “The Fire Burns On”, Illustrated Weekly of India 107 (31 August 1986), p. 46. Radha Kumar, The History of Doing: An Illustrated Account of Movements for Women’s Rights and Feminism in India, 1800–1900 (Delhi: Zubaan, 2004), p. 88. Ibid.

17

18 19

20 21 22

23 24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

03 RAJn.indd

31

31

6/26/08

1:43:57 PM

4 SUBHAS CHANDRA BOSE

The key to the story of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment and the Indian National Army is Subhas Chandra Bose. The life and career of this extraordinary revolutionary have been chronicled and analysed by historians in India, Southeast Asia, Germany, England, the United States, and Japan. His writings, speeches, essays, and plethora of letters have been compiled and edited in twelve volumes as Netaji Collected Works by Drs Sisir and Sugata Bose of the Netaji Research Bureau in what is now Kolkata. The entire corpus of work on Bose, some five hundred volumes, is so extensive that it constitutes a formidable Netajiana. Library shelves at many universities bear witness to this outpouring, which will no doubt continue for years to come. It is imperative to consider here his life and contribution in the context of Indian nationalism, and in particular his role in the history of the Indian National Army, and more specifically the Rani of Jhansi Regiment. Subhas Chandra Bose was born on 23 January 1897 at Cuttack, Orissa, the ninth of fourteen children of Janakinath and Prabhavati Bose. His father was a lawyer, and the Kayastha Brahmin family was wealthy enough to educate all fourteen children well. Janakinath grew up in the atmosphere of nineteenth century liberal movements filtering into India through English reformist ideology. Although both parents were concerned that their children be well educated, Subhas, as ninth child and sixth son of a brood of fourteen, suffered from a sense of deprivation of parental affection and attention. “The earliest recollection I have of myself is that I used to feel like a thoroughly insignificant being”, he wrote.1 He described his parents as distant, rather cold, and preoccupied with career and family affairs, not surprising in a family 32

04 RAJn.indd

32

7/4/08

2:58:34 PM

Subhas Chandra Bose

33

of that size. Psychologists suggest that it was Bose’s low self-esteem as a child that engendered his deep need for an overarching mission to compensate for low self-worth.2 For a well-born Bengali child of the late nineteenth century, learning English was one of the first requisites of life. At a school for European and Anglo-Indian boys run by the Baptist Mission, the young Subhas was also taught Latin and the Bible. The teachers were British. Indian languages — Sanskrit and Bengali — the language of the Bose family, were neglected. Subhas spent seven years in this English public school before entering Ravenshaw Collegiate School in Cuttack in 1909. Here he recalled being laughed at by other boys because he knew so little Bengali. At the age of fifteen he first encountered the works of Vivekananda and discovered a goal for his life — spiritual salvation for oneself and service to humanity. He began to practice yoga and meditation and to explore the thought of Ramakrishna and the ideal of renunciation. During his late teens he describes having a personal crisis that lasted five or six years, a period when he was reading Ramakrishna and Vivekananda. At fifteen he left home without informing his parents to search for a guru. His mother was distraught and thought that he had left for good. He returned after a fruitless search but continued to be preoccupied with spiritual matters.3 Subhas felt at this juncture that his religious life was more significant than his studies.4 At sixteen Subhas was sent to Presidency College in Calcutta and began to make decisions independently of his family. He joined a student group concerned with effecting a fusion between religion and nationalism, a critical step in his intellectual, emotional, and political development. Bengal as the fulcrum of British administration was both a funnel for education and ideas from the West and consequently also the home of nationalists and philosophers of notable stature: Rammohan Roy, Keshab Chandra Sen, Rabindranath and Debendranath Tagore, Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, and Bankim Chandra Chatterjee. Bose’s group talked with the political visionary Aurobindo Ghosh and with Surendra Nath Bannerji, one of the founders of the Indian National Congress. Subhas never forgot the words of Aurobindo: “I should like to see some of you becoming great; great not for your own sake, but to make India great, so that she may stand up with head erect amongst the free nations of the world.”5 Aurobindo’s words would recur to Bose later with stunning impact. At Presidency College a much chronicled event occurred in 1916, an incident which had a profound effect on Bose’s life. By this time Subhas had begun to notice that the behaviour of Englishmen in Calcutta was often insulting to Indians in public places. There were rumours that one of the

04 RAJn.indd

33

7/4/08

2:58:34 PM

34

Women Against the Raj

teachers, an Englishman named Oaten, had manhandled some students. One or more students responded in kind, and Bose was held responsible, whether he was in fact or had simply witnessed the event. In any case, he was known as a student leader by the time. He was expelled despite his pleas, and his family called him home to Cuttack, where he remained for two years. His expulsion left him elated, certain that he had done the right thing, and from this point onward his life mission began to crystallize. His parents were not pleased, but he became a hero in the eyes of fellow students and no longer felt insignificant. The expulsion “made my future career”, he wrote.6 For a time he studied at Scottish Church College in Calcutta. His father then sent him to England to study at Cambridge in order to prepare for a career in the civil service, at the time a highly respectable and secure career. At Cambridge, Subhas saw more cases of discrimination against Indian students, both socially and in the University Officers’ Training Corps, a phenomenon that occurred earlier in the British Indian Army with the repercussions of 1857. In the summer of 1921, Bose took the civil service examinations and passed fourth. He spent the next seven months in mediation and self-examination, after which he made a second significant decision. He renounced the security of a comfortable life in the civil service and resigned his appointment.7 Once more, he felt elated at the decision, which made him the first Indian to voluntarily relinquish a civil service post out of patriotic motives. His father was again disappointed with him. Subhas intended to devote the rest of his life to the cause of India’s independence. For him it was a moral decision, and the sacrifice would be far outweighed by the satisfaction of service to the Motherland. The best way to end a government was to withdraw from it. He had taken a conscious step as a revolutionary. The atmosphere surrounding Bose’s decision was charged with public hostility to the 1919 Rowlatt Acts and the Amritsar massacre, the shocking murder of four hundred unarmed civilians. Bose threw himself into the nationalist movement, writing for the newspaper Swaraj and taking charge of publicity for the Bengal Provincial Congress Committee. One of his first political acts was participation in the protest against the visit of the Prince of Wales in 1921. As he hoped, Bose was arrested with others and given his first jail sentence and was incarcerated with C.R. Das, who became his political mentor. Bose’s relationship with C.R. Das and his wife Basanti Devi became closer than with his own parents. While C.R. Das was his mentor and guide, Basanti Devi became his substitute mother and emotional focus. Bose felt he would never understand his own mother, Prabhavati, while with Basanti Devi

04 RAJn.indd

34

7/4/08

2:58:35 PM

Subhas Chandra Bose

35

he felt at home and often dropped in at the Das residence unannounced. Bose’s mother told Basanti Devi, “You are the real mother. I am only the nurse.”8 This sentiment was shared by Subhas, who in his letters to Basanti addressed her as “Revered Mother”. Despite Bose’s statement to Basanti that he intended to marry and never said he would not, a widespread conviction persists among Bengalis even at this writing that he vowed never to marry until India became free. Bose followed C.R. Das into the Swaraj Party within Congress, and when Das became mayor of Calcutta, he selected Bose as Chief Executive Officer when he was just twenty-seven. In a roundup of terrorists in 1925, Bose was arrested again and this time sent to jail in Mandalay, where he remained for two years. During this time, in addition to contracting tuberculosis, which plagued him for years, his thinking as a revolutionary matured. He wrote many essays and letters while in jail and in 1927 emerged as a leader in his own right. By this time his mentor C.R. Das had died. Bose was a prolific exponent of epistolary communication, and he penned voluminous letters to family, political figures, and friends, including Europeans. One letter to Nehru ran to twenty-seven pages during the dispute with Gandhi over the Congress presidency in 1939. It is noteworthy that all the women friends to whom he wrote were European and that he finally married an Austrian, Emilie Schenkl. His relationships with Indian women tended to be political or familial, prominently with mother figures such as Basanti Devi. It is tempting to speculate about the reasons all his female friends were European. It is apparent that mother figures were centrally significant for him. Could it be that he conflated his relationships with all Indian women with the roles of mother, sister and daughter, and that Indian women were therefore not on his horizon for a spouse? The young women of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment clearly saw him as a father figure. In a telling letter to Basanti Devi he wrote, “The spiritual quest of Bengal has always been voiced through the cult of the Mother. Be it God or be it motherland — whatever we have worshipped we have done so in the image of the Mother.”9 Bose’s motivation in turning from his spiritual preoccupation, his studies, and his ICS appointment toward revolution is the key to his subsequent actions in India, Germany, and Southeast Asia. We have his own analysis of the genesis of revolution and his own commitment to the freedom struggle. “This, then, is the psychology behind the revolutionary movement”, he wrote. “The trouble began with Macaulay. When he was out in India as a member of Government, Macaulay wrote a scathing denunciation of Bengalees and called them a race of cowards. That calumny went deep into the hearts of

04 RAJn.indd

35

7/4/08

2:58:35 PM

36

Women Against the Raj

the Bengalee people.” He also mentioned exclusion of young Bengalis from government service and the Army on the ground that they were not brave or warlike enough. The final blow igniting revolution, then, was the Partition of Bengal. He wrote further, “the government now regards all youths as potential revolutionaries”.10 In 1930 Bose was arrested and jailed again, this time in a civil disobedience campaign against Dominion status. For this revolutionary nothing less than complete independence, purna swaraj, was acceptable. This time, on emerging from jail, he became mayor of Calcutta. During 1932 and 1933 Bose visited Berlin, Rome, and several capitals of Eastern Europe several times for tuberculosis treatment. There he met political leaders and Indian students and encouraged the formation of students’ associations to help students abroad. Although he was impressed with what he saw in Germany and later sought German help for the fight against England, he was most critical of German racial arrogance toward Indians. He commented in a letter to a German that children on the streets called him “Neger”.11 In Germany he met Hitler in 1936 and observed party organization of fascism and national socialism in action. When he returned, he was again arrested and imprisoned. By this time Bose had become a leader of national stature, and in 1938 he accepted nomination and was elected Congress president. He intended to take his stand on unqualified swaraj and to confront the Raj with force if necessary. He realized that this risked confrontation with Gandhi, but there was no room in his thinking for compromise on this issue. He opposed cooperation with the Government under the 1935 Government of India Act. For him, 1938 marked the stagnation of the Gandhian movement of compromise combined with civil disobedience. Gandhi in fact lost the support of the political left just as Bose became Congress president. Bose had won for the moment. Differences between Gandhi and Bose nevertheless sharpened between the 1938 and 1939 Congress elections, and much of this time Bose was ill and bedridden. For him the danger was not violence and corruption but submission to the British. In early April, Gandhi wrote to Bose that their views were so far apart that there appeared no possibility of accommodation. “I smell violence in the air I breathe”, Gandhi wrote.12 The two clashed at the time of the 1939 contested Congress election, which Bose again won. Gandhi advised Bose to form his own cabinet, draft his own programme, and submit it to the All-India Congress Committee. Bose hesitated, and repeatedly urged Gandhi to appoint the Working Committee himself, but Gandhi always countered with the entreaty that

04 RAJn.indd

36

7/4/08

2:58:35 PM

Subhas Chandra Bose

37

Bose form his own “homogenous committee”.13 Bose tried to hold on in face of Gandhi’s opposition, confident in the support of students, workers, and peasants, but when twelve members of the Working Committee resigned in loyalty to the Mahatma, Bose, facing a party unable to function, had to resign in May. He was replaced by Gandhi stalwart Rajendra Prasad, later India’s first president. Bose and his elder brother Sarat then left the Congress to join the radical Forward Bloc dedicated to the revolutionary struggle for independence. Sarat was the elder brother on whom Subhas often relied for advice and through whom he often maintained contact with his family. Principal support for the Forward Bloc was in Bose’s home state of Bengal. Bose’s differences with Gandhi also resulted in conflict with Nehru. In a letter to Nehru he accused Nehru of disliking him, of repeatedly taking positions against him and agreeing with his political opponents. Nehru’s version was that Bose also accused Nehru of “talking like a doctrinaire politician”.14 Several individuals told the author that Nehru was very jealous of Bose and feared that with an independent India, Bose would replace his, Nehru’s leadership. Bose’s visits to Europe and in particular Nazi Germany and Eastern Europe led him to a concept of a new Indian state which would embody a synthesis of fascism, or national socialism, and communism. “With a democratic system we cannot solve the problem of Free India”, he wrote.15 Through such a synthesis, radical reform would be possible and India’s pressing problems would be solved, he was convinced. What was required was a strong party. Because of Bose’s concept of a synthesis between fascism and communism, many authors have been unable to decide where to place him on the political spectrum, right or left. This question has continued to intrigue historians.16 Some have argued that when Bose appeared in Southeast Asia in 1943 in a Mussolini-style uniform and was called Netaji, he had moved closer ideologically to Axis mentors. Actually, the name Netaji was apparently not his idea; it was suggested by his secretary, Abid Hasan. When Bose turned to Japan for assistance in the military campaign for independence, this confirmed the suspicions of some critics that he had become a fascist. In Southeast Asia, nevertheless, Netaji was always careful to insist on the political and military integrity and independence of the Indian National Army. When war erupted in Europe, the Government found a pretext to arrest Bose yet again. He organized a popular demonstration in Calcutta for removal of the memorial to victims of the infamous Black Hole of Calcutta, a structure offensive to nationalist sentiment. For this and other charges of

04 RAJn.indd

37

7/4/08

2:58:36 PM

38

Women Against the Raj

sedition he was arrested on 2 July 1940, and imprisoned. While in detention he determined that the only path to independence lay in securing assistance outside India, particularly from the Axis powers with which India shared a common enemy. He announced on 29 November that he would begin a fast for freedom until death. He began the fast, refused all food, and six days later was allowed to return home, there to remain under house arrest. His trial for sedition was scheduled to begin on 26 January 1941. On that day he could not be found. Bose had been “meditating” for several days, ensconced in a room in the capacious family home, refusing to see even his mother. Food was brought in to him by a family member, and some who had seen him remarked that he had grown a beard. As a matter of fact, he was not simply meditating. He was carefully planning his next step toward India’s freedom, but taking only a small handful of individuals into his confidence, among them his nephew, Sisir Kumar Bose. Subhas was convinced as a result of his visits to Germany that victory would be Germany’s. He turned to his nephew one day and asked him if he could “do a job” for him. Sisir agreed. Before dawn on 17 January, a car pulled away from the family home in Calcutta. In the car were a Muslim religious teacher and Sisir Bose. In Muslim disguise — of course the teacher was Subhas — he made his way by car to a town some two hundred miles west of Calcutta, where he caught a train to Peshawar. There he became a deaf-mute Pathan, since he could not speak Pashtun. A prearranged contact accompanied him from Peshawar to Kabul, first by car, then, when the car broke down, on foot with two armed Pathan guides. They travelled several nights through the rugged terrain of the Khyber Pass until they were well inside Afghanistan, where they found a truck to take them through the frozen valley approach to Kabul. In Kabul, Bose tried unsuccessfully to get help from the Soviet and Japanese embassies. In early February he found refuge with another Indian, Uttam Chand, until his passage onward was arranged on 18 March. Bose managed to get an Italian passport and transport by car to the Russian border. He reached Moscow finally by train, and on 28 March flew to Berlin.17 This dramatic escape from house arrest began the legend of Subhas Chandra Bose, the revolutionary who could not be caught. Bose’s initial reception in Rome and Berlin was less helpful than hoped. He visited Count Ciano in June 1941, but Ciano refused to oblige him with a declaration in favour of Indian independence. Ciano wrote in his diary that in both Rome and Berlin, Bose was received with reserve, “especially since the value of this upstart is not clear”.18 Ciano held Bose in a hotel under virtual house arrest, trying to decide what to do with him.

04 RAJn.indd

38

7/4/08

2:58:36 PM

Subhas Chandra Bose

39

In Berlin, Bose had better luck. He was allowed the use of broadcasting facilities and inaugurated the Azad Hind Radio beamed to India. Goebbels wrote in his diary on 1 March, “We have succeeded in prevailing upon the Indian nationalist leader Bose to issue an imposing declaration of war against England. … We shall now begin our official fight on behalf of India, even though we do not as yet admit it openly.”19 The “persuasion” for which Goebbels claimed credit was no doubt at least a two-way exchange, as Bose would have required more constraint than persuasion. He also issued a monthly journal, Azad Hind, and decided it was time for a more aggressive martial initiative. An army of Indians equipped, trained and armed to fight England for Indian freedom would strike a strong propaganda blow against Britain. This was something amenable to the Nazi High Command, and the Indian Legion was born, composed of units that had fought in Africa. The Indian Legion grew to approximately three thousand, trained and drilled by German advisers using German commands. Bose talked with the officers and men about Indian freedom, and one Indian watching in Berlin was impressed. “I became convinced that Bose had an indefinable influence over them that they could not resist. It was almost a kind of magic, and indeed there was magic in the words he used.”20 This reference to Bose’s irresistible influence on people was also referred to later by his Indian National Army officers and by dozens of accounts in Japan, Germany, and Southeast Asia. Germany’s fiasco at Stalingrad caused Bose to question his faith in German invincibility, and he began to turn elsewhere for help in the Indian cause. The Japanese military attaché in Berlin, Colonel Yamamoto, received a telegraph from Tokyo headquarters asking him for a report on “a man − named Bose”. Bose met Japanese Ambassador Oshima and talked to both men in the embassy about India’s desire for independence and his hopes for Japanese aid.21 When the Pacific War erupted and Japan overran Malaya and − Burma, Bose expressed his elation to Oshima and Yamamoto. Bose wanted to − go to Asia immediately and fight beside Japan for Indian freedom. Oshima, however, felt Germany would not let Bose go, as his anti-British broadcasts − suited Germany’s needs. Oshima wrote that Germans were “guarding Bose like a tiger cub”.22 − Despite Oshima’s doubts about German intentions regarding Bose, agreement was reached between Berlin and Tokyo, partly at the behest of another Indian named Bose in Tokyo, Rash Behari, who had sought asylum in Japan in 1915 after tossing a bomb at Viceroy Hardinge. He had settled in Japan, married a Japanese woman, and had a son in the Imperial Japanese Army. This Bose had access to cabinet-level leadership in Tokyo and exerted

04 RAJn.indd

39

7/4/08

2:58:36 PM

40

Women Against the Raj

some influence in persuading Japanese military authorities to bring Subhas Bose to Asia. Indians in Southeast Asia were also pressing Japanese there for the same action. Apart from Japanese and German willingness, there was the question of transporting Bose from Berlin to Asia. British power was spread athwart all routes, and the Axis powers could not risk Bose’s capture. Tokyo also wondered why Japan needed to go to the trouble of bringing another Indian named Bose to Asia. Subhas was growing impatient. The Japanese cabinet met on the matter of Subhas Chandra Bose on 17 April 1942 and decided to bring him to Tokyo, but it was several months before arrangements could be coordinated with the German Foreign Ministry. − It was not until January 1943, that Oshima thought the time propitious to approach the German Foreign Ministry. One problem was that the Axis alliance never really involved any Berlin-Tokyo strategic planning, and there was no joint consideration of India policy. One fascinating and for many still controversial sidelight of Bose’s visits to Europe was his marriage to Emilie Schenkl, by whom he had a daughter Anita, a daughter he never saw. His magnetic personality and his passionate dedication to independence had always made him attractive to women, but his reputed public vow in Calcutta never to marry until India became free was well known to many Indians who could not accept that not only had he broken his “vow”, but he had married not an Indian but a European. Bose, recognizing the problem his marriage created for patriots, kept the marriage secret except with his family. There are those who even at this writing deny passionately that he ever married, despite correspondence and photographs of the couple at the Netaji Research Bureau. Basanti Devi had been approached several times by families of prospective brides, one offering a dowry of one hundred thousand rupees, an extraordinary sum. Bose angrily refused. His wife Emilie told a member of the Bose family that “India is his first and only love”.23 Abid Hasan, Bose’s Muslim secretary, described the epic journey via German submarine to Southeast Asia, during which the submarine suffered a hit by a British torpedo. Unperturbed, Bose continued dictation to Hasan during the crisis and asked his terrified secretary why he had stopped writing. In Hasan’s description of the incident he wrote, “I felt that our submarine could survive only because the women’s batallion was to take birth.”24 Southeast of Maagascar the German submarine rendezvoused with a Japanese submarine, which took him to Southeast Asia. In Sumatra Bose was met by Colonel Yamamoto, his Berlin contact, and the two flew to Tokyo, where on 16 May Bose was escorted to the Imperial Hotel.25

04 RAJn.indd

40

7/4/08

2:58:37 PM

Subhas Chandra Bose

41

Bose’s goal was to meet Prime Minister To¯jo¯, but he was first allowed to meet only other cabinet ministers. His opening words to members of the cabinet were, in a booming voice, “The war will end in victory for Japan!” This took Chief of Staff Sugiyama by surprise, since Japan was encountering reversals on Midway, Guadalcanal and elsewhere. Moreover, Bose’s bombastic manner of speech was alien to Japanese sensibilities and communication styles. Sugiyama had spent two years in India and expressed some sympathy but made no commitment. Bose was dissatisfied and insisted on meeting To¯jo¯, who was temporizing. Tokyo had more pressing problems than India at the time, and moreover, the Indian National Army in Southeast Asia had been a headache for Tokyo. It took persuasion by Sugiyama and Foreign Minister Shigemitsu for To¯jo¯ to agree to meet Bose, which he did on 10 June. To¯jo¯ was immediately enchanted by Bose, and the two men had a second meeting. Bose extracted from the Prime Minister a promise of Japanese aid to the independence movement. Bose was satisfied and encouraged. Other Japanese generals who met Bose were consistently immensely impressed. General Isoda, who later headed the liaison Kikan, said poetically, “I felt as though I was in the presence of Acara [sic], a mythological warlord standing with a flaming fire behind his shoulders”, and bullet-headed General Katakura, Chief of Staff of the Burma Area Army, said as he listened to Bose’s words, “my spirits rose, my blood began to boil, and tears rolled down my cheeks”.26 Bose’s fighting spirit obviously touched a sympathetic chord with the samurai spirit of Japanese officers. Bose visited the Diet on 16 June and heard To¯jo¯’s historic address in which he expressed sympathy for India’s aspirations and promised Japanese assistance. Bose in a press conference expressed his gratitude and referred to Japan’s 1905 victory over Russia as the early harbinger of Asian resurgence. He also broadcast to India on radio NHK as he had from Berlin, appealing Indians to rise in armed revolt everywhere. Bose met the elder revolutionary, Rash Behari Bose, who told Subhas that the Indian Independence League in Southeast Asia, which Rash Behari had fostered, had already voted to make Subhas President of the League and commander of the Indian National Army. On 27 June, after many banquets and public speeches, Bose was on his way to Southeast Asia.

Notes Subhas Chandra Bose, An Indian Pilgrim: An Unfinished Autobiography and Collected Letters, 1897–1921 (Oxford: Asia Publishing House, 1965), p. 2.

1

04 RAJn.indd

41

7/4/08

2:58:37 PM

42

Robert Kearney, “Identity, Life Mission, and the Political Career: Notes on the Early Life of Subhas Chandra Bose”, Political Psychology 4, no. 4 (1983), pp. 617–36. Psychologist Kearney suggests that he sublimated his awakening sex drive in mysticism and religious strivings and was in a “frantic search for a mother figure”. Ibid., p. 630. Information on Bose’s childhood and early life is derived from his autobiography, An Indian Pilgrim: An Unfinished Autobiography and Collected Letters, 1897–1921 (Oxford: Asia Publishing House, 1965). Ibid., p. 56. Subhas Chandra Bose, The Mission of Life (Calcutta: Thacker, 1949), p. 1. His close friend Dilip Roy asserted that Subhas confided to him before he went to England that he had already taken a secret vow to refuse a post in the civil service if he passed. Dilip Kumar Roy, The Subhash I Knew (Bombay: Nalanda Publications, 1946), p. 46. Krishna Bose, “Important Women in Netaji’s Life”, Illustrated Weekly of India 93 (13 August 1972), pp. 34–35. This sentiment was shared by Subhas, who in his letters to Basanti addressed her as “Revered Mother”. The mother-son bond in India has been described as “closer than any other relationship, forming the core of her ‘uterine family’”. Bharati Ray, “Women of Bengal: Transformation in Ideas and Ideals, 1900–1947”, Social Scientist 19, no. 5/6 (1991), pp. 3–23. When Basanti asked Bose about marriage, he replied, “I certainly shall get married. I never said I would not.” Krishna Bose, “Important Women in Netaji’s Life”, Illustrated Weekly of India 93 (13 and 20 August 1972), pp. 34–35. Netaji Research Bureau, Calcutta, Netaji Collected Works IV (Correspondence May 1923–July 1926), p. 232. Subhas Chandra Bose, The Indian Struggle, 1920–1942, edited by Sisir Kumar Bose and Sugata Bose (Delhi, New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 336–38. Netaji Research Bureau, Calcutta, Netaji Collected Works VIII, pp. 63, 112, 167. Subhas Chandra Bose, Crossroads, 1938–1940: Being the works of Subhas Chandra Bose (New York: Asia Publishing House, 1962), pp. 139–41. The Bose-Gandhi correspondence continued intensely. Subhas Chandra Bose, Crossroads, 1938–1940: Being the works of Subhas Chandra Bose (New York: Asia Publishing House, 1962), pp. 126–71. Netaji Research Bureau, Calcutta, Netaji Collected Works IX, p. 193. Jawaharlal Nehru, A Bunch of Old Letters (Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1960), pp. 329–49. Subhas Chandra Bose, The Indian Struggle, 1935–1942, pp. 87–93. More than one person has suggested collaborating with the author “to prove that Netaji was not a fascist”. Uttam Chand, When Bose was Ziauddin (Delhi: Rajkamal Publications, 1946), p. 71.

2

3

4

5 6 7

8

9

10

11 12

13

14

15 16

17

04 RAJn.indd

Women Against the Raj

42

7/4/08

2:58:37 PM

Subhas Chandra Bose

Malcolm Muggeridge, ed., Ciano’s Diary, 1937–1943 (London: Wm. Heinemann, 1947), p. 355. Conversation with Girija Mookerjee, New Delhi, 20 September 1965. Louis P. Lochner, ed. The Goebbels Diaries, 1942–1943 (New York: Doubleday, 1948), p. 67. Girija K. Mookerjee, This Europe (Calcutta: Saraswaty Library, 1950), pp. 134–40. Shizuo Maruyama, Nakano Gakk¯o: Tokumu Kikan no Shuki [Memorandum of the Nakano School Special Agency], Tokyo, p. 120. Ibid. Krishna Bose, “Important Women in Netaji’s Life”, Illustrated Weekly of India 93 (13 August 1972), p. 35; (20 August 1972), p. 35. Quoted in Rohini Gawankar, The Women’s Regiment and Captain Lakshmi of INA (New Delhi: Devika Publications, 2003), p. 152. See Joyce Chapman Lebra, Jungle Alliance: Japan and the Indian National Army (Singapore: Asia/Pacific Press, 1971), pp. 112–18. Lieutenant General Sabur¯o Isoda, “Netaji as I Knew Him”, The Oracle VIII, no. 1 (1986), pp. 11–15; General Katakura, “I Remember my Days with Subhas Chandra Bose”, The Oracle I, no. l (1979), p. 25.

