3
The Dawn of Freedom!
"MY INDIAN friends!" cried the Japanese army officer in his harsh guttural voice. "You are no more slaves. You are now independent and you must immediately start the Indian Independent League. Or else ..." And then a vicious grab at the hilt of the sword that dangled from his belt and a lot more of that fierce, ear-splitting rhetoric.
"Vare, vare, va . . ." roared on the speaker, as the lean impish, bespectacled young man, standing solemnly behind him, doled out in indifferent English, a translation of the momentous speech. "This is the time for the Indian people to spring up and fight for their independent. This is your golden opportunities. For we Japanese, with our mighty sword, are at your back ..."
All over Eastern Asia, from Shanghai down to Singapore and Batavia and from there up to Rangoon and Akyab, and everywhere in the island territories occupied by the Japanese forces, officers of the Japanese field intelligence addressed Indian gatherings and impressed upon them the urgent need to start what they called the "Indian Independent League." Meek crowds of Indians, coming out of their homes and hideouts after the restoration of peace in their districts, were naturally eager to know something of their future under Japanese auspices. Almost everyone attended these meetings, for word went around in advance that absentees would be classed as traitors to India and agents of the British enemy.
The technique was simple but effective. In Malaya, it was Pritam Singh and party who organized these mass meetings. Occasionally, they got one of the local Indian residents to address the rally. Then came resolutions thanking the Japanese forces, pledges of loyalty to the new regime, and expressions of the spontaneous desire of the people to organize the Indian Independent League. The entire procedure was carried out with seemingly widespread enthusiasm and unanimity of views. The result was nobody even ventured to suggest the modification of the name "Indian Independent League" to "Indian Independence League."
What happened in Burma on the trail of the Japanese advance was very much similar to the Malayan campaign. In Burma, however, the Japanese military operations took a longer period and many Indians managed to get out of the country. The initial phase of the organization of the Indian Independence League in Burma was, therefore, largely in the hands of the Japanese intelligence service, who devoted their spare time to this special assignment. The same plan of action was carried out in the other Japanese-occupied territories.
In Thailand, where the Japanese scored a lightning victory, however, the situation was slightly different. With Pritam Singh and his men away on the battlefronts, a rival organization which called itself the Indian National Council was set up in Bangkok immediately after the outbreak of the war.
Head of the Indian National Council in Thailand was one Swami Satyananda Puri, who had come to Bangkok sometime in 1930. The Swamiji was supposed to represent the Greater India Society of Calcutta and his mission was to study Thai language and culture. This he did with remarkable proficiency and published a number of books in the Thai language, including translations of Mahatma Gandhi's works. With the help of some Thai enthusiasts, he organized a Thai-Bharat Cultural Lodge in Bangkok. Very little was known about Satyananda Puri's political background, though it was rumored that he was known in India by a different name.
Satyananda Puri's Indian National Council enjoyed Japanese support and was promptly recognized by the Thai authorities as the official organization in charge of Indian residents and Indian interests in the country. The Swamiji, therefore, claimed that he had stepped in just where Sir Josiah Crosby (British Minister to Thailand) had left off. The Lodge functioned as a sort of unofficial wartime Indian Embassy in Thailand, though only for a few months.
The key figure in this unique movement that caught up so fast in Thailand and Malaya was Major Fujiwara, one of Ozeki's colleagues from the 8th Section, 2nd Bureau, of the Imperial General Staff. Tall and handsome, and with extremely refined manners, Fujiwara was liked by Indian army officers and educated civilians. He looked so different from the type of Japanese officers they saw at the head of the advancing forces. Fujiwara's assignment was to create disaffection and revolt among the British Indian army and to secure the support of Indian civilians in the occupied territories. He had laid his plans months before the war broke out.
Malaya proved a happy hunting ground for the Fujiwara clan. The Indian Army in Malaya was not all that the British politicians and military leaders expected it to be. Senior officers of the Indian Army, steeped in loyalty to Britain, were reliable enough. But there were large numbers of young officers who refused to allow the British Government to do the thinking for them. The rank and file of the Indian Army had numerous grievances against the British and they had serious doubts whether it was worth their while to fight and die for British imperialism. The result was that the British Indian Army in Malaya and elsewhere in Southeast Asia was susceptible to external propaganda. And the Japanese slogans were suitably sugar-coated.
The trend of the war also contributed to the success of the Japanese propaganda. The British were unable to put up a stand anywhere down the Peninsula. It was one long series of tactical retreats and strategic withdrawals. For men who did not have their heart in the fight, the chance of surrendering to an adversary who promised them good treatment, was more attractive than the task of running back several hundred miles or fighting a hazardous rear-guard action. Nevertheless, only about three thousand officers and men of the British Indian Army actually went over to the Japanese side in all that mad rush for life from Jitra to Singapore.
The Indian army in Malaya did not play the role of the super-nationalist warriors. The officers and men were far too smart to be taken in by Japanese propaganda. They acted in the same way as any other band of reasonable men under similar circumstances would have done. They were victims of a military debacle which they knew they were powerless to avert.
Strange were the experiences of Indians in Malaya and elsewhere in Southeast Asia as the Japanese forces fought their way into the former citadels of British power, to haul down the Union Jack and hoist the Hinomaru. Britons, Australians, and Dutchmen were marched off to prison camps, as they were enemy subjects. Hundreds of Chinese disappeared overnight because they believed that Chiang Kai-shek was waging a righteous war against Japanese militarism. But almost every Indian emerged unscathed from that crisis, regardless of his political views, associations, and activities before the flare-up.
At least for some months Indians received what might be called the most-favored-nation treatment in war-torn Southeast Asia. "Indo-ka?" grinned the Japanese soldier to any Indian he met on the street. It was a great favor to be grinned at by the conquering hero and the Indian naturally grinned back at the friendly soldier. Then followed a verbal effusion in Japanese from the soldier, inquiring after the health of Mahatma Gandhi and the progress of India's struggle for national freedom. The Indian, of course, understood nothing except the reference to Ganchi and that naturally made him grin wider still. The Japanese soldier, impressed by his success in winning friends and influencing people, usually concluded the procedure with a laborious attempt to say that Indians and Japanese were friends—"Indo-Nippon tomadachi-ne," pointing to the Indian to signify Indo, to himself touching his nose with the first finger of the right hand to indicate Nippon, and a hearty hugging of the poor fellow to illustrate the meaning of tomadachi (friend).
This code of behavior in fraternizing with Indians was strictly in accordance with the orders issued by the highest command of the Japanese Army. Its observance, however, was often cramped by the exultation of the Japanese soldiers over their military triumph.
Fujiwara's first "bag" in the Malayan military pageant was a young Indian officer named Captain Mohan Singh who joined the Japanese with a small unit of Indian troops somewhere in the vicinity of Jitra near the Thai-Malayan frontier. There were several versions of Mohan Singh's alliance with the Japanese. One report claimed that Fujiwara had established contact with him weeks before the war broke out. Another story was that Fujiwara concluded
