into his own. It seemed the Indian, hitherto a fourth-rater among foreigners in any country, had become equal to the best among first-raters!
As the Japanese Army smashed its way down the Malay Peninsula, the status and prestige of the Indian population went up steadily. Indian troops laid down arms and, in many sectors, actively joined the Japanese in the campaign against the British. Indian communities welcomed the Japanese troops, particularly when they felt sure that it was the best method of ensuring their safety. Indian laborers helped the Japanese army engineering corps in the work of repair and reconstruction. It looked as if Indians were granted a special lease of freedom and respectful consideration in Southeast Asia which was being mauled by the Japanese juggernaut.
All along the bloody trail of the advancing Japanese forces down the Malay Peninsula, the Sikh soldier's soiled turban, the Tamil coolie's dirty dhoti and the dark-brownish face of the kerala krani (white-collar worker) became objects of special consideration, while a sari, hung up along the veranda for drying in the sun, suddenly blazoned safety for any household.
All this miracle was the work of the mystery men on Kudan Hills. They had already interested themselves in the Indian problem. Until December 8, the Japanese had worked with the help of a few ordinary agents and their main activity was among the Indian troops in Malaya. The Japanese dropped a variety of leaflets behind the British lines, appealing to the Indian troops to shoot down the British officers and surrender to the Japanese. They also used a few Indian agents to address the Indian troops over the field microphones, urging them not to fight and die for the British.
This party of Indian agents of the Japanese was headed by Pritam Singh, who was once a teacher at the Sikh temple in Bangkok. Giani Pritam Singh, as he was called, had a band of dare-devils who braved the hazards of the battlefronts in Malaya in the bid to win the Indian Army for the Japanese. They claimed they were doing propaganda and were proud of their achievement. Many of them did not know precisely what they were doing, though they claimed they were engaged in revolutionary work which made them rich and powerful.
After Japan had let loose the maelstrom, the Kudan Hills tacticians got down to the business of tackling the Indian problem on more respectable lines. On December 9, the day after the war broke out, the late Rash Behari Bose received a telephone call from the 8th section, 2nd Bureau of the Imperial General Staff. The man who spoke for the General Staff was Major Ozeki, one of the brightest among Doihara's disciples. Rash Behari Bose was invited to the Imperial General Staff to discuss certain important matters connected with organizing Indians in East Asia in the light of Japan's war policy.
Rash Behari was a self-exiled Indian, resident in Tokyo. During the early years of the 20th Century, he was a terror to the British authorities in India. He was an active member of the Lahore, Delhi, and Benares conspiracies for the overthrow of British rule and had the distinction of having thrown a crude bomb at Lord Hardinge, then Viceroy of India. He played hide-and-seek with the British police and secret service for a long time before he managed to escape from India. Rash Behari sought refuge in Japan and nobody was able to claim the reward of Rs. 5,000 that was offered for his head by the British Government of India.
During World War I, the Japanese Government treated Rash Behari Bose in an entirely different manner, because Japan at that time was Britain's ally. The British authorities persuaded the Japanese Government to issue an order of extradition against him but Rash Behari secured the protection of the Black Dragon Society of Japan and its leader, the late Mitsuru Toyama, who arranged to send him "underground" at the residence of one of his followers. Later, Rash Behari became a Japanese subject, married the daughter of the man who gave him asylum and settled down in Tokyo, partly attending to a business he started in partnership with his father-in-law, but devoting a great deal of his time to what little anti-British and Indian nationalist activity he could organize and get away with in Japan between the two world wars.
During World War I, Japan was not actively interested in India and the Indian problem, but the Rash Behari episode was not left unnoticed by the men who had envisaged Japan's expansion to the Asian mainland and the South Seas. Thus, while the Tokyo Foreign Office kept up the pretense of the Anglo-Japanese alliance, the 8th Section, 2nd Bureau of the Imperial General Staff, and its innumerable subsidiaries secretly interested themselves in all sorts of people who might some day be of help in the fulfillment of Japan's expansionist program.
There was in Tokyo, at that time, another Indian revolutionary who had played a daring role during World War I. This man, Raja Mahendra Pratap, sought Germany's help to fight the British forces in India and even established an exile National Government of India in Kabul, with the support of Afghanistan's King Amanullah. After Germany's defeat and the overthrow of the Amanullah regime, Raja Mahendra Pratap became an Afghan subject and wandered over half the world to find that no country, except Japan, would give him asylum. In Tokyo, this princely patriot from India found Japanese admirers who helped him carry on with his lecture tours and financed his unique publication—a monthly sheet which advocated the formation of a World State, with India (not Japan) as its center. Probably because of this fancy for India, Raja Mahendra Pratap did not meet the specifications of the 8th Section, 2nd Bureau.
Thirty years in Japan had made Rash Behari Bose a thorough-going Japanese. He spoke Japanese with an ease and dignity that amazed most Japanese and was also able to read and write the language well. Besides, he had dabbled a lot in Japan's turbulent politics of those days and was acquainted with the subtle mysteries of the Japanese political movements. The hot blood of the Indian revolutionary still coursed in his veins and, though political necessity forced him to assume Japanese citizenship, he remained in Indian at heart. He liked Japan and things Japanese and, in spite of his political realism, he believed that it was possible to strike a reconciliation between Japan's military projects and India's political salvation.
The conference between Rash Behari Bose and Major Ozeki was brief and formal. Ozeki outlined the significance of the Greater East Asia War, pointing out that Japan was not treating Indians as enemy subjects. Indians in East Asia, he said, should organize themselves, contributing their share to the victory of Japan and carrying on any activity they cared to launch in the interests of India's independence.
Major Ozeki's proposition was full of possibilities and Rash Behari's old revolutionary spirit grasped them instantly. In Japan's declaration of war on Britain, he saw India's opportunity to get foreign help to drive out the British. The way the war seemed to be progressing, in favor of Japan, was particularly encouraging. When the Japanese completed the conquest of Burma, they would be knocking at the eastern frontiers of India and military necessity might compel them to march into India. After all those long years, it seemed that the dream of Rash Behari's life was about to be fulfilled.
Against these bright prospects, however, Rash Behari did not quite like the casual manner in which the Japanese authorities were tackling so vast and vital a project as the independence of India. He knew the 8th Section, 2nd Bureau of the Imperial General Staff and the nature and scope of its activities and he thought that the problem of Indian independence should have been taken up at a different level. Other doubts also crossed his mind as he bowed out of the Kudan Hills offices.
Rash Behari was asked to organize the large Indian population in East Asia, with whom he did not have any contact whatever for years. He was, however, well aware of the general attitude of India and Indians towards Japan's political ideals. He knew he would need a great deal of effort and energy to bring them around to Japan's point of view. Besides, there was the much more vital problem of the reaction inside India to any movement launched by Indians in East Asia under Japan's auspices. And Rash Behari Bose was one of those modest men who did not aspire to enforce his political doctrines on India's millions, even with Japan's war machine to support him.
Nevertheless, Rash Behari accepted the assignment. He was an optimist by nature and, in any case, he could not turn down the Imperial General Staff's proposition. He knew the meaning of "Boryaku"—though he never liked it.