18

19

20 21

22 23

24

25

26

04 RAJn.indd

43

43

7/4/08

2:58:37 PM

5 THE INDIAN NATIONAL ARMY

When Subhas Chandra Bose arrived in Southeast Asia, the Indian National Army (INA) was already in existence. The INA was born in the imagination of a young idealistic intelligence officer in the Imperial Japanese Army, Major Iwaichi Fujiwara. He was sent to Bangkok in late 1941 by Imperial General Headquarters on an intelligence mission “to maintain contact with the antiBritish Indian Independent League and with Malays and Chinese”. This he was to do initially in concert with a Colonel Tamura in Bangkok. The scope of his assignment was broad — “to consider future Indo-Japanese relations from the standpoint of establishing the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere”, and also to encourage friendship between the Japanese Army and the Malays. This was a huge assignment, but within the practice in the Japanese Army of allowing great leeway to field grade officers to pursue their missions. Before he left for Bangkok, Fujiwara was dismayed to find almost no information on India available at Tokyo Headquarters.1 To carry out his project Fujiwara was given few staff, whom he named F Kikan, or Friendship Kikan. In Bangkok he contacted several Indians, among them Pritam Singh, and Amar Singh, an elderly priest of long residence there. He extended his contacts to anti-British Malay organizations and to the Aceh in Sumatra and at times relied on a young Japanese agent known as The Tiger of Malaya. In fighting between the Japanese Army units and forces of the British Indian Army near Jitra, Indian officers and men were surrendered by Colonel Fitzpatrick to Japanese officers, including Fujiwara. Among the Indian 44

05 RAJ.indd

44

6/26/08

1:57:44 PM

The Indian National Army

45

officers was a spirited Sikh named Mohan Singh, and between Fujiwara and Mohan Singh there was instant rapport. The two majors were the same age, and Fujiwara spoke about cultural traditions Japan and India shared, including Buddhism. To Mohan Singh, Fujiwara sounded indignant about India’s subjection under British rule, and the two talked for a long time. During the conversation Mohan Singh told Fujiwara about Subhas Chandra Bose, the Indian revolutionary in exile in Berlin. Mohan Singh said that if Bose were brought to Asia, all Indians would unite against Britain. Fujiwara noted that nearly every Indian with whom he spoke to revered Bose, and he passed these comments on to Tokyo. Fujiwara told Mohan Singh that if he were to organize an Indian independence army, the Japanese Army would surely offer cooperation in its struggle to liberate India. Thus was born the Indian National Army, as the two decided to call it. This rapport between Fujiwara and Mohan Singh led to a close friendship still maintained by their descendants three generations later. The tie between Fujiwara and Mohan Singh resulted in two battalions of one hundred men each joining the 25th Army operation against Singapore. The Japanese estimated that eighty per cent of British forces at Singapore were Indians. Fujiwara met with generals from Tokyo and explained his ideas on India policy and promotion of cooperation between the Japanese Army and Indian prisoners of war. Tokyo generals did not fully share Fujiwara’s enthusiasm about Mohan Singh or Indian independence, but Fujiwara felt he had gained a hearing in Tokyo where it mattered. Singapore, Britain’s “impregnable bastion”, was defended from the sea, Britain’s traditional battleground. The Japanese attack overland from Johore was a shock to the British, who surrendered in a week rather than the six months the British expected their Singapore stronghold could hold out against attack. Indian prisoners, some forty thousand at Singapore, were assembled in Farrer Park. Fujiwara asked them through Mohan Singh and interpreters if they wished to be treated as prisoners of war or to fight for independence. He explained the goal of liberating the peoples of Asia, cooperating in an Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere based on freedom, equality, and friendship, rhetoric partly of his own devising. The response was positive, gratifying to both Mohan Singh and Fujiwara, as Indians tossed their caps into the air and cheered. Mohan Singh became commander of the nascent Indian National Army.2 The response in Farrer Park was not, however, unanimous. Officers with long family traditions in the British Indian Army could not shift their loyalty so readily. Some, among whom were Shah Nawaz Khan and Prem

05 RAJ.indd

45

6/26/08

1:57:44 PM

46

Women Against the Raj

Sahgal, were also suspicious of Japanese intentions. Shah Nawaz had a long family tradition in the military and was also dubious about Mohan Singh’s ability cope with the Japanese. One reason he eventually changed his mind and joined was that he wanted to be able to protect prisoners of war from execution, and within the INA he would be better able to do so, as he explained to other Muslims. He said further that the Japanese were using some Indians as spies and had commandered some Indian property in Burma which the Indian Independence League requested.3 Both Shah Nawaz and Sahgal therefore did join after careful calculation, for these reasons. Several Indian associations existed in Singapore and Malaya — the Indian Association of Malaya, the Indian Chamber of Commerce, and the Ramakrishna Mission, among them. S.C. Goho and K.P.K. Menon were recognized as leaders of the Indian community there. At the outbreak of war in Asia, these groups joined forces in an Indian Independence League fostered by Pritam Singh and Rash Behari Bose, the Indian revolutionary exile from Tokyo. In March 1942 Rash Behari, no relation to Subhas, invited Indian leaders in Southeast Asia to a meeting in Tokyo. Delegates to the Tokyo meeting included members of the Indian National Council in Bangkok, Satyananda Puri and Pritam Singh. One of two planes carrying the delegates from Bangkok crashed in a storm, and all aboard were lost. Rash Behari and Indians from Southeast Asia reinforced Fujiwara’s request to Tokyo regarding bringing Subhas Chandra Bose to Asia. Tensions developed between Mohan Singh and the Indians in Southeast Asia on the one hand and Rash Behari Bose and the Japanese on the other. Mohan Singh and his colleagues felt that Rash Behari’s sympathies were closer to the interests of Japan than to India. He had after all lived in Tokyo since 1915 and had a Japanese wife and a son in the Japanese Army. From Mohan Singh’s perspective, these facts made his loyalty to India suspicious, despite his revolutionary credentials with Indians in Bengal. Another problem was that Tokyo transferred Fujiwara away from his Indian friends and the F Kikan. In his stead Tokyo appointed a higherranking, more traditional officer, Colonel Hideo Iwakuro, founder of the Army’s Intelligence School, who did not share Fujiwara’s enthusiasm for the Indian independence movement. The Iwakuro Kikan had two hundred and fifty members, a far larger organization than Fujiwara’s handful of dedicated men. Iwakuro did, however, meet with leaders of the League and INA and tried to reassure them that he would seek to follow Fujiwara’s policies. The Iwakuro Kikan fostered and encouraged several propaganda projects involving Indians: the Swaraj Institute at Penang under the directorship of N. Raghavan, a Penang lawyer, the Osman group composed of Sikhs, an all

05 RAJ.indd

46

6/26/08

1:57:44 PM

The Indian National Army

47

Muslim group under Lieutenant Colonel Gilani, and a group of Gurkhas for operations in Nepal. All these groups were trained in Iwakuro’s specialties: intelligence, espionage, infiltration, disguise, and in some cases, broadcasting. The instructors of the Swaraj Institute were Japanese under the supervision of Captain Noboru Kaneko, head of the Penang branch of the Kikan. The Indian Independence League had branches in cities and towns throughout Southeast Asia and functioned like a government within a government. They reunited families, provided food and shelter to the destitute, found jobs for the unemployed, gave medicine to the sick, settled disputes, and established ownership of property.4 A conference of League delegates from all over Asia met in Bangkok in June 1942, and passed the Bangkok Resolution, which declared the INA the military arm of the movement and created a Council of Action, presided over by Rash Behari Bose, who had helped to foster the League throughout Southeast Asia. The Resolution called on Japan to protect Indian nationals and property in territory freed from Western domination and not to consider Indians in Southeast Asia enemy nationals. The Resolution also requested the Japanese Government to arrange for the transfer of Subhas Chandra Bose to East Asia. One thing the Resolution demanded which Tokyo could not concede was the recognition of the INA as an equal allied army. Iwakuro was in a quandary about responding to the Resolution. He felt the decision was Tokyo’s; he procrastinated. A feeling prevailed in Tokyo among officers at Headquarters that Fujiwara had been pampering the Indians.5 Because Iwakuro could not meet the requests of the Council of Action he continued to temporize, while Mohan Singh was eager to expand the INA. Iwakuro relied on Rash Behari to mediate between the Kikan and the INA, but with Fujiwara gone Mohan Singh had difficulty working with either Rash Behari or the Kikan. Fujiwara was informed of these problems by members of the F Kikan who remained with Iwakuro, and Fujiwara visited Mohan Singh to try to placate him, but by this time problems had reached an insoluble impasse. Several high-ranking INA officers were not satisfied with Mohan Singh’s leadership from the beginning. Mohan Singh submitted a letter to Rash Behari requesting further clarification of Japan’s position regarding the INA. Bose, however, felt he could not forward the letter to Tokyo or even ask the other Council members to endorse it. Fujiwara again intervened, urging Mohan Singh to agree to send INA troops to Burma and Malaya. If Mohan Singh refused, Fujiwara said, he might himself have to commit hara kiri. Fujiwara at times wore his emotions on his sleeve. Mohan Singh did not move, even for Fujiwara. As a result of the failure of negotiations, Mohan Singh, Gilani,

05 RAJ.indd

47

6/26/08

1:57:45 PM

48

Women Against the Raj

and Menon resigned on 8 December 1942. Mohan Singh declared the INA dissolved, and he was put under house arrest. Some INA members tried to hold their force together, notably Colonel Bhonsle, and Rash Behari sought to help them. Rash Behari left for Tokyo again, and when he returned in July 1943 he brought with him the man Indians in Southeast Asia had been awaiting — Subhas Chandra Bose. Subhas Chandra Bose’s reputation as a revolutionary had preceded him, and the magic of his legend infected his audiences as soon as he arrived in Singapore in July. His welcome was tumultuous and his audiences listened in rapt attention. One listener in the crowd remarked, “I knew as soon as I heard him that here was no ordinary man.”6 For his part, Bose was exhilarated to be in Singapore, “graveyard of the British Empire”.7 Bose’s voice carried a Churchillian ring and timbre, and at times he sounded almost like Churchill speaking, though of course with a very different message. The effect on listeners was electrifying. Bose was finally in his element, surrounded by Indians who responded enthusiastically to his call wherever he went. Observers noted that when Netaji travelled he did so in state with a large retinue and procession of cars, often standing in an open car and waving to assembled crowds. He was aware of his public image and impact and encouraged it.8 At Bose’s first meeting at the Cathay Hall in Singapore the day after he arrived, Rash Behari turned over to Subhas Bose, now called Netaji, the leadership of both the League and the INA. Netaji spoke at length, urging his audience to do or die in the cause of India’s freedom. The following day INA troops paraded publicly before Netaji and General To¯jo¯, who had come from Tokyo to see the INA for himself. To¯jo¯’s presence was significant and encouraged Netaji in the conviction that Japan’s offer of military assistance was genuine. That To¯jo¯ took time to travel to Singapore to view the INA was evidence of Bose’s powerful impact on the prime minister. Bose spoke movingly and at length. “Let your battle cry be Chalo Delhi — To Delhi! … If you will always follow me in life as well as in death, then I will lead you on the road to victory and freedom.”9 Abid Hasan, who accompanied Bose on the epic submarine journey from Germany and commented on Netaji’s cool aplomb and courage under fire, was as mesmerized as any INA recruit by the man. He commented, “We had a purpose in life. We had something to live for and something to die for. We had acquired a self-respect not known to many of us before. He called us to greatness and we came.”10 Self-respect and a pride in India’s heritage were realized for the first time by many in Southeast Asia as a result of hearing Netaji’s words.

05 RAJ.indd

48

6/26/08

1:57:45 PM

The Indian National Army

49

Even more tumultuous was the response at the mass rally on 9 July, when in the pouring rain thousands stood mesmerized by Bose’s call to action. He appealed for total mobilization of the three million Indians in Southeast Asia. He pleaded for three hundred thousand men under arms. He summoned women to arms in the Rani of Jhansi Regiment, named after the martyred heroine who died in battle against the British in 1858. The response to this unprecedented request was electrifying, and no one moved for shelter from the rain. Civilians signed on for military training in the INA. Women pushed through the crowd toward the dais and removed their principal form of wealth, their gold necklaces, earrings, and bangles and offered them for the cause at Netaji’s feet. This was proof of what so many described as the magic of Subhas Chandra Bose. He assured his audience that once the INA set foot on Indian soil, the whole nation would rise in revolution and expel the British from India. He declared that he intended to establish a Provisional Government of Free India. What Netaji demanded of all Indians in Southeast Asia was total mobilization, which included not only manpower but also financial resources. Speaking to Indian merchants he said, “Every life and every property belongs to the nation when it is involved in a war. Your lives and your property do not now belong to you; they belong to India, and to India alone.”11 This was no doubt a daunting message for merchants to hear and respond to. Bose commanded the INA but did not assume a military rank, on the advice of INA officers. Lieutenant Colonel Bhonsle, who had commanded the INA following Mohan Singh’s resignation, became Chief of Staff. Headquarters was organized into branches for planning and training, administration and general orders, supply and equipment, medical matters, and education and culture for propaganda. Experienced officers were selected to command each branch. Netaji discussed with Colonel Yamamoto, his acquaintance from Berlin and now head of the renamed Hikari Kikan, the military role of the INA on the Burma border. Field Marshal Count Terauchi, commander of the Southern Army, explained to Bose that the burden of the campaign into India would be borne by the Japanese Army, which would then hand over the independent country to Indians. Netaji was adamant that the only acceptable role for the INA was as spearhead of the advance into India. “The first drop of blood shed on Indian soil had to be an INA soldier’s blood”, he insisted repeatedly. Another problem was the question of Mohan Singh, still under house arrest. A delegation of Sikhs met Netaji and requested that he demand the release of Mohan Singh so that he could rejoin the struggle. Bose met with Mohan Singh, but it became apparent that he would not accept a position

05 RAJ.indd

49

6/26/08

1:57:45 PM

50

Women Against the Raj

under Bhonsle, and moreover senior INA officers had never been happy with Mohan Singh’s command, particularly as his INA rank was higher than those of officers who outranked him in the British Indian Army. Mohan Singh remained under house arrest. On 21 October, another capacity audience in the Cathay Hall listened to Netaji announce formation of the new Free India Provisional Government. The four-month lapse in time from his arrival in Singapore until the creation of this new government was noteworthy, and was indicative of the difficult negotiations that continued between Netaji and the Japanese. He took an oath of allegiance to India as Prime Minister, Minister for War, Foreign Affairs, and Supreme Commander of the INA. Other cabinet ministers were Captain Lakshmi Swaminadhan, Minister for Women’s Organizations; S.A. Ayer, Minister for Publicity and Propaganda; Lieutenant Colonel A.C. Chatterji, Minister of Finance; and A.M. Sahay, Secretary. Military officers advising the cabinet were: Lieutenant Colonels Aziz Ahmad, N.S. Bhagat, J.K. Bhonsle, Gulzara Singh, M.Z. Kiani, A.D. Loganadhan, Eisan Qadir, and Shah Nawaz Khan.12 Shah Nawaz was completely won over by Bose. “I must confess frankly that from the moment I came into personal contact with him he exercised a strange influence over me. … What impressed me most about him was his absolute devotion to his country. … He held the independence of his mother country above everything else in the world.”13 Netaji reassured Shah Nawaz regarding his distrust of the Japanese, which Bose admitted he shared, but said he would remain vigilant for any sign that the Japanese intended to replace the British in India. Netaji wanted assurance that other nations would accord his government recognition, which happened two days later when eight governments did so: Germany Italy, Japan, Croatia, Manchukuo, the Philippines, Thailand, and Burma. Netaji as Prime Minister also declared war against Britain and America as one of the first acts of the new government. In November 1943, Bose attended the Greater East Asia Conference in Tokyo as an observer, but he did not sit silently on the sidelines. He spoke of India’s struggle for liberation, of Japan’s 1905 victory over the colossus of Russia, and of Pan-Asian cultural ties. His main goal on this trip was to persuade the Japanese Government to turn over the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, so the new FIPG would have a legitimate territory. Although a transfer ceremony was held in December, the status of the islands as the new Government’s territory was ambiguous and left Bose dissatisfied. In December, Netaji moved the FIPG and INA Headquarters to Rangoon to prepare for military action on the Burma border. The timing of the move

05 RAJ.indd

50

6/26/08

1:57:46 PM

The Indian National Army

51

was critical; it was nearly 1944, and British military positions in Southeast Asia were improving and Japan’s situation in the Pacific was deteriorating rapidly. While Netaji felt he had made progress at the Tokyo conference, the details of Japan’s military situation were not known to him in detail. By this time Japan had suffered serious reverses in campaigns on Midway, Guadalcanal, the Solomons, and elsewhere. Japan lacked air support and secure supply lines for a major campaign. The Pacific Theater had first claim on Japan’s diminishing supplies. Moreover, the Japanese Army, which had more political power than the Navy, had given even the Pacific Theater second place to campaigns in North China even while engaged in major campaigns in the Pacific. The Hikari Kikan followed Bose to Rangoon in January. Netaji and Colonel Yamamoto had differences, and Yamamoto was replaced as Kikan chief by the higher ranking Lieutenant General Saburo¯ Isoda, an unusually gentle Japanese general. In Burma, Netaji had to deal through Isoda with General Mutaguchi, redoubtable commander of the 15th Army, and General Kawabe, commander of the Burma Area Army. The INA could not operate without the cooperation and support of these commanders. As soon as military action began on the Burma-India border, issues between the INA and Japanese became serious. The Japanese wanted a Japanese officer to head an Indo-Japanese War Cooperation Council on Indian soil. Netaji rejected this forcefully. There were also issues of military protocol: which side should salute first. Netaji insisted on simultaneous salutes. His bargaining weapon was always the threat of loss of his leadership, and Japanese officers knew his support was critical for ensuring the support of Indians. General Isoda was skeptical about the Imphal campaign as soon as it began. For one thing, he felt the timing was too late. March was pushing the calendar, especially if the monsoon rains began early, as in fact they did. With roads turning to mud and Japanese supplies rapidly dwindling, relations between the INA and the Japanese deteriorated. Moreover, from the Japanese perspective, the INA was tainted from the start; surrender did not exist in Japanese military rhetoric or practice. For the INA, Imphal was critical. It was the key to India and determined the course of Indian independence. From the Japanese standpoint, Imphal was of peripheral concern and worse, was one of the most controversial campaigns of the Pacific War. A total of five Japanese commanding generals and numerous staff officers were dismissed for insubordination during and immediately following the campaign.

05 RAJ.indd

51

6/26/08

1:57:46 PM

52

Women Against the Raj

While British intelligence had it that Japan was planning a full-scale offensive into India, in actuality for Japan, India was the western perimeter of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere and was primarily of interest for fostering anti-British sentiment. Terrain on the Indo-Burma border was some of the world’s most inhospitable. Mountains formed a formidable barrier and three major river systems ran primarily north-south, not east-west: the Chindwin, Irrawaddy, and Salween. By March–April 1944 when the campaign began, British and American bombers were already flying over the area, and the monsoon rains had begun and made roads into muddy, impassable ruts. The nearest railhead to Imphal was at Dimapur, from where a single track railway swept west through Bengal and Assam. This was a critical objective for both armies. The temperature just prior to the monsoon rose to 120 degrees F, and monsoon rains here were among the heaviest in the world. Locals said that even tigers cannot travel during the monsoon. Added hazards in this area were leeches causing the Naga sore, scorpions, cobras and other harmful creatures, a constant concern for troops on the march without billets and often even without boots. Moreover, typhus, malaria, dengue fever, and dysentery were all common in the area. Japanese and Indian troops suffered from all these hazards as well as from lack of a reliable supply of food and weapons. Shah Nawaz, commanding the Subhas Brigade, a guerilla regiment, was the first commander of the INA into battle, on 3 February 1944. He had remained skeptical of Japanese sincerity and objected when Mutaguchi assigned him to the Haka-Falam area in the Chin Hills, south of the main point of attack. Fujiwara tried to placate Shah Nawaz, but unfortunately could not live up to his promised help. By this time troops were reduced to eating dry field rice mixed with grass. Shah Nawaz felt he was being given false orders by the Japanese. He never overcame his distrust of the Japanese and believed that the Japanese were deliberately starving the INA men, though the Japanese themselves were also starving. “All of us were of the opinion that the Japanese … had betrayed us and were mainly responsible for our failure to capture Imphal and for the extremely heavy casualties suffered by us”, he wrote.14 Part of his unit did advance to the southern sector of Kohima, and managed to stand on Indian soil briefly, but by this time Kohima was no longer tenable and they had to retrace their steps. Between February and May, INA forces crossed the border to Indian soil in the Arakan sector and Bishenpur in Imphal briefly, causing great elation for Netaji and INA forces. Following the March announcement that INA troops had crossed the border and stood on Indian soil, Netaji appointed Lieutenant Colonel

05 RAJ.indd

52

6/26/08

1:57:46 PM

The Indian National Army

53

Chatterji as governor of Liberated Indian territories, and Chatterji and his staff made preparations to move into India. The Azad Hind Dal was organized to administer liberated territory. Netaji continued to plan actively for his vision of independent India. It seemed the march to Delhi had begun. National Liberation Week celebrations were held by Indians in May in villages in Burma, and more recruits joined the cause. Plans were made to celebrate the fall of Imphal to the INA and the Japanese. The optimism, however, proved ephemeral, though Japanese propaganda sources continued to issue sanguine communiqués. Netaji did not receive accurate reports of the situation at the front, as Indian journalists were prevented by Japanese authorities from front-line reporting. Moreover, the INA had no radio communication, so Netaji had no direct contact with INA units in combat. In any case, even when it became apparent that the Imphal campaign had collapsed, for him the fight was not over. When there could be no doubt about what had happened at Imphal, Netaji made preparations for “the next Imphal campaign”. In mid-April after the ephemeral promise of success in the campaign, the military balance shifted abruptly. Japanese forces ran short of ammunition and could not replenish them. General Wingate’s airborne unit had begun a persistent attack over Burma in March, and British forces were being supplied by airlift. British reinforcements flowed into Kohima by rail and air. Mutaguchi ordered the 15th Division to capture Dimapur and the main part of the INA to assemble in the Kabaw Valley for an offensive into Assam. General Masakazu Kawabe, commander of the Burma Area Army, countermanded the order, to Mutaguchi’s dismay.15 This was the beginning of orders and counter-orders up and down the chain of command of the Japanese Army. General Kenryo¯ Sato¯ cut off communications with the 15th Army and began withdrawing from Kohima, which opened the Imphal-Kohima Road for the British. The psychological impasse at all levels of command was in sum the Japanese psychology of the Pacific War. Again, there was no word for surrender in Mutaguchi’s vocabulary. On 22 June, when the Imphal campaign was already hopelessly mired, Netaji met with General Kawabe and urged him to increase the size of INA units at the front and also to send in Rani of Jhansi Regiment troops to the front.16 Kawabe was not disposed to take these suggestions seriously. On 4 July 1944, despite the fact that success was questionable, if not illusory, Netaji sought to incite INA troops to fight on, while acknowledging the prospect of more casualties. “No one here should have the desire to live to enjoy freedom”, he said. “A bitter fight is still in front of us. We should have but one desire today, the desire to die so that India may live, the desire

05 RAJ.indd

53

6/26/08

1:57:47 PM

54

Women Against the Raj

to face a martyr’s death, so that the path to freedom may be paved with the martyr’s blood.”17 4 July was the occasion of Netaji week, celebrated in Rangoon and wherever there were League branches. On 26 July after the Japanese announced suspension of the Imphal campaign, Netaji’s assessment acknowledged the reality and its causes. “We started the operations too late. The monsoon was disadvantageous to us. Our roads were submerged.” He also recognized the superiority of enemy mechanized divisions, communications, air support, and roads.18 Speaking of the Imphal fiasco later, in October when he had returned to Rangoon, he expressed the view that had the campaign started in January it would have succeeded.19 In the same month Shah Nawaz pleaded with Netaji to leave Meiktila for safety. Netaji replied with a bit of machismo, “It is no use pleading with me. I have made up my mind to go to Popa and I am going there. You do not have to worry about my safety, as I know England has not yet produced a bomb that can kill Subhas Chandra Bose.”20 It was December 1944 before Gurbakhsh Singh Dhillon, a stalwart Punjabi Sikh from the same regiment as Shah Nawaz, was persuaded by Netaji to assume command of the Nehru Brigade and went into action along the Irrawaddy. This was a defensive operation, as the Imphal campaign had already failed. Dhillon realized that any success depended on the goodwill of villagers in areas through which he passed, and he related many incidents when he sought the sympathy of local Burmese.21 Faced with insurmountable problems, some three hundred of his men at one point deserted, but after they were dressed down by Netaji, Dhillon readmitted them. Dhillon himself suffered sporadically from appendicitis and fevers and several times had to be carried on a stretcher but refused to quit. Colonel Prem Sahgal was also finally ordered into action in command of the 5th Guerrilla Regiment reorganized as the 2nd Infantry Regiment. Sahgal knew that several hundred in the unit were civilians from Malaya who needed more training. He ensured that they received the necessary training. By this time he and Dhillon both realized that their action was not going to take them into India but would be to defend positions along the Irrawaddy. Imphal was a lost cause, and though Netaji eventually recognized it, he would not easily admit it, any more than would Mutaguchi. Netaji did finally order retreat, reluctantly. In January 1945, the INA and the League were desperate for funds. It was decided to weigh Netaji against gold, though he was personally opposed. The result was gratifying, as several hundred lakhs were collected. In Burma the Japanese had trained the Burma Independence Army (BIA), which was now under the command of Aung San. Relations between

05 RAJ.indd

54

6/26/08

1:57:47 PM

The Indian National Army

55

the BIA and INA remained friendly, even when the BIA revolted in March 1945 against their Japanese trainers. The Japanese urged Netaji to join them against the BIA, but Netaji refused. Relations between Netaji and Ba Maw’s government also remained based on mutual respect and friendship. This friendship prevented armed conflict between Burmese and Indians most of the time. In mid-February as Sahgal’s and Dhillon’s forces were converging on Mount Popa, Netaji sent Shah Nawaz Khan there to assess the situation. At Mount Popa Sahgal, Dhillon, and Shah Nawaz, the three INA officers tried by the British after the war for treason in the Red Fort, were engaged together. As Dhillon put it, “It was here that Shah Nawaz, Sahgal and I qualified for the Red Fort trial.”22 During the desperate days of March 1945, five INA officers at Mount Popa deserted to the British. Bose, now in Rangoon, was stunned. Sahgal and Dhillon were furious, and Sahgal issued orders that anyone behaving suspiciously was to be shot. At least five were in fact shot. These executions were the focus of charges of murder and abetment of murder brought against Sahgal, Dhillon, and Shah Nawaz in the Red Fort trial. By April when most in the INA realized that their position was hopeless, large numbers of both officers and men went over to the British, often whole units. There was nothing to stem the flow now. Fujiwara’s description of this phase was graphic: “Japanese and INA officers and men, skinny and half-naked, staggered along with the help of canes. Many of us walked on bare feet smeared with mud and blood, and our faces were ashen, swollen from malnutrition and scaly because of skin disease.”23 Shah Nawaz in early May ordered all remaining INA forces to surrender, and vowed he himself would lead a fifty-man suicide mission against the British. He asked Dhillon to select the fifty. In the end, Shah Nawaz and Dhillon decided that the best course was to surrender in the hope that they would have an opportunity to tell their countrymen of the struggle of the INA. Sahgal agreed. This they did on 17 May 1945. When Netaji heard the order to retreat, he said to Kawabe, “Though the Japanese Army has given up the operation we will continue it. … Even if the whole army becomes only spirit we will not stop advancing toward our homeland. This is the spirit of our revolutionary army.”24 By early 1945 in both Burma and Malaya, dissatisfaction with the Japanese presence was apparent, and incidents were occurring. It was not only in the Burma Independence Army revolt, but among civilians as well that anti-Japanese sentiment became apparent. Netaji ordered the INA units

05 RAJ.indd

55

6/26/08

1:57:47 PM

56

Women Against the Raj

in Malaya to assist Japanese troops against Malay insurgents. For him the Japanese were military allies, and he felt the need to honour the alliance. This order, however, caused some doubt and confusion within the INA, most of whose men felt their fight was for Indian freedom only. Netaji continued to call for “blood from the soldiers”, and also for “more men, more money, more materials. Our campaign will, and must, go on”, he said.25 During Netaji’s final months in Southeast Asia, he also broadcast sharp criticisms of Congress leaders, whom he referred to as “compromisers”, betrayers of India. He kept in touch with news from within India as Wavell negotiated with Congress and the Muslim League, and the news convinced him that Congress was headed in the wrong direction. In April Netaji’s cabinet advised him to evacuate Rangoon, and he did so reluctantly. On 29 April, the British retook Rangoon. Netaji moved the headquarters of both the INA and the League to Bangkok. During the months, June through August, he also inspected INA units in Malaya. To the men of the INA and women of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment, Netaji reiterated his faith in ultimate victory. There were reasons for his parting statements to these men and women before he left them to embark on his fateful plane ride to Taiwan, and, he hoped, Russia. As the leader of a revolutionary struggle he could not destroy the hopes of those who had followed him, and he also hoped his words would stir Indians within India. Moreover, his faith in Britain’s expulsion and India’s ultimate independence was genuine. Apart from the failure of the INA and Japanese forces in the military campaign, the INA had a revolutionary significance: its genuinely secular, national character. This assessment is remarked by several authors.26 “The greatest among its achievements was to gather together, under one banner, men from all religions and races of India, and to infuse in them the spirit of solidarity and oneness, to the utter exclusion of all parochial sentiment.”27 The British Indian Army was geographically and ethnically selective in composition, relying primarily on Sikhs, Pathans, Gurkhas, and Muslims, for the most part geographically North Indian. The INA, on the other hand, included these sectors and in addition former civilians recruited in Malaya and Burma. These civilians of the diaspora were primarily Tamils or Malayalis from the south. Some Christians were also numbered among INA men. The achievement of this absolutely secular and national character, where men and women of all religious communities lived, worked, ate and died together, was revolutionary and will be commented on further. In order to guarantee that the language of the INA was also genuinely national, Netaji decided to adopt Hindustani, which included both Hindi

05 RAJ.indd

56

6/26/08

1:57:48 PM

The Indian National Army

57

and Urdu elements, and that it be written in Romanized script. Speakers of Tamil, Malayam and Telegu were given language training and generally in three months became literate in the Hindustani lingua franca. For the INA song Netaji turned away from Bande Mataram, the song that had so galvanized Bengali revolutionaries because of its emphasis on the Mother. Mother worship has no place in Muslim and Sikh traditions. Instead he chose Tagore’s composition, Jana Gana Mana, which is Indian’s national anthem today. Meals in the INA were taken together, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs and Christians in a common mess. Beef and pork were never served, mutton occasionally. Religious ceremonies were celebrated mutually, but Netaji was convinced that religion should be kept out of politics and out of the INA. Another symbol of national unity was the flag. Bose felt the Indian tricolour with the emblem of the spinning wheel, which was essentially Gandhian, might offend Muslim sensibilities. He chose instead a springing tiger, the tiger being associated with a Muslim hero of eighteenth century battles against the British. ‘Jai Hind!’ was the universal greeting of the INA and the three watchwords were unity, faith, and sacrifice. The causes of the failure of the Imphal campaign were fundamentally those that made General Isoda and others skeptical from the start. The delay from the time Bose arrived in Singapore to his departure for Burma affected the timing of the campaign. The late start, when British forces were better prepared to retaliate, the monsoon, the natural hazards, the lack of supplies, lack of radio communication between INA units, problems between levels of command in the Japanese Army and between Japanese and INA officers and men, and Japan’s strategic priorities elsewhere, all contributed to the debacle. Before we consider Bose’s departure, death and the long-range achievement of the INA, we turn to the Rani of Jhansi Regiment and its significance.

Notes Lieutenant General Iwaichi Fujiwara, F Kikan: Japanese Army Intelligence Operataions in Southeast Asia during World War II, translated by Yoji Akashi (Hong Kong: Heinemann Eduational Books, 1983). This is a memoir of Fujiwara’s wartime activities which include formation of the Indian National Army. Much of the discussion on the Indian National Army follows Joyce Chapman Lebra, Jungle Alliance: Japan and the Indian National Army (Singapore: Asia/ Pacific Press, 1971); also see Lieutenant General Iwaichi Fujiwara, F Kikan: Japanese Army Intelligence Operataions in Southeast Asia during World War

1

2

05 RAJ.indd

57

6/26/08

1:57:48 PM

58

II, translated by Yoji Akashi (Hong Kong: Heinemann Educational Books, 1983). Major General Shah Nawaz Khan, My Memories of I.N.A. and its Netaji (Delhi: Rajkamal Publications, 1946), pp. 21–37. John Thivy, The Struggle in East Asia (Calcutta: Netaji Research Bureau, 1971), p. 29. Joyce Chapman Lebra, Jungle Alliance: Japan and the Indian National Army (Singapore: Asia/Pacific Press, 1971), pp. 77–100. Conversation with President S.R. Nathan of Singapore, in Singapore, 12 April 2007. M. Sivaram, The Road to Delhi (Tokyo and Rutland, VT: Charles Tuttle, 1967), pp. 116–17. Ibid., p. 139. Major General A.C. Chatterji, India’s Struggle for Freedom (Calcutta: Chuckervertty, Chatterjee, 1947), p. 75; K.R. Palta, My Adventures with the I.N.A. (Lahore: Lion Press, 1946), pp. 73–74. Abid Hasan Safrani, The Men from Imphal: The Struggle in East Asia (Calcutta: Netaji Research Bureau, 1971), pp. 14–20. K.R. Palta, My Adventures with the I.N.A. (Lahore: Lion Press, 1946), p. 101. M. Sivaram, The Road to Delhi (Tokyo and Rutland, VT: Charles Tuttle, 1967), pp. 145–56. Major General Shah Nawaz Khan, My Memories of I.N.A. and its Netaji (Delhi: Rajkamal Publications, 1946), p. i. Ibid., pp. 106–11. Shiro Takagi, Komei [Insubordination] (Tokyo: 1966), p. 27. Masakazu Kawabe, Biruma Nikki Shoroku [Summary of the Burma Diary], unpublished diary in Japanese in the Boeicho Senshi Shitsu [War History Library] in Tokyo. Madan Gopal, ed., Life and Times of Subhas Chandra Bose as told in his own words (New Delhi: Vikas, 1978), p. 301. Ibid., p. 302. Major General A.C. Chatterji, India’s Struggle for Freedom (Calcutta: Chuckervertty, Chatterjee, 1947), p. 212. Major General Shah Nawaz Khan, My Memories of I.N.A. and its Netaji (Delhi: Rajkamal Publications, 1946), p. 144. Gurbakhsh Singh Dhillon, From My Bones: Memoirs of Col. Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon of the Indian National Army, including the 1945 Red Fort Trial (Delhi: Aryan Books International, 1998). In this memoir, Dhillon recounted several instances of his efforts to elicit the sympathy of Burmese villagers. Ibid., p. 319. Lieutenant General Iwaichi Fujiwara, F Kikan: Japanese Army Intelligence Operataions in Southeast Asia during World War II, translated by Yoji Akashi (Hong Kong: Heinemann Educational Books, 1983), pp. 264–65.

3

4

5

6

7

8 9

10

11 12

13

14 15 16

17

18 19

20

21

22 23

05 RAJ.indd

Women Against the Raj

58

6/26/08

1:57:48 PM

The Indian National Army

Ibid., unpublished summary of Kawabe Diary, p. 108 and 12 July 1944 p. 118. M. Sivaram, The Road to Delhi (Tokyo and Rutland, VT: Charles Tuttle, 1967), pp. 250–51. B.K. Ahluwalia and Shashi Ahluwalia, Netaji and Gandhi (New Delhi: Indian Academic Publishers, 1982), p. 11; Major General A.C. Chatterji, India’s Struggle for Freedom (Calcutta Chuckervertty, Chatterjee, 1947), pp. 309–16. B.K. Ahluwalia and Shashi Ahluwalia, Netaji and Gandhi (New Delhi: Indian Academic Publishers, 1982), op. cit.

24

25

26

27

05 RAJ.indd

59

59

6/26/08

1:57:49 PM

6 VOLUNTEERS FROM THE MALAYAN RUBBER ESTATES

The officers of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment (RJR) came from Englisheducated, middle and upper classes of Indian in Malaya and Burma. Many of these were born into professional families, lawyers, doctors, and officials who staffed the colonial bureaucracy. These RJR officers were not only Englisheducated, but a few of them have written accounts of their experience in the RJR, and several have been interviewed and/or given talks for the media or at conferences. They have also been in the public eye in various service and political capacities. These are therefore recruits about whom we know the most, since we have written accounts and public evidence. These women, the officer corps of the Regiment, were in reality a small but significant proportion of the entire regiment. Lakshmi Swaminadhan was a medical doctor in Singapore prior to her enlistment. Rasammah Navarednam and her sister and Janaki Davar and her sister were well educated recruits from Malaya who were of the officer class. Their story appears in the next chapter. It was not unusual for a husband to volunteer for the INA and his wife to join the RJR,1 though this was by no means a uniform pattern in the Regiment. We have no definitive count of the total RJR roster, but we do know that by far the largest proportion of these teenage volunteers, by some estimates eighty per cent, were South Indian Tamils from the Malayan rubber estates. They had a maximum education of six years but generally less in Tamil schools on the estates, and their fathers and often mothers as well worked as tappers or field workers in other capacities. After the war they married and in some cases raised large families, between nine and eleven children of those we were 60

06 RAJ.indd

60

6/26/08

1:59:42 PM

Volunteers from the Malayan Rubber Estates

61

able to interview. These teenage girls from the Malayan rubber plantations were, then, the backbone of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment, and we recognize them here prior to a general discussion of the Regiment. Consider the environment and culture of the rubber plantations from which these young women came. Their ancestors had immigrated from South India beginning in the 1860s and were mostly Tamil-speaking. A smaller proportion were from Kerala who spoke Malayalam or Teleguspeaking workers from Andhra Pradesh. These diapora South Indians were mainly men recruited initially as indentured labour, their transportation cost a debt that they were obligated to repay but which in many cases rendered them permanently indebted and chained to the workplace. Measures were introduced later to ensure that a proportion of women also came. Despite the fact that the Indians of Southeast Asia were expatriates separated from the mother country and in the second and third generations, they generally had not been to India. They still maintained their Indian identity in various ways. If practical they wore Indian dress, and they all continued to speak their native tongue. In many areas there were Hindu temples, Indian religious festivals were celebrated, and residents continued their normal religious practices and prayers. In some parts of Southeast Asia, photographs of Gandhi hung in homes and public places, and Gandhi caps were worn, so there was an awareness and often knowledge of the independence movement. Tamil newspapers and radio broadcasts carried stories from India. These estate workers felt Indian. Tamil labourers in Malaya were looked down on by the local population, whether Chinese or Malay, and this also kept them apart and aware of their ethnicity. European planters considered South Indians ideal workers for the estates — docile, submissive, not highly educated or motivated. British planters, accustomed to colonial control of Indians, were therefore predisposed to select Indians rather than Chinese. They regarded Malays as not amenable to plantation work. In pursuance of the divide and rule policy, Indian labour was also regarded as a counter to the larger Chinese population.2 Tamil schools on the estates were designed and kept ineffective with the goal in mind of keeping workers tied to the plantations.3 Immigrants were often impoverished, in debt, and starving in their home villages in South India, and the possibility of a fresh start in a new country was enhanced by inducements by recruiters. Recruits were offered free transportation and board to their new workplace, which of course became a debt. Although the contracts were for a limited period, generally two or three years, in practice labourers were not free to leave after the term expired and also were insecure as they could be sent back to India. Harsh conditions

06 RAJ.indd

61

6/26/08

1:59:42 PM

62

Women Against the Raj

prevailed, and low wages helped to keep labour permanently attached to the land. Wages were also subjected to deduction as a punishment. Labourers were destined to remain poor and exploited.4 Workers lived in “line” houses, twenty-four rooms back to back in a row of rooms ten feet square. Each room housed an entire family. Cooking was done on the veranda or on the ground in front of the rooms. The indenture system of recruitment continued until 1910, when for several reasons the system came to an end. Planters felt the need for a healthier labour force rather than what the many destitute immigrants provided. In addition there was publicity in the House of Commons about conditions on the estates and pressure from the Anti-Slavery Society in England.5 Indenture recruiting was then replaced by the kangani system, which brought about some improvement in working conditions. Kanganis were recruiters hired by planters, and they recruited among their friends and relatives in their home villages. They enforced company control and received “head money” for each recruit brought to an estate. Although kanganis had been operating as early as the 1890s, it was after 1910 that they became the major channel for Indian immigration to the rubber estates.6 Kanganis, personally acquainted with their recruits, may have been less likely than their predecessors to mete out harsh treatment, although workers were still not free to leave the plantations even after their contracts expired. Kangani contracts in any case were oral agreements. Poverty and exploitation remained permanent features of plantation life. Retired workers sent back to India were often referred to as “sucked oranges”.7 Gross violations of workers’ rights were common, and employers’ offenses against labour went unpunished. Physical assaults on workers often led to hospitalization. One solution was to leave the estates, but most did not have enough energy or motivation to leave. Tappers were at the bottom of the plantation hierarchy: European owners at the top, then Asian managers and controllers, with labour at the bottom, “the lowest of the low”. The depression in 1929 resulted in a reduced worldwide demand for rubber and a drop in prices, which in turn meant further deterioration in the condition of labour. Wages were cut, the labour force was reduced, and many thousands of workers were repatriated to India. Others lost their jobs and remained on the estates, where they became dependent on those still receiving reduced wages. By 1930 wages had fallen to just over half the 1920 level.8 The transient nature of the labour force, the extreme exploitation, and the lack of consciousness militated against collective action for any effective protest.

06 RAJ.indd

62

6/26/08

1:59:43 PM

Volunteers from the Malayan Rubber Estates

63

In 1938 the Indian Government banned all further assisted immigration, ending the kangani system, and thereafter any immigration was unassisted. By the mid-1930s, demand for rubber gradually rose again, and by 1941 companies were making large profits but refused to increase wages for labour. More than once the Indian Government attempted to set wage standards, but these efforts were largely ignored. In response, the 1930s saw the beginning of collective resistance among Indian plantation workers. The most famous confrontation occurred in Klang in 1941 when thousands of workers struck during the period from 8 April to 7 May.9 In May 1941, some Indian labourers were shot by British estate owners for demanding higher wages.10 Although labour on the estates was not free under European control, when the war erupted and the Japanese advanced into Southeast Asia, the British planters and in fact all British left hurriedly, and prior to the imposition of Japanese control on the estates, some confusion prevailed. For a time the plantations stopped operations, and workers were in search of work and food. They came to Ipoh, Johore, and Kuala Lumpur, and there they were ready recruits for the INA and the RJR.11 Among the eighty per cent of less educated, Tamil-speaking recruits from the rubber plantations of Malaya were two sisters, Anjali and Shanti Bhoumik, whose father and uncles all worked on the estates. Shanti was fifteen and Anjali was just twelve. Lakshmi personally recruited them and promised their mother she would treat them as her daughters. This was part of Lakshmi’s personal appeal that she used repeatedly with parents of recruits.12 Netaji called these two girls Shanti and Suniti, referring to the two famous Bengali teenager revolutionaries who had shot the English magistrate at Comilla. Here, Netaji provided evidence that he traced an historical thread from the historical Rani, through the Bengali women revolutionaries of the 1930s, to the Rani of Jhansi Regiment. The rubber estates were the economic, cultural, and social environment that produced most of the volunteers in the Rani of Jhansi Regiment, the backbone, then, of the Regiment. While their family conditions were very different from the backgrounds of the officer class, their motivations for joining were remarkably similar. We located four Tamils from rubber estates in Malaya who are illustrative. Meenachi Perumal was born in 1925 on Bukit Kemming Estate in Selangor and attended the local Tamil school for six years. Her mother died early, and her father worked not as a tapper but in the estate store. The family lived in a one room line house with a hall and kitchen, with water and electricity provided. She had one brother and one sister. She married at sixteen, before volunteering for the RJR. She read about the RJR in a paper, had heard about

06 RAJ.indd

63

6/26/08

1:59:43 PM

64

Women Against the Raj

Bose, and was excited. She volunteered with seven other girls who went to Kuala Lumpur, then to Singapore. After being trained in Singapore, she was among a group of one hundred selected to go to Burma by train under the command of Janaki. Though they saw the pitiful state of British workers on the railroad, she states that they all hated the British. She is very proud of being one of five who volunteered for the Jan Baz “suicide unit” when asked by Netaji.13 Meenachi’s words are as follows: We were getting ready to fight and plant the flag in Imphal, but the message came to retreat. Our spirits were high and we wanted to go on as we felt that we had come too far to turn back. But Netaji insisted it would be futile. We sang the Indian national anthem and a special song for Netaji, singing ‘Chalo Delhi’.

Meenachi described the attack on the retreating unit in which two Ranis were killed. She was in a coach with three close friends — Josephine, Stella, and Thangachiamma. Netaji had instructed Janaki to issue orders that they were not to fire. In her words: Josephine would always feed us first, before eating. She’d say, “We don’t know if we’ll have a chance to eat another meal.” One day at six when we were outside the Japanese warned, “Get in the train and lie low. Don’t use your guns.” We were all armed and went to sleep in the train. Stella had adopted an Indian orphan, and the child ran out. Stella went out to try to find the child, so we went out to look for Stella. Stella was shot in the chest and screamed. Medics took her and put her in a hut. We were sitting on a tarpaulin when Janaki asked, “Who is brave enough to get the bags down from the train?” So we went into the train and threw all the bags and clothes out of the train. Josephine was leaning against the window, and we thought she was sleeping, with her long braids hanging down, but she was dead, shot in the head. We told Janaki Josephine is dead, and we all cried. We went to take care of Stella but she was dead too. I was very sad about Josephine because she used to feed us and say I don’t know if we’ll be alive tomorrow. I was very upset to see that they both had died. Josephine had a husband and two children. She was from Sri Lanka and a Christian. We couldn’t make a fire to cremate them. We told Janaki let’s bury them fast and move on as it’s dangerous. Our clothes were hanging on a line and the train was bombed. We dove into the trench. We were scared.14

Meenachi recalls a last lecture by Netaji.

06 RAJ.indd

64

6/26/08

1:59:43 PM

Volunteers from the Malayan Rubber Estates

65

He told us, “Promise not to go back and hide in the kitchen. Bring up your children to be strong and brave and fight for freedom.” We promised that we would. Back at Jalan Ipoh we had to turn in our rifles. I felt everything had come to an end and I cried. All of us did, even the men. Netaji told us to keep the fire of freedom burning, but I really did not know whom to pass it on to. I pass the spirit on to my grandchildren by telling them of my experiences, hoping that they would never be cowards and be willing to stand up and die for the cause they truly believe in.

It is relevant to mention that Meenachi’s account of the death of Josephine and Stella is a definitive eye-witness account. It does not support the statements by Shah Nawaz and others that the Ranis engaged in active combat and drove back their attackers.15 Ammaloo, another Tamil of the same age as Meenachi, volunteered from Perak, where her father was a gardener. She attended Tamil school for three years, but could not remember the name of the school or place where her father worked. She says she recalls a visit by Nehru to Malaysia. She wanted to serve the motherland. Her husband, a staunch follower of Gandhi, heard about the RJR, and eight girls went in a group to volunteer. They had heard how the British were exploiting Indians. She was trained in a camp in Singapore, but did not get an opportunity to go to Burma, and she was disappointed that she did not have that chance. She says recruits came from estates and also from towns. They were told to be alert for warning sirens, and they practiced going into the trenches. Sometimes trenches were filled with water. When the warehouse in Singapore was bombed they all ate burnt rice. Every day they raised the flag and sang the national anthem. They received lectures in English and Hindi. She never thought of running away from the camp, even though she was not able to attend her father’s funeral. She enjoyed life in the camp. Twice a month they went to the beach and saw Hindi movies. These are “sweet memories” of the three years she spent in camp in Singapore.16 Muniammah was another volunteer from an estate in Perak. She describes life on the estate as “very comfortable”. Her father was a tapper, and she attended a Tamil estate school for five years. Work stopped when the Japanese came. She is very fond of officer Rasammah, as she gestured, hugging herself. She was only thirteen when she volunteered and believes that she was the youngest and smallest, volunteering before puberty. She says she wanted to fight the British. The whole family went to hear Netaji speak in a field in Kuala Lumpur. Her father and uncles were all taken to the railway to work. Her father was not happy when she joined, but

06 RAJ.indd

65

6/26/08

1:59:44 PM

66

Women Against the Raj

he was afraid of punishment by the Japanese, so he let her go. “I wanted to go with two more friends. They took us right away.” She was under Janaki’s command and they knew about the shooting of Josephine and Stella. The happiest time for her was in Singapore, singing and marching. She was happy to march with a rifle at thirteen and fourteen. She was sent to Burma. “All were brave girls waiting for adventures, some in the suicide squad. The only thing on our minds was freeing India from the British. We were willing to give our lives to the cause. Our turn to fight never came; we had to retreat in 1944 by train.” It was dangerous as the British were bombing retreating soldiers. Five hundred girls were retreating. The train was hit and Josephine and Stella died. “We knew no fear. We walked the rest of the way, hiding in jungles, travelling by night. When I reached home, I heard that Netaji had died in a crash.” She still feels the anguish of losing a much loved leader. She regrets not having had a chance to fight. She married and raised eleven children.17 A fourth volunteer, Anjalai Ponnusamy, was born and raised in the Senthul district of Kuala Lumpur, where her father was employed in the health department as an anti-malaria supervisor. She attended school for one or two years. When the war began she says she watched from her window and saw Indian women marching in uniform. She was inspired to join them. She was trained in the Singapore camp and was selected to go to Burma under Janaki’s command in the same group as Stella and Josephine. They travelled from Thailand by train, at times walking through the jungle to reach Burma. They were often bombed while travelling through the jungle and had to hide. She states as have others that when Netaji was lecturing he paid no attention to the bombers overhead but continued lecturing as though nothing had happened. She says that the shooting of Josephine and Stella was by Burmese guerrillas working with the British. She is proud of being able to shoot fifteen rounds at a time and could shoot a tommy gun and sten gun from a standing, squatting or seated position. She says that Netaji often visited their camp and treated them like his daughters. She has carefully preserved her uniform cap all these years and wanted to be photographed wearing it. She raised nine children. She has lived in the same district of Kuala Lumpur all her life and is respected as a community leader. Our interview was cut short because she was master of ceremonies at a funeral service.18 All four of these spirited women smiled, raised their fists, used the INA/ RJR greeting “Jai Hind!” and said they would be ready to fight again. If they had an opportunity to hear Netaji speak in person or in a radio broadcast, they would respond to his call. There were recruits who had only heard of Netaji and his struggle to free India, and they volunteered. Among these

06 RAJ.indd

66

6/26/08

1:59:44 PM

Volunteers from the Malayan Rubber Estates

67

were three sisters living in Telukanson, Perak. Their father was in government service and travelled to Taiping, Ipoh, and Penang for his work. They were English educated in a convent school and had teacher training in Ipoh. They also taught English in Ipoh in a convent school. Their elder brother studied in India. As the girls were growing up, they listened to their grandmother telling them stories from the Hindu epics, and these stories engendered in them a love for India. When they heard that women were needed to fight for Indian freedom, they decided they wanted to go. They also had a taste for adventure, and the combination of motives was irresistible. One of the three, Anjaly Suppiah, says that though their father was not especially keen on things Indian, his pharmacist friend was and helped to persuade him to allow his three daughters to volunteer. They went to Singapore for training, and their trainers were Gurkha INA officers. One of the sisters was not in the best of health, and because of that the three remained in Singapore during the war. It was a policy of the RJR to either deploy or not deploy all sisters together to Burma. These sisters received officer training and were barracked separately from other recruits. After they completed the course, they sat for an exam and passed. One of the sisters became bandmaster and Anjaly became quartermaster. Their father was allowed to visit on Sundays and often brought them food. They were able to go to the cinema and stop at an ice cream parlour on Sundays, a free day. One evening the officers were invited to dinner as Netaji’s guests and “it was great”. After the war their father purchased a house in Penang, where one sister was teaching, and they live there today. Anjaly says that before they went into the RJR they were quite timid, but as a result of their experience in the Regiment they gained self-confidence. They resumed teaching.19 For all these young volunteers, here was their opportunity to gain selfrespect for the first time; here was their chance to assert their sense of identity as Indians; here, they became citizens of the Free India Provisional Government to fight to free India from slavery; and here, also, was the occasion to escape from the silent contempt in which they were held by Chinese and Malays. They no longer had to tolerate being regarded as “the lowest of the low”. They were also teenagers, at a time in their lives when adventure beckoned.20 As with the rest of the Southeast Asian Indian population, Netaji inspired men and women of various ages, from highly cultured, educated homes to the uneducated, Tamil line houses on the estates alike, to action. These RJR recruits, like the historical Rani, and like the Bengali women revolutionaries of the 1930s, answered the call to leave the security of their homes and fight

06 RAJ.indd

67

6/26/08

1:59:44 PM

68

Women Against the Raj

for their country. We record their story here so that it can be preserved for subsequent generations. The Rubber Tappers Song I get up at the ring of a bell I rush here and there, cook, feed the children Cook for my hushand, Tie bag around my waist over my sarong, With a long pole and two pails on my shoulder To carry the latex back from the tree And a child at my waist; In one pail is food for break In the other food for the child, I leave the child at the office for roll call, We bow and salaam when the European comes Also bow for the clerks; I go to the rubber trees I must tap 360 trees in two hours, Then I rest for half an hour, Put the rubber into the bag While eating clean the latex, When the whistle blows we run To the trees to collect latex, Take it to the factory At two o’clock we go home, Men go back in the evening for overtime. (This song was transcribed and translated by Muthammal Palanisamy.)

Notes Rohini Gawankar, The Women’s Regiment and Captain Lakshmi of INA (New Delhi: Devika Publications, 2003), pp. 291, 296. P. Ramasamy, “Labour Control and Labour Resistance in the Plantations of Colonial Malaysia”, in Plantations, Proletarians and Peasant in Colonial Asia, edited by E. Valentine Daniel, Henry Bernstein and Tom Brass (London: Frank Cass, 1992), p. 90.

1

2

06 RAJ.indd

68

6/26/08

1:59:45 PM

Volunteers from the Malayan Rubber Estates

T. Marimuthu, “The Plantation School as an Agent of Social Reproduction”, in South Indian on the Plantation Frontier in Malaysia, edited by Ravindra K. Jain (New Haven, C.T.: Yale University Press, 1970), pp. 465–66. Chandra Muzaffar, “Political Marginalization in Malaysia”, in Indian Communities in Southeast Asia, edited by K.S. Sandhu and A. Mani (Singapore: Times Academic Press, 1993), p. 212. Kernial Singh Sandhu, Indians in Malaya: Some Aspects of their Immigration and Settlement (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), p. 60. Jomo Kwame Sundaram, “Plantation Capital and Indian Labour in Colonial Malaya”, in Indian Communities in Southeast Asia, edited by K.S. Sandhu and A. Mani (Singapore: Times Academic Press, 1993), pp. 297–98. Chandra Muzaffar, “Political Marginalization in Malaysia”, in Indian Communities in Southeast Asia, edited by K.S. Sandhu and A. Mani (Singapore: Times Academic Press, 1993), p. 213. Colin Barlow, “Changes in the Economic Position of Workers on Rubber Estates and Small Holdings in Peninsular Malaysia, 1910–1985”, in The Underside of Malaysian History: Pullers, Prostitutes, Plantation Workers, edited by Peter J. Rimmer and Lisa M. Allen (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1990), p. 37. P. Ramasamy, “Labour Control and Labour Resistance in the Plantations of Colonial Malaysia”, in Plantations, Proletarians, and Peasants in Colonial Asia, edited by E. Valentine Daniel, Henry Bernstein, and Tom Brass (London: Frank Cass, 1992), pp. 97–100. Usha Mahajani, The Role of Indian Minorities in Burma and Malaya (Bombay: Vora, 1960), p. 145. Lakshmi Sahgal, A Revolutionary Life: Memoirs of a Political Activist (New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1997), p. 39 and interview in Kanpur, 23 March 2007. P. Ramasamy also agreed that there was a period when labourers were out of work and in search of food. Personal conversations in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, December 2007. Rohini Gawankar, The Women’s Regiment and Captain Lakshmi of INA (New Delhi: Devika Publications, 2003), p. 286. Interview in Rawang, Selangor, Malaysia, translated from Tamil by Mutammal Palanisamy, 12 December 2007. This same interview gives the most detailed account available of the attack in which Josephine and Stella were killed. This is also the attack which Shah Nawaz has described as an armed confrontation in which the Ranis beat back their attackers. Major General Shah Nawaz Khan, My Memories of I.N.A. and its Netaji (Delhi: Rajkamal Publications, 1946); and Nellika Achuthan, The I.N.A. and I (Calicut: Mascot Press, 1970). This interview was in Tamil and was translated by Mutammal Palanisamy. Interview in rural Perak, Malaysia, translated from Tamil by Mutammal Palamisamy, 12 December 2007.

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15 16

06 RAJ.indd

69

69

6/26/08

1:59:45 PM

70

Interview in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, translated from Tamil by Mutammal Palanisamy, 14 December 2007. Interview in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 26 January 2008. Phone interview, 27 January 2008. Mahajani asserts that the Chinese and Malays both regarded Indian labour with silent contempt. See Usha Mahajani, The Role of Indian Minorities in Burma and Malaya (Bombay: Vora, 1960), p. 145. This is also supported by Chandran Kaimal, who spent his childhood in Malaya prior to World War II. Phone conversation in April 2007.

17

18 19 20

06 RAJ.indd

Women Against the Raj

70

6/26/08

1:59:45 PM

7 THE RANI OF JHANSI REGIMENT

4 July 1943 was a day of significant importance in Singapore. On this day a public meeting was held in Cathay Cinema Building [presently at the intersection of Orchard Road and Princep Street], and the hall was packed. Leaders of the Indian Independence League and senior officers of the INA were there in force. The strains of Bande Mataram rang through the hall as the meeting commenced. Subhas Chandra Bose stepped up to the dais, and the crowd erupted in deafening applause as he joined Rash Behari Bose. With the two Bengali revolutionaries named Bose standing together, Rash Behari handed over to Subhas the leadership of both the Indian Independence League and the Indian National Army. Subhas had not yet had time to obtain a uniform, and this was the last time he was seen in his natty white civilian suit. Subhas briefly outlined the course of the freedom movement, acknowledging the role of Gandhi and Congress and the 1942 Quit India movement. The audience was entranced, spellbound by his words and charisma. The next day he appeared again, this time outdoors with a much larger audience. He was in military uniform — khaki, with breeches, boots, tunic and cap with the INA badge. Again he referred to India’s debt to Gandhi and the non-violent movement that had aroused India and begun the struggle. He introduced the slogans “Jai Hind” [“Hail to India”] and “Chalo Delhi” [“On to Delhi”] and urged every Indian soldier and civilian to join the struggle. He made it clear that the INA would be an independent army, a significant point with Malaya and Burma under Japanese occupation. As Netaji spoke, 71

07 RAJn.indd

71

6/26/08

2:02:07 PM

72

Women Against the Raj

a heavy downpour began, but the audience did not move. The most startling feature of his speech was his stated wish that a women’s regiment be raised, called the Rani of Jhansi Regiment, named after the martyr of 1857. When he first broached the subject of raising a women’s regiment, “there was absolute silence and there were looks of complete disbelief on the faces of all present except Sri Yellappa, the Singapore IIL President, and myself ”, wrote Lakshmi Sahgal.1 Two more rallies were held on 6 July and 9 July. The 6 July rally was attended by Prime Minister To¯jo¯, who promised full cooperation with the independence movement. Netaji called for every physically fit Indian civilian to enlist in the INA and above all for women to join the Rani of Jhansi Regiment. For those who could not fight there was much work to do supporting the troops and raising funds and supplies. He expected all three million Indians in Southeast Asia to rally to the struggle. That night at least one person who had heard Netaji’s call to arms to women was unable to sleep. Dr Lakshmi Swaminadhan, a medical doctor who had come to Singapore from Madras in 1940, spent a sleepless night, excited and invigorated by what she had heard. The following morning she was called to the office of Yellappa, a barrister and leader of the Singapore Indian community. John Thivy, an old friend of the Swaminadhan family, spoke with Lakshmi about taking a leading role in this exciting new project. Dr Lakshmi was thrilled when Yellappa also suggested that she take the lead in organizing the women’s unit. Together the two devised a plan to create a guard of honour of armed women as a surprise for Netaji in the next planned rally. She quickly managed to locate twenty women to form this honour guard, and they were drilled by INA officers for several hours over the next two days, using heavy .303 rifles of the INA until their arms ached. These rifles weighed between eight and nine pounds. There was no time to have uniforms made before the 12 July parade. Instead, they planned to wear white saris and carry the INA rifles as they paraded. Most of them had long hair, often reaching well below the waist. On the morning of 12 July 1943, Indians in Singapore saw something they had never seen or imagined before: a women’s guard of honour parading in white saris and presenting arms to Netaji. Netaji was surprised and immensely pleased to see this group of women carrying the heavy Enfield rifles, parading in smart military discipline. He addressed them eloquently and at length: There is no sphere of public activity, there is no department of national endeavour, in which Indian women have not gladly and bravely shared,

07 RAJn.indd

72

6/26/08

2:02:07 PM

The Rani of Jhansi Regiment

73

along with men … the burden of our national struggle. … If there is anyone who thinks that it is an unwomanly act to shoulder a rifle, I would ask her to turn the pages of history. … What did the brave Rani of Jhansi do in the Revolution of 1857, India’s First War of Independence? We have to continue and complete the work which the Great Rani undertook in 1857. Therefore in the last and final War of Independence, we want not one but thousands of Ranis of Jhansi.2

He continued, making a point whose importance cannot be underestimated. It is not merely the number of rifles you may carry or the number of shots you may fire which is important. Equally important is the moral effect of your brave example.

He clearly anticipated that the symbolic role of the Rani Regiment would be significant. He added, “I am convinced that until and unless Indian women play their due part in the national struggle, India can never hope to be free.”3 Moreover, Bose expected that, “When our countrymen on the other side of the Frontier … see you marching with rifles in hand, they will … join you and take the rifles from you and carry on the fight which you will begin”.4 He anticipated that the Rani Regiment would be in the vanguard as the INA crossed the Burma border into India and that in this role they would ignite the entire country in revolution. The day following the women’s rally, Yellappa told Dr Lakshmi that Netaji wanted to meet her. She was thrilled but also realized that if she went ahead, she would be making an abrupt break with her life as it had been, a momentous step. It was a step she intended to take.5 It is no exaggeration to assert that the story of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment is intimately connected to what Dr Lakshmi did during the next two years. She went to Netaji’s office in the evening in high anticipation to talk with Bose face-to-face for the first time. Actually, Netaji did the talking, and she listened intently, impressed at how closely his views coincided with her own. Women had a central role to play in the armed struggle, he told her. They would help not only to defeat the colonial oppressors but also to end the subjugation of women by men. He asked Lakshmi if she would be prepared to take command of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment. He warned that he could promise only suffering and sacrifice, not protection and security. He wanted to know if she needed time to think over what he proposed. She replied that she did not need time to think over what he was asking. She had already made

07 RAJn.indd

73

6/26/08

2:02:07 PM

74

Women Against the Raj

her decision; she would do it. Netaji talked for several hours explaining his ideas of what India needed. He was absolutely opposed to the caste system, he favoured the empowerment of women, and he believed Indian society had to be multiracial, multilingual and multi-religious. He spoke of the historical Rani, Chand Bibi, and other valourous heroines who had fought with arms for their kingdoms and said that Indians needed a better sense of history, which he hoped to inculcate through the INA and the Rani of Jhansi Regiment. Lakshmi writes in her autobiography that he spoke to her for three hours.6 She was amazed at how closely his ideas dovetailed with her own. She was totally energized by Bose’s talk. The morning following this momentous meeting, Netaji’s secretary, Abid Hasan, arrived with a staff car to take Lakshmi to the office. From that day onward, she was the pivotal figure of the regiment. Fifteen of the twenty women from the guard of honour were able to enlist; the others had small children or dependents and were disappointed to be unable to join. Lakshmi was centrally involved in the recruitment process. “We had to be very strict in our selection”, she said. “We had to pick and choose the very best among them.”7 Training began on the grounds of the League with INA instructors and rifles. The nascent unit needed a camp and barracks, and for that Netaji and other INA officers had to approach the Japanese. “The Japanese had no time for us; they thought it was a waste”, Lakshmi recalls.8 Lakshmi remembers a meeting with the redoubtable General Renya Mutaguchi, who asked her if the women of the Regiment could actually fight. She replied, “Of course. What is required is training and motivation. We have both.” 9 Lakshmi noted that the RJR “introduced a new spirit into the hearts of the soldiers. It went a long way to create harmony of thought and action in the whole of the army.” Not only that, she and others also noted that the INA trainers were very protective of the Ranis. They were “ready to kill any Japanese who made an indecent remark or gesture toward us”.10 Two months and more passed while Netaji negotiated with the Japanese. Meanwhile, Lakshmi was to command not only the women’s Regiment at headquarters, but also the women’s section of the League and the Women’s Department of the Free India Provisional Government cabinet. For Netaji, Lakshmi was the key to the recruitment of women in both civilian and military capacities. It is relevant therefore to consider the forces in the background of Lakshmi Swaminadhan that brought her to this extraordinary historical moment. She was born on 24 October 1914 in Madras. Her father, Subharama, was born into an impoverished Brahmin family in Kerala. Because of outstanding

07 RAJn.indd

74

6/26/08

2:02:07 PM

The Rani of Jhansi Regiment

75

ability, he attracted the attention of Lakshmi’s maternal grandfather, P. Govinda Menon, who helped her father continue his university studies. He won a scholarship to do a doctorate in law in Scotland, followed by a Ph.D. at Harvard. By the time he returned to Madras he was thirty-seven, and it was time to marry. He turned to his benefactor, who said that he had only one remaining daughter unmarried, Amakutty, who was just fourteen. Lakshmi’s father was not deterred, and the marriage took place. The bride was highly intelligent but uneducated, and her enlightened husband hired an English tutor for his bride. She was an apt student, and English became the language of the family in which Lakshmi grew up. Her parents spent several months in England and imbibed western ways. Ammu, as her mother was called, learned to play tennis, to ride, even to drive a car. Lakshmi’s two brothers were sent to England to study so that they would be able to deal with the English on an equal footing. Lakshmi’s schooling was at Queen Mary’s Women’s College and Madras Medical College. She rejected her father’s plan to send her to England to study as she wanted to become a doctor in order to serve her people. Several events turned Lakshmi’s attention toward politics as well. Her father defended an Indian accused of murdering a British officer. The case was transferred to the Bombay High Court, the only one where Indian judges had a majority, and the accused was acquitted in a notorious decision. After this, Lakshmi’s mother was snubbed by her English friends. The family stopped wearing Western clothes and speaking English in favour of Tamil and Malayalam. Ammu became active in the All India Women’s Conference and answered Gandhi’s call to participate in the swadeshi campaign. Another influence on Lakshmi’s evolving political sense was a house guest, the youngest sister of Sarojini Naidu, Subhashini. She was under police surveillance for political activity, and Ammu invited her to stay with the family for a few weeks. From Subhashini, Lakshmi first learned of communism, of the rise of fascism in Nazi Germany, and of the Russian revolution. Lakshmi was riveted by Subhashini’s stories of exploiters and exploited.11 In 1936 Lakshmi married a Tata Airlines pilot, B.K.N. Rao, but she left after six months as it became apparent that he wanted a domestic housewife, not a woman of her spirit and intelligence. In June 1940, she followed a classmate to Singapore to begin medical practice there and at the same time to escape from the effects of the unsatisfactory marriage. She began her practice in Singapore at her friend’s clinic. There she made the acquaintance of K.P.K. Menon, a leader of Singapore’s Indian community. Lakshmi experienced the shock of the sudden departure of the British a week after the Japanese attack on Singapore began, followed by

07 RAJn.indd

75

6/26/08

2:02:08 PM

76

Women Against the Raj

Japanese occupation. “In spite of everything, we couldn’t but feel a sneaking admiration for the Japanese who were giving the British such a good beating”, she recalls.12 She learned through Menon about the independence army under Mohan Singh and also of the Bangkok Conference. Menon headed the Propaganda Section of the League, and Lakshmi made her first broadcast to India not only to reassure her family about her safety, but also to urge Indians to sabotage British war effort. In June 1943, Lakshmi heard the broadcast by Subhas Chandra Bose from Tokyo calling Indians in Southeast Asia and in India to fight British imperialism and saying that he would be in Singapore soon. She was excited and politically ready for action herself. She had seen Bose at the Calcutta Congress in 1928 and as a teenager watched the parade of the Bengal Volunteers there. The instant she heard him speak, she was convinced that he was a leader she could follow. This was what she had been waiting for.13 Bose’s convictions perfectly matched her own. The Rani of Jhansi Regiment was born following Lakshmi’s meeting with Netaji. During July and August 1943, she was busy with military training and organizing the women’s section of the League. She tried to get the help of the Japanese to provide a training ground and barracks for the Regiment, but the Japanese were not about to cooperate in such a venture. The Japanese would concede only for Subhas Chandra Bose. Women had no place in the Japanese military tradition. Their only concept of women in the military was the notorious recruitment of “comfort women”. Lakshmi spent several weeks touring Penang, Ipoh, and Kuala Lumpur recruiting women for the Regiment. In Kuala Lumpur she found her second in command, Janaki Davar, and her sister Papathi. In Ipoh she recruited two more sisters, Ponnammah and Rasammah Navarednam, and other educated young women. Most of the officers of the Rani Regiment came from this group of English-speaking, well-educated, outstanding young women from Singapore, Malaya, and Burma. The pace of activity accelerated over the following days and weeks. “Women besieged recruiting offices, often in the face of parental opposition”, recalls Lakshmi. “Now they had not only a chance to escape monotony, but a chance to live with a purpose and, if necessary, to die for a cause. There were quite a number of young women from comfortable homes, who in normal times would not have had any purpose in life and would have lived in refined and placid domesticity. … Many of these young women had never seen the Motherland for which they were willing to lay down their lives, and yet they were Indians to the core.”14 Lakshmi admitted

07 RAJn.indd

76

6/26/08

2:02:08 PM

The Rani of Jhansi Regiment

77

that a sense of adventure also entered into it. The Regiment grew gradually to five hundred, though later, some assert to one thousand or even fifteen hundred. Lakshmi credits Netaji’s personal impact on these young women, “It was a wonder. It throws light on the charismatic leadership of Netaji and his way of approach to women.”15 Other members of the Regiment acknowledge the persuasive words of Lakshmi as well in convincing many parents to allow their daughters to enlist. In Mandalay, a story has it that one Tamil girl tried to commit suicide by jumping into the Irrawaddy River when her parents refused to allow her to join the RJR. People on the bank rescued her, whereupon her parents relented and permitted her to join the RJR. Another girl aged thirteen was rejected because of her age. She wrote to Netaji asking for an interview, during which she wept. Netaji at length agreed to include her.16 Muniammah, another Tamil schoolgirl from a rubber estate was so inspired when she heard Netaji that she also joined at thirteen, before reaching puberty. Rasammah Naverednam, recruited with her sister Ponnammah in Ipoh, explains her motivation. “We were already psychologically and emotionally and intellectually prepared. You had the desire to be part of this great movement for freedom of one’s country.” Although her family was Christian and living in Malaya, she states that they were totally Indian.17 These diaspora Indians, whether in Malaya, Burma, or Thailand, definitely felt Indian. It is tempting to compare the motivation and comments of these young women who “wanted to die for India, to make India free”, with those made by a young American who enlisted in World War II. “It was not just patriotism. It was exciting and dramatic. It was an opportunity to be something more important than the kid you were.”18 Indian publications in Asia such as Young India were full of articles reflecting the excitement of women aroused by the arrival of Netaji in Singapore. P. Papathi of the League Women’s Section exhorted young women to action, reflecting the excitement around her. “The young women of India are up for action and are willing to sacrifice their all to redeem their Motherland from Anglo-American imperialism”, she wrote. “Every woman of India should bear in mind that sacrifice is the most indispensable requisite to break the bonds of slavery. Our duty is to sacrifice … march onto the fields of National Service and elevate our Mother to her ancient pinnacle of glory and fame.”19 Another woman, a member of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment, Promita Pal, broadcast from INA headquarters: “I am an ordinary soldier of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment”, she said. “Not a doll soldier, nor a soldier in mere words, but a real soldier in the true sense of the term … in military boots

07 RAJn.indd

77

6/26/08

2:02:08 PM

78

Women Against the Raj

and uniform, armed with modern weapons to kill the enemy of India.” She continued, citing the Rani Lakshmi Bai, “our ideal. The main object of our Regiment is to accomplish the incomplete work of Rani Lakshmi Bai. The sacrifice of our lives will reduce the whole of the British Empire to ashes.”20 Captain Lakshmi analysed the motivation of volunteers for the Regiment years later in an address at the Netaji Bhavan’s Convention of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment Seminar. Many have asked what magic Netaji used to make these young women follow him with such devotion. My reply has always been … Youth is a time of idealism and adventure. Indian youth in Southeast Asia were living in a psychological vacuum, with no sense of identity. They could never identify themselves with a foreign colonial power, nor were they acceptable to the sons of the soil. Netaji brought a purpose and a sense of identity into their lives.21

Some have suggested that recruits had other less patriotic, rather negative motives for volunteering. With INA recruits, for example, one author writes, “For estate workers, the sole justification for joining the INA lay in the guarantee of a more honourable end in the cause of one’s country, as against the ignominious death of a forced labourer in Siam.”22 Others mention poverty and exploitation as permanent features of plantation life, conditions from which recruits may have wished to escape and took the opportunity once the British owners left and while confusion prevailed prior Japanese control. As Lakshmi has suggested, confusion following British departure did leave many out of work. Men and women from the estates migrated to the cities, including Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. There many did hear Netaji and volunteered, thrilled by his call to arms. Lakshmi also adds that, “Being workers, they were potentially militant and subconsciously they were aware of being a subject race.”23 Netaji gave Indians in Malaya a sense of identity and self-respect for the first time. None of the survivors interviewed for this study, however, mentioned any motivation other than being so inspired by Netaji’s words that they wished to fight, even to die, to free India, a country they had never seen. On the evening of 21 October, Netaji formally opened the Rani of Jhansi Regiment Camp. One hundred and fifty women had already signed up. The timing of this event is noteworthy and was critical in terms of the progress of the war. It had taken Bose nearly four months since the first announcement of the raising of the Rani Regiment in July to complete negotiations with the Japanese for a training ground and barracks. This lapse in time is significant in

07 RAJn.indd

78

6/26/08

2:02:09 PM

The Rani of Jhansi Regiment

79

view of the deterioration in Japan’s military position in the Pacific, since the Japanese Army was the source of INA and RJR support and ammunition. The first training camp was on the grounds of the abandoned Australian camp that had been allotted to the League. The building was renovated and ready to accommodate five hundred girls on 22 October. By this time the girls were in uniform and most but not all had cut their hair. The Regiment soon grew to three hundred Ranis, as they were called. Fifty volunteered as nurses and formed a separate group. They were assigned to eight-hour shifts in the military hospital, and it was there that they were given instruction. The nursing corps in addition received military training. On 21 October, Netaji also announced the creation of the new Free Indian Provisional Government, and Lakshmi became cabinet member in charge of women’s affairs in addition to her role as commander of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment. At the first cabinet meeting on 23 October, Netaji declared war on Great Britain and the U.S. as the first act of the nascent government. He also appointed a Committee of National Integration, again including Lakshmi. Decisions were taken on language, which would be Hindustani written in Roman script, and the committee was charged with other measures to eradicate communal divisions and sentiment. This was the committee that made or implemented decisions regarding the song and flag of the INA as well as common eating arrangements and joint celebration of religious festivals. All these measures served to eradicate communal differences and create a sense of solidarity and camaraderie among recruits of all communities. The training regimen for the Ranis was rigorous and gruelling. Nothing in the daily schedule suggested that this was a force designed solely for symbolic value. The day began at 6 a.m. with a ceremonial hoisting of the national flag, followed by forty-five minutes of brisk physical training. Then time was allotted for a bath and breakfast in the dining hall, a simple meal of tea and biscuits made of maize and tapioca flour. This was followed by an hour of military training and another hour of weapons training. The array of weaponry included rifles, hand grenades, bren guns, sten guns, tommy guns, 39 caliber pistols, mortars, anti-aircraft guns, and bayonets. The afternoon schedule included lectures by INA officers on military history. Soon after training began, the women started going out on route marches at night. The sight of this unusual activity attracted the local populace to come out and watch, and no doubt some were inspired to join. In the evening the girls organized variety shows, and these continued in Burma even as the INA went into battle on the border. On 27 December, Lakshmi wrote and produced a play, “Freedom or Death”, which earned five thousand Straits dollars for the cause.24 She reports having had experience

07 RAJn.indd

79

6/26/08

2:02:09 PM

80

Women Against the Raj

in amateur theatrical productions as a schoolgirl. She also gave a rousing broadcast to India over INA headquarters radio, pledging that the INA and Rani Regiment would fight facing all dangers for the liberation of the Motherland, inspired by and as a tribute to the memory of the historical Rani. Janaki Davar was second in command of the Regiment and among the first recruits from Kuala Lumpur. She tells the story of how she joined the Regiment. Her father, Rengasamy Davar, was a man of substance from South India who arrived in Malaya at the turn of the century, worked for a time in a British plantation company, then started the largest dairy in Kuala Lumpur. Her mother was an attractive woman from Adhrah Pradesh. Janaki was the most spirited of her father’s large family of twelve children, and she attended a convent school until the war intervened. Mr Davar subscribed to Englishlanguage newspapers, and the family was aware of the nationalist movement and Gandhi’s campaign also through radio broadcasts. Janaki knew of women’s involvement in the independence movement and especially of the work of Sarojini Naidu. “I was most impressed by her. She had a great influence on me”, she remarked. One day Janaki read in a newspaper of the arrival of Subhas Chandra Bose, who was to speak at the Selangor Padang about the struggle for Indian independence. Coming from a proper and prominent Hindu family concerned for the reputation and safety of its daughters, Janaki took an unusual step. The next morning she took her bicycle and, asking the cook to cover for her, she pedalled to the venue to hear Bose. “I was so moved by his words. They were so beautiful”, she recalls. When Bose appealed for volunteers and donations, Janaki immediately removed her gold earrings and necklace and was the first to hand them to Bose. When she returned home, she was so worried about what her mother would say about the missing earrings that she skipped dinner and went to her room. On the front page of the newspaper the next morning, Janaki’s photograph appeared handing her earrings to Bose. Her sister called her mother’s attention to the photograph. “My mother was so angry that I gave away my earrings and necklace that she wanted to beat me, but my father said, “No, let her be. It’s for a good cause.”25 She then managed to persuade her parents to invite Lakshmi to tea, and Lakshmi convinced her parents to allow Janaki and her sister Papathi to volunteer for the Regiment. They signed up at League headquarters and left for Singapore a few days later, among the first recruits to begin the six months of training. Janaki was also among the first commissioned officers, eventually reaching the rank of Captain, and became known as a strict enforcer of military discipline. Other early recruits in Malaya were Rasammah and her sister Ponnammah Navarednam from Ipoh. Their father was a teacher and President of the

07 RAJn.indd

80

6/26/08

2:02:09 PM

The Rani of Jhansi Regiment

81

Malayan Teachers Association. The family, originally from Ceylon, were devout Christians. They were well aware of Gandhi’s campaign and of the independence movement. Rasammah was the youngest of six children, very bright and quick to participate in discussions around the dinner table. She was the only Indian girl in the Anglo-Chinese primary school and developed a spirited defence against racial slurs. “Everyone had photographs of Gandhi, so the struggle was not foreign to us. It was part of our education”, she recalls. “I read Nehru’s autobiography when I was fifteen. I was so angered by the lathi charges and beatings. Who could read about the Jallianwallah massacre or know what was happening in India and not be affected?” When Bose came to Ipoh, Rasammah and Ponnammah listened raptly in the massive audience. “I was already prepared. He inspired us … when he called for sacrifice and when he identified what India had been going through.”26 When Rasammah and her sister told their mother they wanted to join the Rani of Jhansi Regiment, she said, “It’s madness, utter madness, going into a women’s army. I’m not going to give you permission.” Again, it was a visit to Ipoh by Lakshmi Swaminadhan that convinced her mother to allow her daughters to volunteer. Rasammah reminisces about her days in the Regiment. “I was with women from very different backgrounds, different economic situations and very deprived homes. … There was a sense of egalitarianism. … We knew some of us would die … We wanted to die for India. … I never thought I’d see my mother and my sisters and brothers again. … I always thought that, like the Rani of Jhansi, we’d die in battle.”27 Other recruits for the officer corps were from Burma. Pratima Sen joined the RJR at the exceptional age of twenty-nine. She was from a well-to-do family in Rangoon, where her father was an official. Pratima was a teacher, and when she first met Netaji he questioned her closely. She was among the first officers commissioned, and Netaji entrusted her with supervision of the young cadets. She recruited twenty-five or thirty others into the Regiment.28 Another educated Burma volunteer was Ramaben Mehta, whose grandfather was a doctor and close friend of Gandhi. Her parents were active in the League, and her mother helped to recruit girls for the RJR.29 Laxmi Sengupta, also from Rangoon, was the daughter of a railway employee. Her mother took a great interest in the freedom struggle and, like Ramaben’s mother, encouraged her daughters to join. Laxmi enrolled in the nursing unit but was never sent to the battlefield.30 Kalayaniamma, another older recruit, was from Kerala and living in Singapore when she joined the RJR at twenty-six. She persuaded ten friends

07 RAJn.indd

81

6/26/08

2:02:10 PM

82

Women Against the Raj

to volunteer with her and joined the nursing unit. Gauri Bhattacharya, born in Rangoon, was the daughter of a lawyer who was also a freedom fighter. He had been jailed and released at Chittagong. Gauri was in college when war erupted. She joined the first Burma recruits after obtaining her parents’ consent. She was promoted to lieutenant and continued military training in Maymyo. She dreamed daily of being on the battlefield.31 Neau Roy, also born in Burma, was a doctor’s daughter. She was inspired by Kalpana Dutt and other Bengali revolutionaries. Her family approved her volunteering. She had visited India twice prior to the war and was familiar with the independence struggle and with the Bengali women revolutionaries. When Netaji was weighed in gold, her mother donated all her gold jewellry. This recruit remembers her days in the RJR as the most exciting in her life. Shakunatala Gandhi was yet another Rangoon recruit, the daughter of a businessman. She joined at the opening of the Rangoon camp and was promoted to second lieutenant. She was required to work in a military hospital in emergency conditions and reports that many jawans died of snakebite during monsoon rains.32 These are some of the women who constituted the officer corps of the RJR, many of whom went on to illustrious careers after the war. The Burma recruits were largely of this well educated class and were considered of potential officer calibre. Their families were doctors, lawyers, and officials who staffed the government bureaucracy. Their family backgrounds differentiated them from the majority of Malaya recruits from the rubber estates. In the RJR, however, apart from the fact that some were promoted, an atmosphere of equality and harmony prevailed. At the end of December, Netaji moved to Rangoon to prepare for taking the struggle across the border onto Indian soil. En route he stopped in Bangkok and sent for Lakshmi to accompany him to Rangoon to establish camp for the Rani Regiment. In Rangoon, properties and buildings captured by the Japanese from fleeing Indians were allotted to the INA, the League, and the Azad Hind Bank. A camp for Rani recruits was started in Thingangyun, a Rangoon suburb. Fifty recruits were soon in the camp. Lakshmi sent an appeal to Singapore for good instructors and for expediting arrangements for the first batch of trained Ranis to be sent from Singapore to Burma. She also started a women’s branch at League headquarters in Rangoon. League committees helped to recruit volunteers, collect supplies for hospitals, and cook dry rations for troops at the front. By March 1944, the size of the Rani Regiment in Singapore reached five hundred, one hundred of whom were nurses. The camp was under the efficient command of Mrs Manoranjitham Thevar. The party preparing to

07 RAJn.indd

82

6/26/08

2:02:10 PM

The Rani of Jhansi Regiment

83

leave for Burma included eight officers, twelve NCOs, eighty other ranks, and fifteen nurses. Special intensified training was given to this group, including firing weapons with live ammunition. They had to travel overland, partly on the Thai-Rangoon railway, the notorious Death Railway, and part of the journey on foot. They carried with them in their backpacks rations for eleven days and supplies of medicine. Backpacks carried by recruits in Singapore contained four days’ rations, a complete uniform, socks, a first aid kit, and a water bottle. Training was intensified and night marches were lengthened to prepare for departure to the Burma front. Lakshmi comments on the role of direct military action which now engrossed the women. “I suppose we all forgot our sex. … We fired, refilled, and fired again, endlessly.” On on 30 March, the passing out parade of Rani officers took place, and the eight officers who had passed the INA officers’ test were commissioned. This day, Lakshmi states, was “the proudest day of my life”.33 The Rani of Jhansi Regiment was now officially part of the INA with platoons and companies commanded by Rani officers and NCOs. In April the first batch of Rani members in Rangoon moved over six hundred miles north to Maymyo, the new INA and FIPG headquarters. Lakshmi left Rangoon for Maymyo on 15 April with two officers and ten other ranks by truck convoy. At night they slept in the trucks at villages along the way. En route they at times encountered Indians who had remained under Japanese occupation, and the Ranis were often entertained by these expatriates. Some of these Burma Indians were Gurkhas or Sikhs who had been awarded land by the British in return for help in the Burma war. The Ranis were encamped in a school building on open ground in Maymyo, the former summer capitol of the Burmese government. On 30 April, Netaji organized a variety show for the troops about to leave for the front. All officers were required to participate in the programme. The next evening Netaji and the officers hosted a farewell dinner for the departing units at the Rani of Jhansi Regiment camp. That night the Ranis’ barracks was bombed by Allied aircraft. The women had escaped to the shelter trenches when they remembered that one girl, Lily, was missing. Lakshmi and Manawati Arya rushed out to bring her to safety. There were no casualties, but their barracks was reduced to rubble, all their backpacks and belongings with it.34 Netaji and his staff arrived soon after the attack and arranged for the girls to move to another vacant school building not as exposed to aerial bombardment. From this time on, blackouts were enforced, and when an air raid siren sounded, the girls carried their backpacks to the air raid shelter. Sentries were posted at night.

07 RAJn.indd

83

6/26/08

2:02:10 PM

84

Women Against the Raj

In June, the first large batch of Ranis arrived in Rangoon, commanded by Lieutenant Janaki Davar, who remained in command of the large Rani unit as Lakshmi and a smaller group travelled north to Maymyo. Janaki was still in command as the Regiment made its epic retreat through the jungles of Burma, largely on foot. Rasammah and her sister were in the first large group of Ranis sent to Burma. Netaji instructed them to be ready in two weeks’ time for a public ceremony. Rasammah was proud to be flag bearer in the ceremony with Netaji, Aung San, Ba Maw and Count Terauchi watching on the dais. Aung San was so impressed that he asked Netaji if he could train some Burmese women. Netaji was especially concerned to convince Terauchi and the Japanese that the Rani of Jhansi Regiment girls were genuine soldiers, totally different from the “comfort women” following Japanese troops. Here again is evidence that Netaji conceived a genuine military role for the RJR. A symbolic force would not have impressed skeptical Japanese officers. Rasammah describes the conversation of a woman who replied in Bengali when Netaji asked her a question in English. He turned to her and said angrily, “I don’t understand you. What makes you think you’re so special or I’m so special because we are Bengalis? … Remember this: I’m Indian first, I’m Indian second, I’m Indian third, I’m Indian every time. I’m always just Indian.” This lesson and others imparted by Netaji impressed Rasammah so deeply that she has refused to live in India after Partition. “This is not the India we fought for”, she says.35 Between 1944 and the first half of 1945, training camps were operating in Rangoon and Bangkok in addition to the original base camp in Singapore. Instructors were INA officers or NCOs. The Lee-Enfield rifles had proven too big and heavy for the women, most of whom were Tamils of small stature. The eight-to-nine-pound rifles were therefore replaced by Ross pattern Canadian rifles or by a Dutch type of rifle used in Indonesia and captured by the Japanese. They were lighter and shorter, but bayonets could not be attached. Instead, the women carried short swords. The Japanese captured the rifles and handed them over to the INA for use by the Rani of Jhansi Regiment. Nurses were trained in a four-month curriculum using a manual prepared by Lieutenant Colonel Kashiwal and approved by Lieutenant Colonel A.D. Loganadhan for use in the hospital at Bidadari in Singapore. Examinations were given after the training, and nurses then served in hospitals in Singapore, Rangoon, Mandalay, and Maymyo. The shortage of trained medical personnel to treat INA casualties from the front became so acute, however, that all Ranis who were stationed near hospitals were called on to help.

07 RAJn.indd

84

6/26/08

2:02:10 PM

The Rani of Jhansi Regiment

85

Morale among the Ranis remained high, as among the INA generally, until the very end. They were imbued by a high sense of purpose and camaraderie. Many report that they sang loudly on their route marches, and that they enjoyed the evening entertainments often attended by Netaji, who joined in their singing. They felt he was both father and mother to them, as they all said. He knew each of them by name and was continually solicitous of their health and well-being. Janaki, Lakshmi, and others comment on Netaji’s work habits, reporting that he seldom went to bed before two a.m. and was always up before dawn seeing to every organizational detail. Abid Hasan and Chatterji also remark on Netaji’s prodigious energy and capacity to work with little sleep. He insisted on eating the same rations the troops got. All who were with him comment on his courage, his refusal to seek shelter when bombs were falling, his sense of invulnerability and his absolute fearlessness. Lakshmi, whose duty was to censor letters, comments that in letters to their parents, the girls wrote that they felt more at home in their new surroundings than they felt in their natal homes. “Frankly, they told their relations that greater kinship existed between them and the sepoys of the INA than it did with their own relations.”36 In Britain, the media remained largely silent about the INA and the Rani of Jhansi Regiment. In the U.S., however, some notice was paid in American newspapers of the existence and activities not only of the INA but also of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment. The American press had already reported on Gandhi and the non-cooperation movement, and the part played by Indian women in the movement, as well as in the military operations of the INA.37 Americans had after all fought their own revolution against British control. The morale, energy, determination, and courage of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment were tested as 1944 passed into 1945 and the INA and their Japanese allies encountered the better equipped and supplied British troops, who also had air cover, during the battles on the Indo-Burma border. We follow their challenges and activities in the next chapter.

07 RAJn.indd

85

6/26/08

2:02:11 PM

86

Women Against the Raj

Rani of Jhansi Regiment Marching Song Fear not! Fear not! We march on Netaji’s orders, Forward march! Forward march! Rani of Jhansi women, March to liberate Our beloved India; Kill Americans and British Wherever you see them, Fear not! Fear not! (This song was sung in Tamil by Meenachi and translated into English by Muthammal Palanisamy.)

Notes Lakshmi Sahgal, The Oracle II (1980), p. 61. For a complete and authentic record of Netaji’s recorded speeches, press statements, etc., see Subhas Chandra Bose, Testament of Subhas Bose: Being a Complete and Authentic Record of Netaji’s Broadcasts, Speeches, Press Statements, etc. (Delhi: Rajkamal Publications, 1946), pp 193–94; Rohini Gawankar, The Women’s Regiment and Captain Lakshmi of INA (New Delhi: Devika Publications, 2003), pp. 159–62. Gawankar, The Women’s Regiment and Captain Lakshmi of INA (New Delhi: Devika Publications, 2003), p. 162. Ibid. Lakshmi Sahgal, A Revolutionary Life: Memoirs of a Political Activist (New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1997), pp. 56–57. In an interview with the author, she said that he talked to her for eight hours. Kanpur, India, 23 March 2007. Jag Parvesh Chander, Meet Col. Lakshmi (Lahore: Indian Print Works, 1946), p. 18. Interview in Kanpur, India, 23 March 2007. Ibid. For Lakshmi’s address at the International Reunion of INA veterans, see Jag Parvesh Chander, Meet Col. Lakshmi, Lahore, Indian Printing Words, 1946. Lakshmi Sahgal, A Revolutionary Life: Memoirs of a Political Activist (New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1997), pp. 4–8. Ibid., p. 12.

1 2

3

4 5

6

7

8 9 10

11

12

07 RAJn.indd

86

6/26/08

2:02:11 PM

The Rani of Jhansi Regiment

Ibid., p. 50. Ibid., pp. 141–42. Gawankar, The Women’s Regiment and Captain Lakshmi of INA (New Delhi: Devika Publications, 2003), p. 189. Hillls and Silverman assert the size was 1,500, as does Gawankar, op. cit., p. xvi. Carol Hills and Daniel C. Silverman, “Nationalism and Feminism in Late Colonial India: The Rani of Jhansi Regiment, 1943–1945”, in Modern Asian Studies 27, no. 4 (1993), p. 741. Chatterji alleged that the maximum strength was about 500. Major General A.C. Chatterji, India’s Struggle for Freedom (Calcutta: Chuckervertty, Chatterjee, 1947), p. 128. On page 126, however, Chatterji puts the number at 1,000. We are thus left with several differing estimates of the size of the Regiment. Ibid., pp. 189–90. Interview, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 17 April 2007. Interview on the Ken Burms PBS programme, The War, November 2007. Young India 1, no. l8, 4 July 1943. Ibid., no. 17, 23 January 1943. Lakshmi Sahgal, The Oracle II (1980), p. 62. Ravindra K. Jain, quoting a schoolmaster in South Indians on the Plantation Frontier in Malaysia (New Haven, C.T., Yale University Press, 1970), p. 304. Lakshmi Sahgal, The Oracle II (1980), pp. 61–62. And Chandran Kaimal, who spent his childhood in pre-war Malaya, echoes this opinion, noting that Tamil estate workers were considered “the lowest of the low”. Lakshmi Sahgal, A Revolutionary Life: Memoirs of a Political Activist (New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1997), p. 67. Interview, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 16 April 2007. Interview, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 17 April 2007. Ibid. Rohini Gawankar, The Women’s Regiment and Captain Lakshmi of INA (New Delhi: Devika Publications, 2003), pp. 291–92. Ibid., pp. 314–15. Ibid., p. 295. Ibid., pp. 297–302. Ibid., pp. 303–12. Quoted from P. B. Roy, The Glory that is I.N.A.; Carol Hills and Daniel C. Silverman, “Nationalism and Feminism in Late Colonial India: The Rani of Jhansi Regiment, 1943–1945”, Modern Asian Studies 27, no. 4 (1993): 746; Lakshmi Sahgal, A Revolutionary Life: Memoirs of a Political Activist (New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1997), p. 77. Interview with Manawati Arya in Kanpur, India, 24 March 2007. Interview in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 17 April 2007. Jag Parvesh Chander, Meet Col. Lakshmi (Lahore: Indian Printing Works, 1946), p. 55; also interview with Lakshmi Sahgal in Kanpur, India, 23 March 2007. Azad Hind, no. 5/6 (1944), p. 56.

13 14 15

16 17 18 19 20 21 22

23

24

25 26 27 28

29 30 31 32 33

34 35 36

37

07 RAJn.indd

87

87

6/26/08

2:02:11 PM

8 DEPLOYED TO BURMA

The major part of the story of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment occurred in Burma from March 1944 to August 1945. From Rangoon to Meiktila, Mandalay and Maymyo, up and down the rugged terrain and across three major rivers, the rigorous training and night route marches continued. The Ranis were prepared and eager to advance to the front to join their INA brothers in battle. As units of Ranis passed through villages, more Indian girls volunteered, impressed by seeing these young women in uniform, carrying backpacks and rifles. The sight was contagious. By the time the Singapore recruits reached Rangoon, the training curriculum was standard and expanded for the new Burma recruits who had not experienced the Singapore training. In addition to the Singapore curriculum, in Burma, additions were made to the training regimen. Guerrilla warfare, map reading, coding and decoding, first aid, sabotage, reconnoitering, camouflaging, ambushing, and digging trenches were all included. Night route marches were routine, often twenty miles and more. Those who had not signed on for nursing duty were also impressed into duty, as hospitals, doctors, and regular nurses were all overloaded with the INA wounded and dying who poured in from the battlefront. Medical supplies were inadequate, which increased the suffering of the wounded and the doctors, nurses, and other Ranis pressed into caring for them. Recruitment in Burma also continued in part due to the inspiration of a young woman named Manawati Arya, who was born in Meiktila in 1920. Daughter of a postal department official and a mother from Uttar Pradesh in India, Manawati’s formal schooling was entirely in Burmese and English. Her father subscribed to Indian magazines and newspapers, and the home 88

08 RAJn.indd

88

6/26/08

2:04:21 PM

Deployed to Burma

89

was a centre for other Indians interested in the struggle for freedom. For her first eleven years, her father home schooled her and made certain that she was fluent in Hindi and imbued with a love of India. She entered Rangoon University and studied biology. When her father lost his job under Japanese occupation, Manawati took a job teaching in Rangoon to support the family and also worked for the League part-time. Manawati heard Lakshmi speak about the Rani of Jhansi Regiment in Rangoon, and she approached Lakshmi with a recruiting scheme she had developed which would embrace all Indian women, including those who could offer civilian support for the troops. Lakshmi suggested that Manawati come to headquarters the following day, and she would introduce her to Netaji. This she did, and Colonel Chatterji and Lakshmi both recommended Manawati’s plan. Netaji replied that since Manawati had developed the idea, she should be mandated to implement it. He appointed her secretary to the women’s department in the FIPG. When she protested that she was an only child supporting her parents, Netaji assured her that she would receive a salary with which to support them. When she met Netaji she was “totally charmed, altogether”. She had heard so much about Netaji from her father that she was elated to meet him and to be able to work with him. When she told her parents that she was joining Netaji in the struggle for freedom, her father was extremely proud, her patriotism the result of his own efforts and education. His friends used to say to him, “Oh, you’re training another Sarojini Naidu.”1 Manawati wore the Rani of Jhansi uniform but spent her days walking from village to village to enlist civilian women, often walking twenty miles a day. Most of the women she met were illiterate and in purdah, and they were her particular target. She recruited them to cook and sew for the troops. She remarked, “Indian women must have ornaments, but it didn’t look nice having ornaments so long as we were slaves to the British.” When she attended women’s meetings, she wore a single piece of jewellery and told her audience she did not feel justified wearing gold and was donating it to Netaji’s fund. With this strategy she collected ornaments from the women as they followed suit.2 Lakshmi’s role during the entire Burma campaign was critical. She was universally loved and admired by the girls in the Regiment. They all commented on her character, motivation, dedication, and intelligence, as well as her personal concern for each one of them. “She was a wonderful woman. There was nobody in a leading position in the Rani of Jhansi Regiment who could hold a candle to Lakshmi”, asserts Rasammah Bhupalan, whom Lakshmi had identified as having potential officer material.3

08 RAJn.indd

89

6/26/08

2:04:21 PM

90

Women Against the Raj

Aruna Ganguly Chatterji was a Burma recruit, born into a middle class orthodox Hindu family in Rangoon. She attended an English medium school and also studied Bengali. She and members of her family joined the League when Rash Behari Bose came to Rangoon, but her orthodox parents thought the idea of a women’s regiment “disgraceful, below their dignity”, and recommended the Red Cross instead. Aruna and her sisters Karuna and Maya were so inspired by Netaji and the Rani of Jhansi Regiment, however, that all three Ganguly girls insisted on joining. Their father finally capitulated but advised them to always be on guard because of “wolves in sheep’s clothing”.4 Aruna describes the training as extremely strict and gruelling. According to her, reveille was not at 6 but at 4:30 a.m., followed by the same rigorous morning routine described by other recruits. She also mentions weapons training with two-and three-inch mortars and machine guns, sometimes using live ammunition. They learned the characteristics of each weapon, how to clean them and how to fire them. “They became like parts of our body.” She reports that when Japanese saw the Ranis march with weapons for the first time, they were so impressed that they applauded. Aruna and her sisters Karuna and Maya accompanied Lakshmi on the advance north toward Meiktila and the front. They travelled by truck at night as Lakshmi reports, and were pleased to be invited by a Muslim family to stop and enjoy the luxury of a bath for the first time in several days. They travelled on to Mandalay and Maymyo, where units of the INA, the Rani Regiment, and the Azad Hind Dal, the unit charged with administering captured territory, were all encamped. They remained in Maymyo for five months to wait for opportunity to combat in Manipur. As weeks and months passed the Ranis became restive, anxious to join their INA brothers at the front. Lakshmi reports that at one point she and five others approached Netaji with a petition signed in their own blood, begging to the be sent into combat. They reminded him that it was he who had insisted that they be battle-ready. Regretfully, she reports, it was too late as the retreat was already under way. The never got the opportunity they yearned for: to fight and die to make India free. Aruna provides a vivid description of the life of the Ranis as they waited in Maymyo to go into combat. Although there was no let-up in the rigorous training and night marches, life was not all suffering and hardship. “Netaji tried to keep us happy and he frequently invited us to watch documentary films. We produced short plays and musical comedies, and Netaji liked to sing along with us. He taught us songs and dancing. He wrote songs and handed them to me to make copies.” None of the songs Aruna transcribed survived, she says, “because the British duped us. They took them and said

08 RAJn.indd

90

6/26/08

2:04:21 PM

Deployed to Burma

91

they were going to publicize Netaji’s work and return the songs to us, but they never did.”5 Of course the British had no interest in publicizing the work of the INA or RJR in India or anywhere else. On the night marches, the Ranis sang patriotic songs. The Rani of Jhansi Regiment composed a song, one line of which was, “We are all women, but we have taken up weapons.” Aruna also describes the bombing and destruction of the Maymyo barracks the night following the dinner party at Netaji’s residence. “We ran out to see the night sky brighter than day. We ran to the trench, heads down. One big wooden beam broke and hit Lily on the head. She lost consciousness. It was impossible to breathe in the trench, it was so full of smoke … All the cars were burning.”6 Aruna regards her days in the Rani of Jhansi Regiment as the happiest in her life. The day the Regiment was disbanded she was dumbfounded; it was her saddest day. She describes her days as follows: “Lakshmi was very good to work with. She was very affectionate and very friendly when we were not on duty. One Sunday we wanted to visit Parul Bhattacharya. He had built a house five kilometres from Maymyo. The gate commander asked where we were going. Lakshmi replied, “We’re just going for a stroll.” It was getting dark, and the only sound was of heavy rain. There was no road and we lost our way … We finally saw a light and came to a hut. We were invited in for tea. Then the chief came and Lakshmi asked him to show us the way … When we reached camp the sentries were looking for us. Manawati was waiting for us with candles. She prepared hot water for baths and food and coffee. Someone had climbed over a wall into a darkened storeroom to get sugar, but it was salt instead, so the coffee was salty. [She laughs.] … When we finished our duties in the evening we had a good time. We used to walk to town, and we had some pocket money. Whenever a doctor was promoted in the hospital, we’d have a party.”7

Lobanya Chatterji, a Bengali visiting her sister in Singapore, volunteered there for the nursing wing of the Regiment when she was fourteen. She reports that the nurses were trained in the hospitals but also had weapons training. She went to Burma via Bangkok with a group of two hundred and fifty recruits, both nursing and fighting units, along with some INA men and cooks. Like the unit commanded by Janaki, they travelled on the infamous Death Railway.8 Several Rani veterans tell of the death by drowning of Lobanya’s husband. Lakshmi tried to comfort Lobanya, and Manawati was so concerned about Lobanya’s depression that she kept a close watch on her.

08 RAJn.indd

91

6/26/08

2:04:21 PM

92

Women Against the Raj

As Manawati suspected, Lobanya attempted to commit suicide but was saved by Manawati’s timely intervention. Lobanya worked in the hospital in Maymo and there she met Captain Lakshmi. “We took care of our wounded INA brothers. We had no time to talk except about their comfort and food. Some were in a very bad condition, and we did our best for them, but we didn’t have enough medicine.” Lobanya, Lakshmi, and others report the bombing of hospitals by the Allies. “We had hospital duty in the evening from 4 until 8 p.m. so we had no time to join the girls when they went to town.” Netaji often visited hospitals, talked to the patients and brought them fruit. Some respondents report that at times he wept, seeing their wounds. Asked what was the most important thing she did in the Rani Regiment, Lobanya laughed and replied, “Everything we did in the Rani of Jhansi Regiment was important. Yes, we’re proud of those days. We did something for the country.”9 Janaki was one of the first officers commissioned in Singapore and went with the first large group to Rangoon in March 1944. Just seventeen at the time, Janaki says some of the girls were older and may have resented her promotion. As commander of the largest body of the RJR after Lakshmi’s departure for the north, Janaki was charged with keeping the girls in the camp and preventing men from entering. One day, INA Chief of Staff General Bhonsle arrived at the Rani of Jhansi camp, and Janaki refused him entry. He was angry and complained to Netaji, who reassured Janaki that she had done the right thing. The Ranis refused to salute the Japanese flag, because the Japanese did not salute the Indian flag. Again, Netaji was pleased at Janaki’s strong stand.10 The issue of saluting had been troubling to Netaji because each side insisted on being saluted first; as a result of Netaji’s negotiations with the Japanese it was agreed that each would salute simultaneously. Shah Nawaz recalls a conversation he had with Janaki near Rangoon as they went for a walk. “We went to a hillock and sat there looking at the ground around us. “Doesn’t the countryside remind you of home? It looks so typically Indian.” “I do not know”, she replied simply. “I have never been to India.” Shah Nawaz was stunned. “Here was a girl in her early twenties [sic], born and educated in Malaya, who had left the care of her parents, the shelter of her home, and the prospect of a career, staying a thousand miles away, rifle in hand to fight, and prepared to die, for a Motherland she had not seen. And she was not the only one. There were hundreds of other girls all from established families.”11 Many more women were recruited by individuals such as Manawati Arya for civilian supportive roles. Shah Nawaz, always generous in his praise of the INA and RJR, comments further, “The

08 RAJn.indd

92

6/26/08

2:04:22 PM

Deployed to Burma

93

allegiance to India of all these overseas Indians, a much maligned body today, when put to excruciating tests, was found to be of a fervour, perhaps greater … than ours who owed everything to our motherland.”12 Girls who served under Janaki report that she was a very strict disciplinarian. “We felt she had more than a pair of eyes”, in the words of one member. “She never failed to notice if our shoes were not polished properly or if a uniform was not properly pressed. We’d be thrown out of the parade, a most disgraceful situation to be in. For every little lapse we were thrown out of the parade and had to stand apart, hanging our heads in shame. She showed us no mercy for any mischief we did.” Others also remark on Janaki’s strict discipline. “But she was extremely concerned for all of us, kind, considerate, and most humane. We sang and told jokes and kept ourselves in good spirits with the knowledge of a very brave, just, and kind commanding officer at our head.”13 When Netaji announced that they had to retreat, Janaki replied, “No, I don’t want to go back. I want to fight for India.” Other respondents also recall protesting when told they had to retreat from Burma. Janaki was in fact in command of the unit of Ranis who retreated from Rangoon to Bangkok, a twenty-six day epic of slogging through the jungles of Burma and Thailand mostly on foot and at night without food or a chance to bathe. Though they started this journey on a goods train, when the train was bombed they were forced to continue on foot. In her diary, Janaki reports, “Going is very heavy, we are night birds. We do our marching at night and rest during the day. My girls are wonderful, each one of them is carrying her own pack and rifle, some thirty pounds. There are plenty of guerrilla troops in the area and we must be prepared to fight.”14 The size of the group Janaki led has been estimated variously. Janaki told the author she had five hundred girls with her. Ayer puts the number closer to one hundred. Netaji remained with the girls during part of this long march. Janaki writes in her diary, “I am accompanying Netaji whevever he goes. I must look after him.” She reports as have others that he was totally unconcerned during bombings when everyone else took cover in a trench. “He would continue whatever he was doing, whether shaving or smoking a cigarette. I think he was charmed against danger.”15 At the Wau River there was no bridge, and the Japanese had allotted the INA and the Rani of Jhansi Regiment one ferry. When General Isoda told Netaji to go on the first crossing, he replied, “Go to hell. I will not cross over till all the girls have gone across first.” Janaki ordered the girls to swim across, which they did. “As we approached the Sittang River we were told the enemy was on our heels.” Again they had to cross without a ferry.

08 RAJn.indd

93

6/26/08

2:04:22 PM

94

Women Against the Raj

“We gave our guns to the soldiers. It was very deep and we couldn’t touch the bottom. They put a rope around our waist and pulled us across. Water was up to our necks.” They had to abandon all the cars except for Netaji’s and one lorry. Roads were knee deep in mud, hardly recognizable. They marched at night and managed to cover about ten miles each night.16 On 29 April while they rested, Janaki asked Netaji to take off his heavy boots to rest his feet and give her a chance to wash his socks. Janaki was shocked to see that his feet were a mass of blisters. “His car was following us, but he never thought of using it. We all persuaded him to go by car, but he would not hear of it.”17 That night they marched fifteen miles with Netaji at the head of the column despite his blistered feet. The Japanese general accompanying them urged Netaji to go by car, but again he refused. They arrived in Moulmein on 1 May. “Netaji has hardly slept more than two hours a day for the last six days on the move. By day everyone rested except Netaji. He spent the whole day arranging food and accommodation. Tonight Netaji arranged for all the girls to be evacuated by train from Moulmein to Bangkok. We are packed like sardines, but it is better than marching in the mud. After covering about twenty miles by train we stopped about 1 a.m. The bridge had been blown up by American bombers. We had to march ten miles to the next railway station.” Colonel Mallick, an officer accompanying them, arranged to have their backpacks put on hired bullock carts. “Such a relief. My shoulders are aching; the leather straps have cut into my shoulders. Without a pack we can march any distance. We marched all night and in the morning reached the railway station.”18 Aruna Chatterji reports that she last saw Netaji when Janaki called a meeting with him on 24 April 1945. Janaki asked if anyone wished to have an interview with Netaji, and Aruna came forward. She entered the room and saluted. Netaji asked how she was and if she had any complaints. She asked why she had not been promoted earlier. Netaji smiled and replied, “Because you were too young.”19 The next day Aruna was dismayed when Janaki announced that the Rani of Jhansi Regiment was being disbanded that very day. “The sky had fallen”, she said. Aruna has written a poem recently about what happened: Listen to the tale, oh listen to the tale Our Supreme Commander left the country Where he went is still a mystery All he said is absolutely true It happened in Myanmar in World War II.20

08 RAJn.indd

94

6/26/08

2:04:22 PM

Deployed to Burma

95

British and American planes were hovering overhead continually. The Japanese had dispersed the railcars to make it appear from the air as if they were damaged. The evening of 3 May they boarded the train again and after several train changes due to bombing damage, they reached Bangkok on 7 May. En route they were visited several times by the Jan Baz unit, the “suicide unit”, designed to infiltrate India for information and sabotage. Netaji arrived in Bangkok the day before the Ranis and again made arrangements for food, clothing, and accommodation for them, as well as the repatriation of those from Singapore, Malaya, and Burma. In early June, Netaji left Bangkok for Malaya on a tour of inspection, and for the next three months he toured INA units in Malaya. In July, Netaji Week celebrations were held in Malaya and Thailand. Shah Nawaz reports that when some members of the Regiment were evacuating from Rangoon to Bangkok in early December 1944, their train was attacked by British guerrillas. “Our girls immediately opened fire on the enemy and forced them to retreat. In this fight two of them [Ranis] were killed and two were injured, but they had inflicted a much greater loss on the enemy. … The achievements of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment have proved beyond doubt that there is nothing our women cannot do, and that if they are given the opportunity, they are as good if not superior to the women of any nation in the world.”21 Meenachi’s eyewitness account of the death of the two has been described above. It is possible that Shah Nawaz got his impression of a battle from the volume by a Bombay journalist, a fictional alleged diary, which he wrote after interviewing Lakshmi.22 During the retreat southward from Maymyo headquarters, Captain Lakshmi moved south with a unit of nurses as hospital care also migrated southward. In December, orders came to evacuate the Maymyo Hospital and proceed to Ziawadi, one hundred miles north of Rangoon. A large convoy left Maymyo on 6 January, stopping at Mandalay, Meiktila, and Pynnine en route. On 17 January they reached Ziawadi, where a Bihari family had built a sugar mill, using imported labour from Bihar. Prior to Japanese occupation the owners had returned to India, and the Japanese handed the operation over to the Azad Hind Government. The nurses stopped there and work was begun on a hospital. “No sooner had work begun that the factory was bombed and many workers and villagers were killed. As a result the convoy departed for Rangoon after treating the wounded.”23 When Netaji asked Lakshmi if she wished to go with the rest to Rangoon, she replied that she preferred to go where she could be of service. She went instead with a couple of doctors to Kalaw to a hospital for chronic and bedridden patients. They returned northward to Kalaw, a small hill station,

08 RAJn.indd

95

6/26/08

2:04:23 PM

96

Women Against the Raj

via Meiktila. There they were given hospitality by a Parsi lawyer who had been arrested by Japanese who mistook him for an Englishman. The League intervened and his house was returned to him. In nearby Taungyi there was also a large Indian population, descendants of Sikhs rewarded for service during the Burma War. Some of these Sikhs supplied the INA with wheat from their prosperous farms. Netaji came with Yellappa to visit the hospital, and that was the last time Lakshmi saw Netaji.24 A few days later, Yellappa returned with the news that British forces were advancing rapidly on Mandalay. Captain Lakshmi and the Kalaw facility would have to be evacuated to Rangoon and the patients transported by bullock cart off the main road. While they were making preparations the village was bombed, and Yellappa was badly wounded in the leg. He was moved to Yongshwe, a village between Kalaw and Taungyi, since he would not have survived the trip to Rangoon. Captain Lakshmi and a party of seven sought refuge in the Karen hills, where the population was pro-British and anti-Japanese. By this time the monsoon rains were in full force. Yellappa’s wound had become infected, and his condition was serious. Major Bawa, who had been in command of the Kalaw hospital, advised surrender to guerrillas as the best option. Japanese stragglers were in the area, and British and Gurkha forces were in control of the Karen hill area. Captain Lakshmi’s party had very little food and was surviving on one meal a day of a kind of gruel and occasional vegetables. Their plight was precarious. On 20 June before dawn, Captain Lakshmi awoke in a hut to find a Japanese bayonet pointed at her. The party were taken outside their hut and tied to trees. One of Yellappa’s attendants who spoke some Japanese tried to make them understand that they were from the INA. The Japanese went to find their officer. Lakshmi felt this was her final day on earth. The officer returned holding a Japanese magazine in which Lakshmi’s photograph appeared in an article on the Rani of Jhansi Regiment. He recognized Lakshmi and ordered the group untied. This chance article in the hands of a Japanese officer had saved Lakshmi’s life as well as the lives of the doctors with her. They were advised to move further into the jungle, which they did after fashioning a stretcher for Yellappa. In the jungles, they encountered a group of Gurkha descendants who gave them shelter but then returned with another Gurkha and three Karens who were less sympathetic. Lakshmi and her group had their weapons taken, and they became prisoners. They were marched off to a Force 136 unit commanded by a Colonel Peacock. There they were given food and accommodation in a camp crowded with villagers displaced by the Japanese.

08 RAJn.indd

96

6/26/08

2:04:23 PM

Deployed to Burma

97

Colonel Peacock was ordered to send the INA party to Taungoo, where the British Army would take charge of them. They trekked through jungle terrain and monsoon rain from 22 June to 1 July, nearly one hundred miles, accompanied by women and children refugees from villages. Lakshmi and her group were saddened to hear that Yellappa, who had been a leader in the League and instrumental in the creation of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment, was burnt to death when his hut was attacked and he was unable to escape. On 6 July Lakshmi and her party reached Rangoon. Unlike the rest of her group, she had not been in the British Indian Army and therefore did not come under army jurisdiction. She was allowed to stay with a Burmese family and was interrogated daily, by Major Hugh Toye, among others. Her interrogators became convinced after much questioning that she and others of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment had joined out of purely patriotic motives and had not been coerced into joining by anyone. They were questioned repeatedly about whether or not they had been coerced into volunteering. Some of them were offered jobs in the British military administration but refused to accept them. When they were interrogated, they wore their uniforms, and as they entered the room for questioning, they all shouted “Jai Hind!” or “Netaji Zindabad!” Lakshmi was allowed to move to the home of Indian friends, and there she heard the news of Netaji’s death in the plane crash. They did not believe this at the time, as no one had seen Habibur Rahman, the eyewitness. Lakshmi remained in Rangoon working in a private clinic until 4 March 1946, when she was escorted back to India by a British officer in an air force plane. Captain Lakshmi, who helped to inaugurate the Rani of Jhansi Regiment and became its commander, was now at the end of the story of the Rani Regiment, a free woman home in India, where her life trajectory took many other directions. By this time the other veterans of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment had been repatriated to their homes in Burma, Malaya, and Singapore. Janaki notes that she reported to Netaji in Singapore on 12 August 1945. He asked her, “Janaki Davar, what took you so long to reach here?” He put his hand on her head in a gesture of blessing, affection, and kinship. This was the last time she saw him.25 Her eyes still fill with tears when she speaks of Netaji and her wartime experience in the RJR. The lives of many of these women were deeply influenced by the two and more years they had spent in the Rani of Jhansi Regiment. We turn our attention next to what has happened to them after the war.

08 RAJn.indd

97

6/26/08

2:04:23 PM

98

Women Against the Raj

Notes Interview in Kanpur, India, 23 March 2007. Ibid. Interview in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 17 April 2007. Interview in Kolkata, India, 4 April 2007. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Interview in Kolkata, India, 5 April 2007. Ibid. Interview in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 16 April 2007. Major General Shah Nawaz Khan, My Memories of I.N.A. and its Netaji (Delhi: Rajkamal Publications, 1946), pp. 262–63. Ibid., p. 16. Statement furnished by Janaki Athi Nahappan during the Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia interview, 16 April 2007. Peter Ward Fay, The Forgotten Army: India’s Armed Struggle for Independence, 1942–1945 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993), p. 373. Reproduction of Janaki’s diary in Major General Shah Nawaz Khan, My Memories of I.N.A. and its Netaji (Delhi: Rajkamal Publications, 1946), pp. 204–05. Ibid., pp. 206–07. Ibid. Ibid. Interview in Kolkata, India, 4 April 2007. Ibid. Major General Shah Nawaz Khan, My Memories of I.N.A. and its Netaji (Delhi: Rajkamal Publications, 1946), p. 263. Amritlal Seth, Jai-Hind: The Diary of a Rebel Daughter of India with the Rani of Jhansi Regiment (Bombay, Janmabhoomi Prakashan Mandir, 1945). Lakshmi Sahgal, A Revolutionary Life: Memoirs of a Political Activist (New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1997), pp. 90–92. Ibid., pp. 93–94. Interview in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 16 April 2006.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

12 13

14

15

16 17 18 19 20 21

22

23

24 25

08 RAJn.indd

98

6/26/08

2:04:23 PM

9 AFTER THE WAR

The immediate concern confronting everyone in the RJR as in the INA when they returned home was the loss of their Netaji in a plane crash in Taiwan. This event has occasioned endless speculation and theories of how and whether he perished then, and heated debate continues as of this writing. When Netaji was once asked if he knew what kind of death he wished for himself, he replied, “I should be flying very high and I must suddenly crash down to the earth and die. That’ll be wonderful.”1 It seems he got his wish. Ayer also reports that he was told by Habibur Rahman that Netaji did not complain as he lay dying of burns. The initial response to reports of the crash was disbelief. A hero larger than life cannot die; a legend does not die, for in fact he has become a legend. There are those who still deny that he died in the plane crash, saying that he was sighted in Moscow or Manchuria after the war, or that he lived on as a sunnyasi in a cave in the hills of Assam or elsewhere in the mountains. The Indian Government took these allegations seriously, seriously enough to appoint three separate commissions to ascertain the facts. The first commission, headed by Shah Nawaz, visited Japan in 1955–56.2 There was a reason for Shah Nawaz’s visit to Tokyo. On the plane with Netaji was Habibur Rahman, the only other Indian, and Netaji had to plead with Japanese military authorities to secure a second seat. A Japanese general and crew, including pilot, were aboard. The plane was heavily loaded, probably overloaded, and one engine broke off, causing the crash. Fuel spilled over Netaji, after which his uniform caught fire, and he became a human torch enveloped in flame. Habibur Rahman was burned, but not seriously. Netaji was hospitalized, attended by a Japanese physician and interpreter. Habibur 99

09 RAJn.indd

99

6/26/08

2:05:34 PM

100

Women Against the Raj

stayed with him as he died shortly and was cremated. A Japanese officer named Hayashida carried his ashes from Taiwan to Tokyo, where they remain in the Renkoji Temple and have been cared for during succeeding decades by the temple priest and his wife. Hayashida wrote a book about the ashes and how he carried them to Tokyo. For years, Japanese generals, including Fujiwara, Katakura, Isoda, and Arisue met there annually on Netaji’s birthday to pay their respects. Of course Shah Nawaz interviewed the Japanese eyewitnesses to the crash and Netaji’s death while he was in Tokyo. Japanese have always wished to return the ashes to Bengal, as they believe that a soul will not rest in peace until the ashes are brought home. The prospect of having Netaji’s ashes in Bengal, however, has been known to incite rioting, as happened one year at the annual 23 January convention at the Netaji Research Bureau in Calcutta. Hot-headed young Bengali radicals broke into the convention hall where Fujiwara, the founder of the INA, was to address the assemblage and shouted abuse at him. Apparently some newspaper had published a rumour that Fujiwara had brought Netaji’s ashes back. The young activists were roundly chastened by Dr Sisir Bose, Netaji’s nephew and founder of the Netaji Research Bureau, the same nephew who had helped Netaji escape house arrest. Why the rioting? These excitable young men still refused to believe that Netaji was dead and that his ashes rested in Tokyo. This was many years after the end of the war. At another annual convention at the Netaji Research Bureau, an elderly relative of Bose hobbled to the podium and declaimed passionately, “Netaji is still alive! He promised to come back for World War III!” Of course, had he been alive at that point, he would have been an elderly man, not the young revolutionary Bengalis remembered. Perhaps those who insist that he did not die in the plane crash but remained somewhere in hiding do not realize that they are insulting his memory to suggest that this revolutionary would rather go into hiding than return to the independent India for which he had dreamed and fought. Had he hidden after the war, it would have negated all that he stood for, all that he had done. As veterans have pointed out, Habibur Rahman, the Indian eyewitness with Bose during the flight and crash, was not a man who would have lied. Kolkata media still feed the frenzy of stories about Netaji, often showing on television pictures of Professor Krishna Bose, Dr Sisir Bose’s widow, but juxtaposing their own words rather than hers with her photograph. The Indian Government has appointed two subsequent commissions with the same task as the Shah Nawaz commission of the 1950s — the

09 RAJn.indd

100

6/26/08

2:05:34 PM

After the War

101

Khosla Commission and the Mookerjee Commission. By the time the third commission was appointed, there were no living eyewitnesses to interview, and this commission again raised doubts about the death in the plane crash. As of this writing, Professors Krishna and Sugata Bose, directors of the Netaji Research Bureau in Kolkata, hope to have the ashes returned from Tokyo in order to hold a proper memorial service and to have a monument erected. Numerous political problems and factions have thus far thwarted their efforts. The Government of West Bengal, for one thing, intends to establish a second competing Netaji Research Bureau, despite the fact that the existing one has for years been collecting all available sources on Netaji and the INA for posterity and for the use of scholars. Meanwhile, the Indian Government in Delhi continues its anomalous attitude toward Netaji and the INA. Some veterans believe that the Government harbours resentment toward the INA because of Nehru’s jealously of Netaji’s popularity. INA veterans such as Colonel Prem Sahgal, who wished to continue their military careers after the war, were kept out of the Indian Army by Nehru. INA and RJR veterans all insist that had Netaji live he would have replaced Nehru’s leadership and India would never have been partitioned. Thus Netaji in death as in life is a story of a hero larger than life, like the Rani of Jhansi, a martyr who died fighting for India’s freedom and like her a legend that will never die. The RJR veterans were still young when the war ended, most of their lives yet ahead of them. The life trajectories of these veterans diverged into two rather distinct patterns. The majority, those from the rubber estates, married and often raised large families. Some of them not only nurtured these families but also went to work on the rubber plantations. Many of those from the plantations who were repatriated to India often lived and died in poverty and obscurity. Lakshmi and Janaki worked tirelessly for years to secure pensions from the Indian Government for these freedom fighters, just as Colonels Prem Sahgal and Gurbakhsh Dhillon worked to obtain pensions for INA veterans. In many instances, the RJR veterans are supported by children and grandchildren proud of what their forebears did for India. RJR veterans of the officer class from educated families have followed more professional careers, and we have more information about them because of the public nature of their activities. First among them is their commander, Dr Lakshmi Sahgal, Captain Lakshmi as she is often called, though in the RJR she was actually promoted beyond that rank. She comments with a chuckle that Colonel Sahgal, later her husband, always made certain that she held a rank lower than his. Fortunately

09 RAJn.indd

101

6/26/08

2:05:34 PM

102

Women Against the Raj

she has written her autobiography and has often spoken at conferences and been interviewed by the media and by scholars. Immediately following the Red Fort Trial of Shah Nawaz, Sahgal, and Dhillon, Lakshmi married Colonel Prem Sahgal. They moved to Kanpur where, prevented from re-entering the Army, he took a job in a textile mill. The couple worked with the INA Relief Committee to help INA verterans who had been repatriated by the hundreds to Madras and had nowhere to go. They helped some to settle down in Kanpur and found jobs for them after housing them in temporary tent shelters in Madras. Colonel Sahgal until his death enjoyed reminiscing and regalling friends with stories of his days in the INA. Lakshmi has become the guardian of the collective memory of RJR veterans and often of INA veterans as well. Dr Lakshmi was a medical doctor prior to volunteering and she remains a practicing physician in her nineties, attending her clinic daily where women deliver their babies. She and her daughter Subhashini [named for Subhas Chandra Bose] are both members of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPIM) and have served in Parliament. Lakshmi’s political activism and evolution parallels in some ways the political trajectory of Kalpana Dutt and other revolutionaries of the 1930s who earlier turned to communism as the only feasible segue to their activism. Lakshmi in this post-war role is a revolutionary veteran without peer. Subhashini is a forceful trade union leader, and both she and her mother work to improve the conditions of women. Subhashini represents a third generation of revolutionary women in the family. There is no evidence in the careers of these powerful SwaminadhanSahgal women that their political participation was dependent on male family members whom they followed into politics, a pattern identified with other Asian women politicians. In 2002, Lakshmi ran on the CPIM ticket as a candidate for the presidency of India, though she was close to ninety. When asked if she thought she stood a chance of winning, she replied no, she had run in order to publicize the struggle of the INA. She and other veterans feel that the INA has been forgotten, and that the Rani of Jhansi Regiment was never adequately acknowledged in the first place.3 In 2002, Lakshmi, Janaki Athi Nahappan, Rasammah Bhupalan, Meenachi, and other RJR veterans were recognized in a ceremony in Delhi. In December 2007, Janaki travelled to Delhi to receive a freedom fighter’s pension “at last”, in the words of her son. Other less prominent veterans from the plantations are still waiting for their recognition. Lakshmi speaks of the Partition as “the saddest time in my life. I felt as if one of my limbs had been cut off. I couldn’t feel the joy of Independence.”4

09 RAJn.indd

102

6/26/08

2:05:35 PM

After the War

103

Moreover, she believed Partition was totally unnecessary, since the INA had amply demonstrated that Hindus and Muslims could work together effectively. “It was the British who decided what kind of freedom we would get”, Lakshmi says. And of the massacres ensuing after Partition, she comments, “If all that violence and bloodshed had taken place for the sake of freedom, it would have made such a difference.”5 She also feels that, “It has been one of the tragedies of Indian youth that since Independence they have had no inspired leadership or idealism.”6 Janaki, second in command, has also been extremely active in public service in a number of sectors since the war. She married an attorney, Athi Nahappan, in a storied romance. During the war he was a journalist with the INA; she heard him sing a song, “there is no price for freedom”, and she was so touched that she spoke to him but did not meet him again during the war. She saw him again at the first meeting of the Malaysian Indian Congress, in January 1947. They spoke, and their romance began, culminating in marriage in 1949. For a time immediately after the war, Janaki was put under house arrest by the British. For four years, 1954–58, the family, including their two children, lived in London while Nahappan studied law. During this time Janaki worked in the Indian High Commission and also cooked for students to supplement the family income. On the family’s return to Malaysia, Janaki took basic nursing education and did social work, dispensing medicines to estate workers. She also was active in politics, becoming a member of Parliament and a major force in the Girl Guides of Malaya. In addition to all her other responsibilities, the couple adopted a Chinese baby. When her husband opened his law office in Kuala Lumpur, Janaki worked for several years as his office manager. She also worked in several business ventures. Janaki is still often the public face of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment, receiving a Padma Sri decoration from the president of India, travelling to conferences at the Netaji Research Bureau and recently to Delhi to receive a freedom fighter’s pension.7 Rasammah Bhupalan is another RJR vetreran who has been tirelessly active in the public sector since the war. Her activities have been described in a definitive biography.8 For many years she taught at various schools in Malaya: the Methodist Girls School in Penang, St Marks Anglo-Chinese Boys School in Butterworth, a high school in Malacca, Senior Methodist Girls School in Klang, then in Kuala Lumpur, and as founder principal of the Methodist College in Kuala Lumpur. In 1982, she retired from government service. She went on to establish an Opportunity School at the Young Women Christian Association (YWCA) based on a model she saw in Denver, Colorado, USA. She has been president of the Malaya YWCA and was founder president of the Women Teachers Union of Malaya. The list of her offices includes: Founder

09 RAJn.indd

103

6/26/08

2:05:35 PM

104

Women Against the Raj

and Chair of the Vocational Training Opportunity Center, Secretary General and Deputy President of the National Council of Women’s Organizations, Secretary General of the Malayan Teachers National Congress, member of the National Teachers Panel of the Ministry of Education, and member of the National Economic Consultative Council. Among the international conferences she has attended are: The World Federation of Organizations of the Teaching Profession in Stockholm, Paris, Ethiopia, Korea, Canada, and Ireland; as the first Afro-Asian woman on the Executive Committee, the 1975 first International Women’s Year Conference in Nairobi; the YWCA World Council in Denmark and Singapore; the World Health Organization Conference for Women in Istanbul. As of this writing there is no sign of a let-up in the multitude of activities that occupy this busy woman. The inspiration she derived from Netaji has been mentioned above. Today, Rasammah credits all her accomplishments to her husband, Frank Bhupalan.9 Manawati Arya is another very active veteran. As noted above, though not formally part of the RJR, she wore the uniform, trained with the units, and worked as a recruiter in Burma. Before the war she was literate in several languages and during the war worked on a book in Burmese, Hindi, English, and some Japanese for use by the INA. Still a prolific author, she writes in several genres: poetry, non-fiction, fiction, autobiography, children’s stories, and books of advice. She has written a book on Netaji10 and is working on one on Rash Behari Bose. She has written her autobiography as a novel, a book on foreign women who made contributions to India, and a book on the art of conversation. She has also written one on the five principles of Buddhism and distributed 34,000 copies of it. She has raised funds and worked as organizer of a youth camp. Like Netaji and Lakshmi, she wants to see women empowered. She moved to India in October 1946, became active in the Forward Bloc, and settled in Kanpur, a regional headquarters of the party. There she worked on a party weekly and did some insurance work as well. In 1949, she married a journalist who had been jailed by the British, and raised two sons. After several years she left politics and returned to teaching in a nursery school. She gives lectures on the theme: “Teach a child and the nation will take care of itself.” She enjoys teaching disadvantaged children.11 Aruna Chatterji, of another lively pen, returned to Calcutta, where she married an Indian Army officer and raised a daughter. She continues her avocation of writing today. “We are very sorry that our Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose is not remembered at all … We cannot forget. I will never stop mourning.” She says.12

09 RAJn.indd

104

6/26/08

2:05:35 PM

After the War

105

Lobanya Chatterji, whose husband in the Azad Hind Dal drowned during the war, continued the medical education she began as a nurse in the RJR and graduated from medical college in Calcutta. There she practiced medicine until her retirement. Both her wartime experience and her mother influenced her choice of a profession.13 Pratima Pal worked for Indian Airlines until her retirement in 1986. Ramaben Mehta worked as a guide for Japanese tourists after the war. Neau Roy completed nurses training, married a doctor, and is very concerned about how to instill love for one’s country in young people. Gauri Bhattacharya became a doctor, married, and worked as a doctor and professor at Lady Hardinge Medical College in Delhi. She recalls being totally influenced by Netaji’s speeches and personality.14 Lakshmi feels that the Rani of Jhansi Regiment was the most significant aspect of the INA. All these women of the officer corps report that their inspiration came from Netaji, and their wartime experience in the Regiment led them to occupations in the public service after the war. Veterans from the rubber estates also report that they were inspired by Netaji and that they would willingly to fight again for India. There was no vestige of “hiding in the kitchen”, no trace of the traditional Hindu role for women. The Sita syndrome had receded into insignificance for the officer veterans, and those from the estates still have vivid memories of their days in the Rani of Jhansi Regiment.

Notes 1

2

3 4

5

6 7

8

9

09 RAJn.indd

S.A. Ayer, Unto Him a Witness: The Story of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose in East Asia (Bombay: Thacker, 1951), p. 62. There I met Shah Nawaz, who urged me to visit India to research the INA, which I was able to do in 1965–66 on a Fulbright Fellowship. Interview in Kanpur, India, 23 March 2007. Lakshmi Sahgal, A Revolutionary Life: Memoirs of a Political Activist (New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1997), p. 151. Interview with Lakshmi Sahgal . Address at the Netaji Research Bureau, The Oracle II, no. 1 (1980), p. 62. This information was provided in an interview with Janaki’s son, Ishwar Athi Nahappan, in Singapore, 9 January 2008. Aruna Gopinath, Footprints on the Sands of Time: Rasammah Bhupalan, A Life of Purpose (Kuala Lumpur, Arkib Negara Malaysia, 2007). Interview in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 17 April 2007.

105

6/26/08

2:05:36 PM

106 10

11 12 13 14

09 RAJn.indd

Women Against the Raj

Manawati Arya, Patriot: The Unique Indian Leader, Subhas Chandra Bose (New Delhi: Lotus Press, 2007). Interview in Kanpur, India, 24 March 2007. Interview in Kolkata, India, 4 April 2007. Interview in Kolkata, India, 4 April 2007. Rohini Gawankar, The Women’s Regiment and Captain Lakshmi of INA (New Delhi: Devika Publications, 2003), p. 291.

106

6/26/08

2:05:36 PM

10 CONCLUSION

As Netaji was key to the story of the INA and the Rani of Jhansi Regiment, so too he must figure in our concluding assessment of this history. From one perpective, Partition was a repudiation of all he stood for, a rejection most painful for veterans of the INA and RJR. “I felt as if one of my arms had been cut off ”, as Lakshmi Sahgal put it when Partition occurred. For her and others there was no joy, no sense of goals achieved, in independence. In Netaji’s India, Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Parsi and Christian would live together in harmony as in the INA and RJR, women would have an equal opportunity for education and development of their human potential, caste would fade into insignificance, and children would live as children rather than be prematurely married. That the military mission of Netaji, the INA, and the Rani of Jhansi Regiment was truncated is an accident of history, whether or not one argues for its inevitability. From another perspective, Netaji’s military goal did not fail. When three of Netaji’s officers — Shah Nawaz Khan, Prem Sahgal, and Gurbakhsh Singh Dhillon — were tried in the Red Fort by the British, the popular nationwide protest, even by Gandhi and Nehru who had differed with Bose, was one factor prompting British withdrawal from India. Perhaps the fact that India will not let Netaji the legend die is in part a recognition that what he, the INA, and the RJR fought for is vitally relevant for India today. Lakshmi, Janaki, Rasammah, Manawati and Aruna continue to strive to implement his ideals, and women such as Meenachi and Muniammah educate their children to be willing to die for their principles. The panoply of ideological and cultural strands that impelled Bose to create the Rani of Jhansi Regiment must in the end also affect any assessment 107

10 RAJ.indd

107

6/26/08

2:06:13 PM

108

Women Against the Raj

of what the RJR accomplished. Here, in Bose’s thinking were reverence for the Cosmic Mother and Bharat Mata; here, echoes of the cosmic female power of Shakti and the multitude of mother deities; here, the notion of shame and honour as related to anti-colonialism; here, the ideals of self-sacrifice and service; here, rejection of communalism; here, resonances of the role of myth and symbol (as for example in the shedding of blood, martyrdom); and here, prominently, the agency of gender. While Bose invoked elements of cultural precedent for authentication and legitimization, he pushed demonstrably beyond precedent in what must be acknowledged a socially and culturally revolutionary mode. “He literally achieved the impossible”, in the words of Lakshmi.1 Women for the first time emerged from their homes, not simply to demonstrate for independence as in Gandhi’s satyagraha and swadeshi campaigns, an achievement in itself, but to take up arms to fight for it. The RJR members regard themselves as the first women’s army in history and continue to take great pride in their role in it. In the INA and RJR, Netaji created a model where Hindu and Muslim can live in harmony, where officers and other ranks eat together and rank creates no division, where the individual, whether woman or man, has an equal opportunity to rise to the level of his or her capacity. The Rani of Jhansi Regiment not only promoted dramatic change in the post-war lives of its members, but also launched feminist echoes that spread far beyond membership in the Regiment. Just as in leading the INA Netaji created a model of equality and harmony, so too in creating the Regiment, he altered forever the realm of possibility for women, a model to which women of all later generations can aspire. Bose expanded for all women the symbol of the historical Rani. He emphasized and Lakshmi continues to stress passionately that the Rani of Jhansi Regiment fought not only to free India from slavery but also to liberate women from their subjugation to men. The legacy of Netaji extends far beyond Partition and its consequences to a model of equality and harmony in which Indian democracy can look to the Indian National Army and the Rani of Jhansi Regiment for inspiration.

Note The Oracle II, no. 1 (1980), p. 61.

1

10 RAJ.indd

108

6/26/08

2:06:13 PM

EPILOGUE THE IMPACT OF INA ON POST-WAR MALAYA P. Ramasamy Visiting Senior Research Fellow Institute of Southeast Asian Studies

There is a popular impression that it was Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru who were responsible for India’s independence from Britain on August 1947. However, such a perspective does not give credit to the role of Indian Independence Army (INA) headed by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose in quickening the process of India’s freedom. While Gandhi and Nehru were associated with passive resistance, Bose relied on a revolutionary/nationalist struggle from outside to expel the British from India. In recent years, it has come to the light that the fervour of Indian nationalism generated by the activities of the INA proved to be troublesome to the colonial authorities. The British did not fear peaceful protest marches, but the dangerous prospect of a rebellion amongst Indians in the service of the British Indian Army was a deep concern. When Atlee was asked about Gandhi’s influence in the decision to grant independence to India, he remarked “minimal”. There is a feeling that present-day India might not have adequately recognized the role of the INA and specific role of Bose in the independence struggle. Bose’s pursuit of a military strategy to defeat the British might not have endeared him to Indians who followed the path of Gandhi and the Congress Party. While the political rehabilitation of the INA and Bose 109

11 RAJn.indd

109

7/4/08

2:59:22 PM

110

Women Against the Raj

remains a controversial and heated issue in India, the INA left a powerful legacy in countries other than India. In Malaysia and Singapore, the total involvement of Indians in the INA greatly influenced and guided the nature of their post-war political, social, economic and cultural developments. It is often remarked in Southeast Asian academic circles that without an adequate historical understanding of the INA phenomenon, it would be difficult to fathom the complex nature of Indian community’s post-war developments. The INA created such an impact and lasting legacy as a result of the participation of thousands of Indians on the basis of a pan-Indian nationalism in Southeast Asia to free India from British colonialism. Lebra’s study of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment provides a rare and an interesting glimpse into the efforts of Indian women who joined the Regiment, the women’s wing of the INA, to realize the ambition of an independent India, free from the British rule. By interviewing some former members of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment (those who lived in rubber estates) she provides an understanding of why women participated in the INA, why they joined the Rani of Jhansi Regiment, what happened in plantations during the Japanese occupation, the influence of Bose’s ideas and finally, not least, what happened to them in the aftermath of the struggle. From the interviews, Lebra shows that Indian women genuinely participated in the liberation movement inspired by the radical ideas of Bose. For the thousands of men and women, involvement in the INA was a positive experience. While they came from Burma dejected as result of the defeat, it was only a matter of time before they began to develop an interest in improving their lives in Malaya. With the return of the British, Indians made it known that they would not put up with the restoration of the old colonial order. Their experience in the INA exposed them to socialist ideology, military training, discipline, and above all imbued them with an acute sense of nationalism and anti-British sentiment. Michael Stenson writes of the INA camps as “filled with a ferment of ideas deriving not merely from the teachings of nationalist and revolutionary history or the inculcation of antiimperialist attitudes but also from the spontaneous exchange of views about all sorts of political ideas from Dravidianism to socialism and communism” (Stenson 1980, pp. 96–97). The Indian community’s involvement in the cause of India’s independence was an experience that gave them dignity, self-respect and the desire to improve themselves in the post-war years. As Stenson aptly puts it: “as hopes of an Indian liberation faded, thoughts turned to Malayan realities, to the struggle for survival and to specifically Malayan politics” (Stenson 1980, p. 100).

11 RAJn.indd

110

7/4/08

2:59:22 PM

The Impact of INA on Post-War Malaya

111

With the surrender of the Japanese and the emergence of the Malayan Communist Party (MCP), more and more Indians joined communistdominated organizations such as left-wing trade unions. For INA returnees, involvement in the activities of the left-wing organizations was not a contradiction. For the majority, the struggle against British imperialism was a continuation of the struggle first headed by the INA. Indians long subservient to Europeans began to change under the influence of anti-Western nature of Indian nationalist ideology. Indians, having gone through the INA experience, were the most militant in challenging British rule in Malaya. The majority of left-wing union leaders were former members of the INA. According to Ramasamy, the independence movement was important in two respects. First, it created strong nationalist feelings amongst Indians of different classes and second, the experience gained in the INA was useful to Indians to improve their social and economic conditions in the post-war period (Ramasamy 1994, p. 60). Apart from the objective of improving their economic situation, the INA experience was culturally rewarding for Indians in the post-war period. By participating in trade unions, Indians used their strength to establish Tamil schools in plantation and urban areas. The trade union involvement in Tamil schools forced the British in the post-war period to establish a system of inspectors to supervise the curriculum and teaching in these schools (Mani and Ramasamy 2007, p. 8). Beyond this, Indian participation in the INA and later the left-wing organizations facilitated the formation of political parties and reform organizations. Those individuals who had leadership experience in the INA formed the Malayan Indian Congress (MIC) in 1946. The National Union of Plantation Workers (NUPW) and other unions were formed by the former members of the INA. The revitalization of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) was not possible without the participation of the INA members. It was the INA’s anti-British radicalism that created an unprecedented overarching solidarity amongst Indians of different ethnic and religious persuasions during the Japanese occupation. Hundreds of Indian men and women willingly contributed to the efforts of the INA. Bose’s oratory skills and his deep commitment to the cause of freedom of India galvanized Indians into action. The INA debacle in Burma and the subsequent news about Bose’s death induced a sense of pessimism amongst Indians. However, when the British returned to reassert their authority, Indians, having learned so much under the INA, were quick to form new organizations to confront the British to improve their lives.

11 RAJn.indd

111

7/4/08

2:59:23 PM

112

Women Against the Raj

References Stenson, Michael. Race and Communalism in West Malaysia. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1980. Ramasamy, P. Plantation Labour, Unions, Capital, and the State in Peninsular Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur, Oxford University Press, 1994. Mani, A. and Ramasamy, P. “Subhas Chandra Bose and the Indian National Army: A Southeast Asian Perspective”. Ritsumeikan Journal of Asia Pacific Studies, Vol. 22 (April 2007): 1–10.

11 RAJn.indd

112

7/4/08

2:59:23 PM

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Works Published in English Achuthan, Nellikka. The I.N.A. and I. Calicut: Mascot Press, 1970. Adiraju, V.R. Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. The Great Revolutionary. Hyderabad: Om See Sateya Publications, 2001. Agnew, Vijay. Elite Women in Indian Politics. Delhi: Vikas, 1979. Ahluwalia, B.K. and Shashi Ahluwalia. Netaji and Gandhi. New Delhi: Indian Academic Publishers, 1982. Arun. Testament of Subhas Bose: Speeches and Press Statements, 1942–1945. Delhi: Rajkamal Publications, 1946. Arya, Manawati. Patriot: The Unique Indian Leader, Subhas Chandra Bose. New Delhi: Lotus Press, 2007. Ayer, S.A. Unto Him a Witness: The Story of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose in East Asia. Bombay: Thacker, 1951. Basu, Aparna. Mridula Sarabhai: Rebel with a Cause. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1996. Bhargava, Motilal. Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose in South-East Asia and India’s Liberation. Kerala, New Delhi: Vishwavidya, s.d. Bhargava, Motilal and Americk Singh Gill. Indian National Army — Secret Service. New Delhi: Reliance Publishing House, 1988. Bhattacharya, N.N. Indian Mother Goddess. Calcutta: R.D. Press, 1971. Bose, Sisir and Sugata Bose. Netaji Collected Works, 12 vols. Calcutta: Netaji Research Bureau, 1995–2007. ———, ed. Azad Hind: Writings and Speeches. London: Anthem Press, 2004. Bose, Subhas Chandra. Crossroads, 1938–1940: Being the works of Subhas Chandra Bose. New York: Asia Publishing House, 1962; Calcutta: Netaji Research Bureau, 1962. ———. An Indian Pilgrim: An Unfinished Autobiography and Collected Letters, 1897–1921. Oxford: Asia Publishing House, 1965. ———. The Mission of Life. Calcutta: Thacker, 1949. ———. Selected Speeches of Subhas Chandra Bose. Government of India, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Publications Division, 1962. 113

12 RAJbiblio.indd

113

6/26/08

2:08:49 PM

114

Bibliography

———. Testament of Subhas Bose: Being a Complete and Authentic Record of Netaji’s Broadcasts, Speeches, Press Statements, etc. Delhi: Rajkamal Publications, 1946. ———. The Indian Struggle, 1920–1942, edited by Sisir Kumar Bose and Sugata Bose. Delhi, New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Buch, Maganlal Amritlal. The Rise and Growth of Indian Militant Nationalism. Baroda: Atmaram Printing Press, 1940. Chand, Uttam. When Bose was Ziauddin. Delhi: Rajkamal Publications, 1946. Chander, Jag Parvesh. Meet Col. Lakshmi. Lahore: Indian Printing Works, 1946. Chatterji, Major General A.C. Indian’s Struggle for Freedom. Calcutta: Chuckervertty, Chatterjee, 1947. Chaudhuri, Nirad. The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian. London: Macmillan, 1951. ———. Thy Hand, Great Anarch! India: 1921–1952. Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley Publishing, 1987. Daniel, E. Valentine, Henry Bernstein and Tom Brass, ed. Plantations, Proletarians and Peasants in Colonial Asia. London: Frank Cass, 1992. Das, Hari Hara. Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose: The Great War for Political Emancipation. Jaipur: National Publishing House, 2000. ———. Subhas Chandra Bose and the Indian National Movement. New Delhi: Sterling, 1983. Dhillon, Gurbaksh Singh. From My Bones: Memoirs of Col. Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon of the Indian National Army, including the 1945 Red Fort Trial. Delhi: Aryan Books International, 1998. Durrani, Mahmood Khan. The Sixth Column. London: Cassell, 1955. Dutt, Kalpana. Chittagong Armoury Raiders: Reminiscences. New Delhi: People’s Publishing House, 1979. Fay, Peter Ward. The Forgotten Army: India’s Armed Struggle for Independence, 1942–1945. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993. Forbes, Geraldine. Manmohini Zutshi Sahgal: An Indian Freedom Fighter Recalls Her Life. Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1994. ———. Women in Modern India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Fujiwara, Lieutenant General Iwaichi. F Kikan: Japanese Army Intelligence Operations in Southeast Asia during World War II. Translated by Yoji Akashi. Hong Kong: Heinemann Educational Books, 1983. Gawankar, Rohini. The Women’s Regiment and Captain Lakshmi of INA. New Delhi: Devika Publications, 2003. Ghosh, Jitendra Nath. Netaji Subhas Chandra: Philosophy of Netaji, History of Azad Hind Government, and International Law. Calcutta: Orient Longmans, 1946. Ghosh, K.K. The Indian National Army. Meerut: Meenakshi Prakashan, 1969. Ghosh, Niranjan. Concept and Iconography of the Goddess of Abundance and Fortune in Three Religions. Burdwan: University of Burdwan, 1979. ———. Role of Women in the Freedom Movement in Bengal, 1919–1947: Midnapore, Bankura, and Purulia District. Midnapore: Tamralipta Prakashani, 1988.

12 RAJbiblio.indd

114

6/26/08

2:08:49 PM

Bibliography

115

Gopal, Madan, ed. Life and Times of Subhas Chandra Bose as told in his own words. New Delhi: Vikas, 1978. Gopinath, Aruna. Footprints on the Sands of Time: Rasammah Bhupalan, A Life of Purpose. Kuala Lumpur: Arkib Negara Malaysia, 2007. Gordon, Leonard. Brothers Against the Raj: A Biography of Indian Nationalists Sarat and Subhas Chandra Bose. New York: Columbia University Press, 1990. ———. The Nationalist Movement: Bengal, 1876–1940. New York: Columbia University Press, 1974. Government of India. Selected Speeches of Subhas Chandra Bose. Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Publications Division, 1962. Government of Orissa. An Approach to Some Aspects of Subhas Chandra Bose. Bhubaneswar, 1997. Grover, Verinder and Ranjana Arora, eds. Sucheta Kripalani: Great Women of Modern India 6. New Delhi: Deep and Deep, 1993. Guha, Arun Chandra. Aurobindo and Jugantar. Calcutta: Sahitya Sansad, 1975. Heimsath, Charles H. Indian Nationalism and Hindu Social Reform. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1964. Jacob, John and Harindra Srivastava. Netaji Subhas: The Tallest of Titans. New Delhi: Essess Publications, s.d. Jain, Ravindra K., ed. South Indians on the Plantation Frontier in Malaysia. New Haven, C.T.: Yale University Press, 1970. James, Lawrence. Raj: The Making and Unmaking of British India. New York: St Martins Press, 1997. Jayawardena, Kumari and Malathi de Alwis. Embodied Violence: Communalising Women’s Sexuality in South Asia. London: Zed Books, 1996. Jog, N.C. In Freedom’s Quest: A Biography of Subhas Chandra Bose. Bombay: Orient Longmans, 1969. Kaur, Manmohan. Role of Women in the Freedom Movement, 1857–1947. Delhi: Sterling, 1968. Khan, Major General Shah Nawaz. My Memories of I.N.A. and its Netaji. Delhi: Rajkamal Publications, 1946. Khosla, Gopal Das. Last Days of Netaji. Delhi: Thomson Press, 1974. Kinsley, David R. Kali and Krishna: Dark Visions of the Terrible and Sublime in Hindu Mythology. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975. ———. The Sword and the Flute: Kali and Krishna. Berkeley C.A.: University of California Press, 1975. Kosambi, Meera, ed. Pandita Ramabai through Her Own Words: Selected Works. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000. Kumar, Radha. The History of Doing: An Illustrated Account of Movements for Women’s Rights and Feminism in India, 1800–1990. Delhi: Zubaan, 2004. Kumar, Ravindra, ed. Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose: Correspondence and Selected Documents (1930–1942). New Delhi: Inter-India Publications, 1992.

12 RAJbiblio.indd

115

6/26/08

2:08:50 PM

116

Bibliography

———. The Selected Works of Subhas Chandra Bose (1936–1946) III. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers, 1992. Kurti, Kitti. Subhas Chandra Bose as I Knew Him. Calcutta: Mukhopadhyay, 1966. Lebra, Joyce Chapman. Durga’s Sword. Delhi: HarperCollins, 1995. ———. Jungle Alliance: Japan and the Indian National Army. Singapore: Asia/Pacific Press, 1971. ———. The Rani of Jhansi: A Study in Female Heroism in India. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1986. Liddle, Joanna and Rama Joshi. Daughters of Independence. London: Zed Books, 1986. Lochner, Louis P., translator and editor. The Goebbels Diaries, 1942–1943. New York: Doubleday, 1948. Madan, Gopal, ed. Life and Times of Subhas Chandra Bose as told in his own words. New Delhi: Vikas, 1978. Mahajani, Usha. The Role of Indian Minorities in Burma and Malaya. Bombay: Vora, 1960. Majumdar, Bimanbehari. Militant Nationalism in India and its Socio-Religious Background, 1897–1917. Calcutta: General Publications, 1966. Majumdar, R.C. History of Modern Bengal: Part Two, 1905–1947. Calcutta: G. Bharadwaj, 1981. Mandal, Tirtha. The Women Revolutionaries of Bengal, 1905–1939. Calcutta: Minerva, 1991. Mody, Nawaz B., ed. Women in India’s Freedom Struggle. Mumbai: Allied Publishers, 2000. Mookerjee, Girija K. Subhas Chandra Bose. Government of India, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Publications Division, 1975. ———. This Europe. Calcutta: Saraswaty Library, 1950. Mookerjee, Nanda, ed. Vivekananda’s Influence on Subhas. Calcutta: Jayasree Prakashan, 1977. Muggeridge, Malcolm, ed. Ciano’s Diary, 1937–1943. London: William Heinemann, 1947. Mukherjee, Santana. Sister Nivedita in Search of Humanity: A Study in Social and Political Ideas. Calcutta: Minerva, 1997. Nair, Kusum. The Story of I.N.A. Bombay: Padma Publications, 1946. Nath, Shaileshwar. Terrorism in India. Delhi: National Publishing House, 1980. Neelakandha Aiyer, K.A. The Indian Problems in Malaya: A Brief Survey in Relation to Emigration. Kuala Lumpur: “The Indian” Office, 1938. Nehru, Jawaharlal. A Bunch of Old Letters. Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1960. O’ Flaherty, Wendy Doniger. Women, Androgynes, and Other Mythical Beasts. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980. Palta, K.R. My Adventures with the I.N.A. Lahore: Lion Press, 1946. Patil, V.S. Subhas Chandra Bose: His Contribution to Indian Nationalism. Bangalore: Sterling Publications, 1988.

12 RAJbiblio.indd

116

6/26/08

2:08:50 PM

Bibliography

117

Rakshit, Amitabha, translator. Remembrances and Recollections: A Selection of Tagore’s Writing. Calcutta: Papyrus, 2007. Ramasamy, Rajakrishnan. Caste Consciousness among Tamils in Malaya. Kuala Lumpur: Pelanduk Publications, 1984. ———. Plantation Labour, Unions, Captal and the State in Peninsular Malaya. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1994. ———. Sojourners to Citizens: Sri Lankan Tamils in Malaysia, 1885–1965. Kuala Lumpur: R. Rajakrishnan, 1988. Ray, Raka. Fields of Protest: Women’s Movements in India. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999. Ray, Sangeeta. En-Gendering India. Durham: Duke University Press, 2000. Rimmer, Peter J. and Lisa M. Allen. The Underside of Malaysian History: Pullers, Prostitutes, Plantation Workers. Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1990. Rizvi, S.A.D. and M.L. Bhargava. Freedom Struggle in Uttar Pradesh. Lucknow: Government Printing Office, 1959. Roy, Dilip Kumar. The Subhas I Knew. Bombay: Nalanda Publications, 1946. Safrani, Abid Hasan. The Men from Imphal: The Struggle in East Asia. Calcutta: Netaji Research Bureau, 1971. Saggi, P.D. Life and Work of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. Bombay: Overseas Publishing House, s.d. Saha, Panchanan. Madam Curie: Mother of Indian Revolution. Calcutta: Mahisha, 1975. Sahgal, Lakshmi. A Revolutionary Life: Memoirs of a Political Activist. New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1997. Sahgal, Lakshmi and Col. P.K. Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. New Delhi: Children’s Book Trust, 1993. Sandhu, Kernial Singh. Indians in Malaya: Some Aspects of their Immigration and Settlement. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969. Sandhu, K.S. and A. Mani, eds. Indian Communities in Southeast Asia. Singapore: Times Academic Press and Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1993. Sarkar, Tanika. Bengal, 1928–1934: The Politics of Protest. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1987. Sen Gupta, Bejon Kumar. India’s Man of Destiny. Calcutta, s.d. Sengupta, Padmini. Sarojini Naidu: A Biography. New York: Asia Publishing House, 1996. Sen Gupta, S.C. India Wrests Freedom. Calcutta: Sahitya Samsad, 1982. Seth, Amritlal. Jai-Hind: The Diary of a Rebel Daughter of India with the Rani of Jhansi Regiment. Bombay, Janmabhoomi Prakashan Mandir, 1945. Seth, Hira Lal. Personality and Political Ideals of Subhas Chandra Bose: Is He Fascist? Lahore: Hero Publishing, 1944. Stenson, Michael. Race and Communalism in West Malaysia. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1980. Sharma, Mallikarjuna. Role of Revolutionaries in the Freedom Struggle. Hyderabad: Marxist Study Forum, 1987.

12 RAJbiblio.indd

117

6/26/08

2:08:50 PM

118

Bibliography

Sivaram, M. The Road to Delhi. Tokyo and Rutland, VT: Charles Tuttle, 1967. Smyth, Sir John. The Rebellious Rani. London: Frederick Muller, 1966. Som, Reba. Subhas Chandra Bose and the Resolution of the Women’s Question. New Delhi: Centre for Women’s Development Studies, 2002. Thivy, John. The Struggle in East Asia. Calcutta: Netaji Research Bureau, 1971. Toye, Hugh. Subhas Chandra Bose, The Springing Tiger. Bombay: Jaico, 1959. Tripathi, Amales. The Extremist Challenge. New Delhi: Orient Longmans, 1967. Tuker, Lieutenant General Sir Francis. While Memory Serves. London: Cassell, 1950. Yadav, K.C. and Mrs Akiko Seki. Adventure into the Unknown: The Last Days of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. Gurgaon, Haryana: Hope India Publications, 1996.

Articles in Volumes Baccheta, Paola. “Hindu Nationalist Women as Ideologues: The ‘Sangha’, the ‘Samiti’, and their differential concepts of the Hindu Nation”, in Embodied Violence, Communalizing Women’s Sexuality in South Asia, edited by Kumari Jayawardena and Malathi de Alwis. London: Zed Books, 1996. Barlow, Colin. “Changes in the Economic Position of Workers on Rubber Estates and Small Holdings in Peninsular Malaysia, 1910–1985”, in The Underside of Malaysian History: Pullers, Prostitutes, Plantation Workers, edited by Peter J. Rimmer and Lisa M. Allen. Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1990. Das Gupta, Shashi Bhusan. “Evolution of Mother Worship in India”, in Great Women of India, edited by Swami Modhavananda and Ramesh Chandra Majumdar. Mayavata, Almora Himalayas: Advaita Ashrama, 1982. Forbes, Geraldine. “The Ideals of Indian Womanhood: Six Bengali Women during the Independence Movement”, in Bengal in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, edited by John R. McLane. East Lansing: Asian Studies Center, Michigan State University, 1975. ———. “The Politics of Respectability: Indian Women and the Indian National Congress”, in The Indian National Congress: Centenary Hindsights. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1988. Ganguly, Sumit. “Explaining India’s Transition to Democracy”, in Transitions to Democracy. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. Kim, Khoo Kay. “Malay Attitudes toward Indians”, in Indian Communities in Southeast Asia, edited by Sandhu, K.S. and A. Mani. Singapore: Times Academic Press and Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1993. Muzaffar, Chandra. “Political Marginalization in Malaysia”, in Indian Communities in Southeast Asia, edited by K.S. Sandhu and A. Mani. Singapore: Times Academic Press, 1993. Ramasamy, P. “Labour Control and Labour Resistance in the Plantations of Colonial Malaysia”, in Plantations, Proletarians and Peasants in Colonial Asia, edited by

12 RAJbiblio.indd

118

6/26/08

2:08:51 PM

Bibliography

119

E. Valentine Daniel, Henry Bernstein, and Tom Brass. London: Frank Cass, 1992. ———. “Socio-Economic Transformation of Malaysian Indian Plantation Workers”, in Indian Communities in Southeast Asia, edited by Sandhu, K.S. and A. Mani. Singapore: Times Academic Press and Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1993. Ray, Bharati, ed. “The Freedom Movement and Feminist Consciousness in Bengal, 1905–1929”, in From the Seams of History: Essays on Indian Women. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995.

Articles in Periodicals Bandyopadhyay, Sandip. “Women in the Bengal Revolutionary Movement, 1902– 1935”. Manushi, no. 65 (1991): 30–35. Bose, Krishna. “Important Women in Netaji’s Life”. Illustrated Weekly of India 93 (13 and 20 August 1972): 34–35. Chatterjee, Manini. “1930: Turning Point in the Participation of Women in the Freedom Struggle”. Social Scientist 29, no. 7/8 (2001): 39–47. Dutt, Anuradha. “The Fire Burns On”. Illustrated Weekly of India 107 (31 August 1986): 46–47. Forbes, Geraldine. “Goddesses or Rebels? The Women Revolutionaries of Bengal”. The Oracle II (1980): 1–14. ———. “Mothers and Sisters: Feminism and Nationalism in the Thought of Subhas Chandra Bose”. Asian Studies 2, no. 1 (1984): 23–32. Gupta, Amit Kumar. “Defying Death: Nationalist Revolutionism in India, 1897– 1938.” Social Scientist 25, no. 9/10 (September–October 1997): 3–27. Green, L.C. “The Indian National Army Trials”. The Modern Law Review 11, no. 1 (January 1948): 47–69. Hills, Carol and Daniel C. Silverman. “Nationalism and Feminism in Late Colonial India: The Rani of Jhansi Regiment, 1943–1945”. Modern Asian Studies 27, no. 4 (1993): 741–60. Isoda, Lieutenant General Saburo¯. “Netaji as I Knew Him”. The Oracle VIII, no. 1 (1986): 11–15. Kearney, Robert. “Identity, Life Mission, and the Political Career: Notes on the Early Life of Subhas Chandra Bose”. Political Psychology 4, no. 4 (1983): 617–36. Majumdar, Roshana. ““Self-Sacrifice” versus “Self-Interest”: A Non-Historicist Reading of the History of Women’s Rights in India”. Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East XXII, nos. l/2 (2992): 20–35. Mani, A. and Ramasamy, P. “Subhas Chandra Bose and the Indian National Army: A Southeast Asian Perspective”. Ritsumeikan Journal of Asia Pacific Studies, Vol 22 (April 2007): 1–10. Ray, Bharati. “Women of Bengal: Transformation in Ideas and Ideals, 1900–1947”. Social Scientist 19, no. 5/6 (1991): 3–23.

12 RAJbiblio.indd

119

6/26/08

2:08:51 PM

120

Bibliography

Sahgal, Lakshmi. “Presidential Address to the Convention of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment and Third All India History Seminar, Netaji Bhavan, Calcutta”. The Oracle II (1980). Southard, Barbara. “The Political Strategy of Aurobindo Ghosh: The Utilization of Hindu Religious Symbolism in the Problem of Political Mobilization in Bengal”. Modern Asian Studies 14, no. 3 (1980): 353–76.

Online Citation Interview with Lakshmi Sahgal .

Interviews Lakshmi Sahgal, Kanpur, India, 21–24 March 2007. Janaki Athi Nahappan, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 16 April 2007. Rasammah Bhupalan, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 17 April 2007, 12 December 2007. Manawati Arya, Kanpur, India, 24 March 2007. Aruna Chatterji, Kolkata, India, 4 April 2007. Lobanya Chatterji, Kolkata, India, 4 April 2007. Meenachi Perumal, Rawang, Selangor, Malaysia, 11 December 2007. Muniammah Rengasamy, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 14 December 2007. Ammaloo, rural Perak, Malaysia, 12 December 2007. Anjalai Ponnusamy, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 26 January 2008. Anjaly Suppiah in Penang, via phone, Malaysia, 27 January 2008. Ishwar Nahappan, Singapore, 9 January 2008.

12 RAJbiblio.indd

120

6/26/08

2:08:51 PM

INDEX

A Abid Hasan, 37, 40, 48, 85 Aditi, goddess, 15 Agra telegraphic link with Bombay, 8 All-India Congress Committee, 36 All-India Women’s Conference, 75 Alipore Bomb Case, 11 Amakutty, 75 Amba, 15 Ammaloo, xv, 65 Amritsar massacre, 34 Andaman, 50 Andrews, C.F., 25 Anglo-Chinese primary school, 81 Anjalai, xv Anjalai Ponnusamy, 66 Anjali, 63 Anjaly, xv Anjaly Suppiah, 67 anti-Japanese sentiment, 55 Anti-Slavery Society, England, 62 Anushilan, 20 break up with Sen, 23 contact with Ghosh, 22 founding of, 17 Arisue, 100 Army’s Intelligence School, 46

Arya, Manawati, xiii, 83, 88 Asad-ul Iqbal Latif, xv Atlee, Clement, 23, 109 Aung San, 54, 84 Aurobindo, 16 attraction to Sanjivani Sabha, 20 secret society, 11 writings of, 20 Aurobindo Ghosh, 10–11 Auroville, Pondicherry, in, 10 Ayer, 93 Ayer, S.A., 50 Azad Hind Bank, 82 Azad Hind Dal, 53, 105 Azad Hind Government, 95 Azad Hind Radio, 39 B Baji Rao II, 2 Bande Mataram, 10, 16, 21, 57, 71 Bangkok, 56 Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, novelist, 11 Bannerji, Surendra Nath, 33 Basanti Devi, 15 Ba Maw, 55, 84 Bangkok Conference, 76 121

13 RAJindexn.indd 121

7/30/08 11:22:43 AM

122

Bangkok Resolution, 47 Bawa (Major), 96 Baz, Jan, 64 Bengal partition of, 10 Bengal Ordinance (1924), 23 Bengal Provincial Congress Committee, 34 Bengal Volunteers, 22–23 Bengali nationalism, 10–19 Bengali poem, 11 women singing of, 20 Bengali revolutionaries, 17 Berlin Bose’s experience in, 39 Bose, reception of, 38 Besant, Annie, 11–12 Bethune College, 21, 23 Bhadralok, 10, 15 Bhairavi, 15 Bharat Mata, 14, 108 Bharati, 21 Bhattacharya, Gauri, 82, 105 positions held, 103–04 Bhonsle (Colonel), 48 Bhonsle (General), 92 Bhoumik, Shanti, 63 Bhupalan, Frank, 104 Bhupalan, Rasammah, xiii Bhupalan, Rasammah, 89, 102–03 Bidadari, 84 Bina Das, 9 Bipin Chandra Pal, 10–11 Black Hole of Calcutta, 37 Bombay telegraphic link with Agra, 8 Bombay High Court, 75 Bose, Josephine, 64 Bose, Krishna (Professor), 100

13 RAJindexn.indd 122

Index

Bose, Prabhabati president of Mahila Rashtriya Sangha, 24 Bose, Rash Behari, 18, 21, 39, 41, 47, 71, 76, 90 book by Manawati, 104 Bose, Sarat, 37 Bose, Sisir Kumar, 38, 100 Bose, Subhas Chandra, xii, 8, 26, 32–43 anger at Englishmen, 17 Berlin, fight to, 38 childhood, 42 exile in Berlin, 45 inspiring formation of Rani of Jhansi Regiment, 49 transfer to East Asia, 47 civil service examinations, 34 Europe, visits to, 37 Germany, in, 36 Gandhi, differences with, 36–37 imprisonment, 14 marriage to Schenkl, 35 Nehru, conflict with, 37 tuberculosis treatment, 36 Rome, reception in, 38 sedition, trial for, 38 upbringing, 33 Bose, Stella, 64 Bose, Sugata, xv, xvi Brahmo Marriage Act (1870), 13 Breen, Dan, 25 Burma Independence Army revolt, 55 British Indian Army, 1, 34, 56 Burma Rani of Jhansi Regiment’s deployment to, 88–98 Burma recruits, 82

7/30/08 11:22:43 AM

123

Index

C Calcutta Municipal Bill, 10 Calcutta University, Chancellor, 28 Cama, Bhikaiji Rustom, 21 Cathay Cinema Building, 71 Cathay Hall, 48 Central India Field Force, 6 Chalo Delhi, 48 Chamunda, 15 Chand Bibi, 16 Chandi, 15 Char Adhyaya, 29 Chatterjee, Bankim Chandra, 33 Charterji (Colonel), 89 Chatterji, 85 governor of Liberated Indian territories, 53 Chatterji, Aruna Ganguly, 90, 94, 104 see also Aruna Chatterji, Karuna, 90 Chatterji, Lobanya, 91 see also Lobanya Chatterji, Maya, 90 Chaudhuri, Suniti, 26 Chhattri Sangha, 23 Chittagong Raid, 22, 24, 27 Chin Hills, 52 Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPIM), 102 Congress Party, 109 Cousins, Margaret, 12 cow slaughter lifting of ban, 3 D dadas leadership of, 22 Dalhousie (Governor-General) policy of “lapse”, 2

13 RAJindexn.indd 123

Dandi sea at, 12 Das, Benimadhab, 27 inspiring daughters, 28 Das, Bina, 23, 25, 28 background, 27 firing at Governor Jackson, 29 organization of students’ strike, 23 Das, C.R., 1 relationship with Bose, 34–35 Das, C.S., imprisonment, 14 Das, Chittaranjan vice-president of Anushilan, 20 Das, Deshabandhu Chittaranjan, 17 Das, Kalyani, 23, 28 Defense of India Act (1915), 18 Davar, Janaki, 60, 76, 80, 84, 97 Davar, Rengasamy, 80 Death Railway, 83, 91 depression, 62 Devi, Basanti, 24, 34–35, 40 Devi, Sarala, 21, 29 Devi, Suhashini, 25 Dhaka University, 22 Dhillon, Gurbakhsh Singh, 54, 101, 107 Red Fort Trial, 102 Dunlop (Captain), 4 death of, 5 Durga, 15–16 Hindu diety, 2 Dutt, Kalpana, 9, 25–26, 29, 82 going underground, 28 Dyer, R.E.H., 14 E East India Company control of India, 1

7/30/08 11:22:44 AM

124

Index

Ellis (Major), 3 Enfield rifles, 2, 72 Erskine (Captain), 5

Gwalior battle at, 7 Gwalior Contingent, 7

F Farrer Park, 45 Fay, Peter, xiii First War of Independence, 1, 73 Fitzpatrick (Colonel), 44 Fort William, 3–4, 10 Free India Provisional Government, xiii, 67, 74 Fujiwara, Iwaichi, 44, 47, 55, 100

H Haka-Falam, 52 Harappa, 14 Hardinge (Viceroy), 39 Hayashida, 100 “head money”, 62 Hemchandra Kanungo, 17 Hindu dieties, 2 Home Rule League, 12 House of Commons, 62

G Gaddar movement, 14 Gandhi, Mohandas, 12 differences with Bose, 37 influence on independence, 109 Gandhi, Shakuntala, 82 German Foreign Ministry, 40 Germany, 36 Ghandhinathan (Captain), xvi Ghosh, Aurobindo, 33 Ghosh, Barindra Kumar, 21 Ghosh, Hemchandra, 22 Ghosh, Latika, 24 Ghosh, Shanti, 25–26 Gilani (Lieutenant Colonel), 47 Goebbels, 39 Goho, S.C., 46 Golden Jubilee Conference, xii Gopinath, Aruna, xvi Gordon, Leonard, xiii Government of India Act, 36 Grand Trunk Road, 8 Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, 44 Greater East Asia Conference, 50, 52

13 RAJindexn.indd 124

I immigrants characteristics of, 61 Imphal Campaign, 51 Imphal-Kohima Road, 53 INA Relief Committee, 102 Indian Association of Malaya, 46 Indian Chamber of Commerce, 46 Indian Government, ban on assisted immigration, 63 Indian Independence League, xiii, 41, 46 Indian Independence Army (INA) impact on post-war Malaya, 109–12 Indian Legion, 39 Indian National Army, xii, 41, 44–59 revitalization of, xiii Indian plantation workers, 63 Indian Republican Army (IRA), 23 Indira, 15 Indo-Burma border terrain, 52 Indo-Japanese War Cooperation Council, 51

7/30/08 11:22:44 AM

Index

Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, xii International Socialist Congress, 21 Irrawaddy River, 77 Isoda (General), 41, 51, 93, 100 Iwahuro Kikan, 46 Iwakuro, Hideo, 46 J Jackson, Stanley (Sir), 28 Jai Hind, 57, 66, 97 Jallianwallah Bagh, 14 Jallianwallah massacre, 81 Jan Baz unit, 95 Janaki Athi Nahappan, xv, xvi, 80, 85, 92, 94, 107 Kuala Lumpur, xiii marriage, 103 receipt of Padma Sri decoration, 103 second in command, xii strict disciplinarian, 93 jauhar, 24 jawans, 82 Jezebel of India, 6 Jhansi, 2 location, 4 Jitendranath Lahiri, 18 Jokhun Bagh massacre at, 5 Jugantar, 10, 17 contact with Ghosh, 22 revolutionary journal, 10 K Kabaw Valley, 53 Kalaw, 95 Kalayaniamma, 81 Kali: The Mother, 11 Kali, 15–16

13 RAJindexn.indd 125

125

Kalp battle at, 7 Kalpi formidable fort, 6 Kamala wife of Nehru, 14 Kaneko, Noboru (Captain), 47 kangani system, 62–63 Kanpur, 4 Karen Hills, 96 Kashiwal (Lieutenant Colonel), 84 Kasturba wife of Gandhi, 14 Katakura, 100 Kawabe (General), 51 Kesavapany (Ambassador), xii, xv Khaddar hand woven cotton, 12 Khan, Shah Nawaz, 45–46, 52, 54 see also Shah Nawaz Khazhagam, Dravida Munnetra, 111 Khosla Commission, 101 Kikan, Hikari, 49, 51 Klang, 63 Kohima, 52–53 Koonch battle at, 7 Krishna, 15 L Lahore, 21 Lahore Congress, 21 Lahore Conspiracy Case, 22 Lahore Student Union, 22 Lakshmi, 83, 85, 107 as candidate for presidency of India, 102 influence on Manawati, 89 views on Rani of Jhansi Regiment, 105

7/30/08 11:22:44 AM

126

Lakshmi (Hindu diety), 2 Lang, John, 3 lathi, 16 use of, 16 League Women, 77 Lebra study of Rani of Jhansi Regiment, 110 Lily, 83 injury sustained, 91 Lobanya life after war, 105 Loganadhan (Lieutenant Colonel A.D.), 84 Lucknow, 4 M Macaulay, 35 Maclagan Engineering College, 22 Madras Medical College, 75 Magistrate of Comilla shooting of, 26 Maharaja Gangadhar Rao Newalkar, 2 Maharashtran Chitpavan Brahmin Tilak, 11 Mahila Rashtriya Sangha, 24 Malaya impact of INA on, 109–12 rubber plantations, xiii Malayalam, 75 Malayalis, 56 Malayan Indian Congress (MIC), 111 Malayan rubber estates, 60–70 Malayan Teachers Association, 81 Malayan-Communist Party (MCP), 111 Manawati Arya, xiii, xv, 89, 92, 107

13 RAJindexn.indd 126

Index

concern over Lobanya, 91 life after war, 104 Manipur opportunity to combat in, 90 Manmohini Zutshi Sahgal, 11 Manu, 16 ancient lawgiver, 16 Maratha Peshwa, 2 martial races, 17 Masakazu Kawabe, 53 Maymyo, 83 Maymyo barracks, destruction of, 91 Meenachi Perumal, xv, 63–64, 95, 102 Meerut, 4 Mehta, Ramaben, 81, 105 Menon, K.P.K., 46, 75 Menon, P. Govinda, 75 Methodist Girls School, Penang, 103 Mitra, Kumudini, 21 Mitra, Pramatha Nath, 17 founding of Anushilan, 20 Mohenjodaro, 14 Mookerjee Commission, 101 Moropant Tambe, 2 Mount Popa, 55 Muniammah, xv, 65, 77 Muniammah, Aruna, 107 Mutaguchi, Renya (General), 51, 53, 74 N Nag, Lila, 22, 29 Nahappan, Janaki Athi, xiii, 102 see also Janaki Nahppan, Ishwar, xvi Naidu, Sarojini, 29, 80, 89 Nana Sahib, 2, 4, 8

7/30/08 11:22:44 AM

127

Index

National Service, 77 National Union of Plantation Workers (NUPW), 111 nationalism Bengali, 10–19 growth of, 1 Navarednam, Ponnammah, 80 Navarednam, Rasammah, 60, 76–77 Nawaz Begum Shah, 29 Nazi High Command, 39 Nehru, Jawaharlal, 21–22 conflict with Bose, 37 Nehru Brigade, 54 Netaji, 84, 94 book by Manawati, 104 death in plane crash, 99 key story of INA, 107 views on Manawati’s ideas, 89 Netaji Bhavan Convention of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment, 78 Netaji Collected Works, 32 Netaji Research Bureau, xii, xv, 32, 40, 100 Netaji Zindabad, 97 Nicobar Islands, 50 Nicholson, John, 6 North India, 1 O Oaten, 34 − Oshima (Ambassador), 39 Osman group, 46 P Padma Sri decoration receipt by Janaki, 103 Pahartali Railway Officers Club, 26 Pal, Bipin Chandra Pal, 16 attraction to Sanjivani Sabha, 20

13 RAJindexn.indd 127

Pal, Pratima, 105 Pal, Promita, 77 Palanisamy, Muthammal, 68 Pandita Ramabai, 11 Papathi, P., 76–77, 80 Partition of Bengal, 36 Peacock (Colonel), 96 plane crash death of Netaji, 99 policy of “lapse”, 2 Ponnammah, 76, 80 Ponnusamy, Anjalai, 66 see also Anjalai Prasad, Rajendra, 37 Presidency College, 33 Pritilata Waddedar, 9 Propaganda Section, 76 Q Queen Mary’s Women College, 75 Quit India movement, 18, 71 R Rai, Lala Lajpat, 11 Raghavan, N, directorship of Swaraj Insitute, 46 Rahman, Habibur, 99–100 Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, 11 Ramakrishna, 16 writings of, 20 Ramakrishna Mission, 46 Ramasamy, P. (Professor), xv importance of independence movement, 111 Rani of Jhansi Regiment, 53, 56, 71–87 creation, xiii deployment to Burma, 88–98 disbandment, 94 feminist echoes, 108

7/30/08 11:22:45 AM

128

impact on members, 108 marching song, 86 night marches, 91 opportunity to combat in Manipur, 90 part of Indian National Army, xii recruitment in Burma, 88 retreat of, 66 second in command, xvi volunteers from Malayan Rubber Estates, 60–70 Rani of Jhansi Regiment camp, 78 Rani Lakshmibai, 2, 16, 78 appeals to Dalhousie, 3 Jezebel of India, 6 lifestyle, 4 Rangoon, 56 Rao, B.K.N., 75 Rasammah Bhupalan, xiii, xv, 65, 80, 84, 107 Ravenshaw Collegiate School, 33 Red Fort trial, 55, 102 religious murder, 1 Renkoji Temple, 100 Rhani of Jhansi, see also Rani Lakshmibai Rolland, Roman influence on Kalpana Dutt, 25 Rome Bose’s reception in, 38 Rose, Hugh, (General Sir), 6 Rowlatt Act, 14, 18 hostility towards, 34 Roy, Anil, 22 Roy, Dilip, 42 Roy, M.N., 18 Roy, Neau, 82 Roy, Rammohan, 33 rubber plantations Malaya, xiii

13 RAJindexn.indd 128

Index

S Sahay, A.M., 50 Sahgal, Lakshmi (Dr), xii, xiii, xv, 72 see also Lakshmi Sahgal, Manmohini Zutshi, 22 Sahgal, Prem (Colonel), 46, 54–55, 101, 107 Red Fort Trial, 102 Sahib, Rao, 2, 6–7 Sangha, Dipali, 22 Sangha, Mahila Rashtriya, 24 Sangha, Sri, 22 Sanjivani Sabha, 20 Sarala Devi, 11 Sarasvati Hindu diety, 2 Sarda Bill, 12 Sarojini Naidu, 11–13 sati, 1 Sato¯, Kenryo¯ (General), 53 satyagraha, 12–13, 27, 108 Schenkl, Emilie, 35 Scindia (Maharaja), 7 Scottish Church College, 34 Sen, Keshab Chandra, 15, 33 Sen, Pratima, 81 Sen, Surya, 22–23 raid on Chittagong Armoury, 24 Sengupta, Laxmi, 81 Senthul district, Kuala Lumpur, 66 Sepoy Rebellion, 1 Shah Nawaz, 92, 107 investigation into Netaji’s death, 99 Red Fort Trial, 102 Shah Nawaz commission investigating Netaji’s death, 100 Shakti, 15 Shigemitsu, 41

7/30/08 11:22:45 AM

129

Index

Simon Commission report, 23 Singh, Amar, 44 Singh, Bhagat, 22 Singh, Mohan, 45, 49 house arrest, 50 Singh, Pritam, 44 Sinn Fein, 17 Sister Nivedita, 11–12, 20 membership in Anushilan, 21 Sita, 13 Sita syndrome, 105 Sittang River, 93 Sleeman, William, 16 social practices suppression of, 1 Sorabjee, Cornelia, 29 South India immigration from, 61 South Indian Tamils, 60 Southeast Asia Indian population, 67 Stella, 64 Stenson, Michael writings on INA camps, 110 Subhashini, 102 “sucked oranges”, 62 Suprabhat, 21 swadeshi, 13, 108 swadeshi campaign, 75 swadeshi movement, 12 Swaminadhan, Lakshmi, 22, 50, 60 Swaraj, 13, 24, 34 Swaraj Institute, 46 Swaraj Party, 35 T Tagore, Debendranath, 33 Tagore, Jyotindranath, 20 Tagore, Rabindranath, 10–11, 33

13 RAJindexn.indd 129

attraction to Sanjivani Sabha, 20 Tamil labourers, 61 Tamils, 56 Tamura (Colonel), 44 telegraphic link Bombay and Agra, 8 Terauchi (Count), 84 Terauchi (Field Marshall), 49 Thai-Rangoon railway, 83 Thangachiamma, 64 The Rubber Tappers Song, 68 Thevar, Manoranjitham, 82 Thivy, John, 72 thugi, 1, 16 Tiger of Malaya, 44 Tilak, 10 To¯jo¯ (Prime Minister), 41, 72 Tope, Tantia, 2, 6–7 Toye, Huge (Major), 97 U Uma, 15 Universities Bill, 10 University Officers’ Training Corps, 34 V Varanasi, 2 Vivekananda, 11, 16 impact on Bose, 33 writings of, 20 Volunteer Corps, see also Bengal Volunteers W Waddedar, Pritilata, 25–28 widow-burning, 1 Wingate, 53 Women’s India Association, 12

7/30/08 11:22:45 AM

130

Index

Y Yamamoto (Colonel), 39, 49 Yamuna River crossing at, 7 Yellappa, Sri, 72, 96–97 Young India, 77 Z Ziawadi, 95

13 RAJindexn.indd 130

7/30/08 11:22:45 AM

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Joyce Chapman Lebra received her B.A. and M.A. in Asian Studies from the University of Minnesota and her Ph.D. in Japanese History from Harvard/ Radcliffe. She is the first woman Ph.D. holder in Japanese History in the U.S. She was Professor of Japanese History and Indian History at the University of Colorado until her retirement. Professor Lebra received many awards, including an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from the University of Minnesota in 1996, two years Fulbright Fellowship in Japan and one and a half years Fulbright Fellowship in India. Other fellowships include a Japan Foundation fellowship, a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship, and fellowships from the American Association of University Women, Australian National University, and others. She is noted in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who of American Women, and Who’s Who in American Education. She has lectured widely at the University of Hawai’i, Oxford University, the London School of Economics, Tokyo University, Waseda University, Nagoya University, Hong Kong University, the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, the Netaji Research Bureau in Calcutta, Melbourne and Monash Universities, Macquarie University, Sydney University, Brisbane University, and Australian National University in Canberra. She delivered the Harmon Memorial Lecture at the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1991. Professor Lebra has authored twelve previous books, including two historical novels, Durga’s Sword and Sugar and Smoke. She led three research teams to Asia to research on women’s roles in the workforce, each of which resulted in a book: Woman in Changing Japan, Chinese Women in Southeast Asia, and Women and Work in India. Her other books include: Jungle Alliance: Japan and the Indian National Army, Japanese-trained Armies in Southeast Asia: Independence and Volunteer Forces in World War II, Okuma Shigenobu: Statesman of Meiji Japan, The Rani of Jhansi: A Study in Female Heroism in 131

14 RAJauthorn.indd 131

7/30/08 11:24:03 AM

132

About the Author

India, and Shaping Hawai’i: The Voices of Women. She also edited Japan’s Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere: Selected Readings and Documents. She has written chapters in three books and some fifty articles in scholarly journals. Professor Lebra’s website is at .

14 RAJauthorn.indd 132

7/30/08 11:24:04 AM