a deal with Mohan Singh after taking him to the field headquarters as a war prisoner. Mohan Singh's own story was that he never intended to fight for the British and was glad to go over to the Japanese side at the first opportunity that presented itself.
Small of stature for the traditional Sikh warrior, Mohan Singh was a man of sharp features, with a pair of magnetic eyes which blazed with fanatic enthusiasm. He was one of the brightest among the young Indian officers from the Military Academy at Dehra Dun and a favorite among his senior officers. He was well under thirty when he created history in the role of the first Indian officer of the British Army to join hands with Japan and launched out on a career which, he probably hoped, would eventually install him as military dictator of India.
Certain features of the war in Malaya, as well as other military events in Southeast Asia, reacted most favorably for Japan's political campaign. In a few brief months after December, 1941, the Japanese were able to claim that they had exploded the myth of Anglo-American power. They had also dissipated the fear of the white man's superiority in the minds of fellow-Asians under colonial domination. Japan's initial triumph was so sweeping, so remarkable, that it left the world gasping. The performance of the British forces in Malaya and Burma, and that of the Dutch in the East Indies, was so poor and in such striking contrast with the promise they had held out, that a good many people lost all confidence in their former rulers.
Indians, in general, shared this disgust and disappointment. Apart from the feeling that Britain had left them in the lurch, Indians in Southeast Asia were also influenced by the anti-British tension in the home country and the natural dislike of a subject nation for its overlords. There was something fascinating in the thought that, after all, it was a merciful providence that taught Britain a lesson for its reluctance to give a fair deal to India and other subject nations.
Well over 90 per cent of the two million Indians in East Asia found themselves stranded in the various Japanese-occupied territories. About 800,000 Indians got stuck in Malaya, most of them deprived of their jobs and all cut off from their families. In Burma, where the military operations lasted until April, the British Government was able to arrange the evacuation of many people, particularly officials and their families. Thousands tried to get across to India by the land route but a large proportion of them perished on the way. Still, there were nearly one million Indians left behind in Japanese-occupied Burma. From other territories in East Asia, very few Indians were able to get back home after the outbreak of the war.
Indians abroad enjoyed a higher standard of living than in the home country but the stigma of being a subject race followed them everywhere. Indians went abroad mainly as laborers and traders. In neither category, were they treated on a par with other nationalities in any country and, in most places, they faced distinct disabilities. This was particularly the case with educated and professional men. Nevertheless, dire necessity and grim perseverance helped these overseas Indians to combat all sorts of restrictions, fight all sorts of competitions, and to endure all sorts of hardships and privations in an effort to establish themselves in the lands to which they had migrated.
Thus, in many parts of Southeast Asia, particularly Malaya, Burma, and other British colonies, Indian pioneers had done well as laborers and traders. They were later joined by men of other categories—scores of lawyers and doctors, thousands of clerks, technicians, and skilled workers.
Politically, however, Indians were a non-entity in Southeast Asia. In the British colonies and protectorates, they had just the same status as in India under British rule, occasionally with minor variations of an unfavorable nature. In the non-British territories, Indians were merely British subjects. As people who went abroad, essentially to earn a living, Indians in East Asia were not highly active, politically. They followed, with keen interest, the political developments in India but the peculiar circumstances in which they were thrown, and the toils of livelihood and business, did not enable them to live a full life, politically, as in the home country. Among the larger Indian communities, resident in Malaya and Burma, the most vital aspect of Indian "political activity" was the struggle for minor concessions such as higher wages for labor and some sort of representation in public organizations and government services. Nevertheless, political awakening was considerable among Indians in Burma, Malaya, and Thailand, as a result of visits by Jawaharlal Nehru and other Indian nationalist leaders.
This political consciousness among Indians in Southeast Asia, influenced largely by the Indian National Congress and its leaders, precluded any sympathy for Japan, Germany, and other militarist powers. Recognized leaders of the Indian community in Malaya were slow to identify themselves with the Japanese-sponsored Indian Independence movement. They were still undecided when the British commander-in-chief finally signed the unconditional surrender of Singapore and Japan's Prime Minister, General Hideki Tojo, followed up that fateful event with his first message to India and Indians. Tojo said: "It is a golden opportunity for India to rid herself of the ruthless despotism of the British and participate in the construction of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere."
That was on February 16, 1942. In March, when the late Sir Stafford Cripps was in India as an emissary of Prime Minister Winston Churchill to attempt a settlement of the Indian political deadlock, Tojo declared: "If the leaders of India, misled by British cajolery, betray the long-cherished aspirations of the Indian people, I believe there will be no chance for saving India forever ..."
A month later, in April, following the fall of Rangoon and the Japanese occupation of the Andaman and Nicobar islands in the Bay of Bengal, Tojo virtually threatened India with the possibility of a Japanese invasion. He said : "British influence in India is now about to be exterminated. It is farthest from the thought of Japan to consider the Indian people as enemies but Japan deeply sympathizes with them, as they are likely to suffer the ravages of war. If India should remain under the military control of Britain, it would, I am afraid, be unavoidable that, in the course of our subjugation of the British forces there, India will suffer great calamities. . . ."
Tojo's thunder set the world thinking. His warning that India will suffer "great calamities" resounded in the ears of every Indian in Southeast Asia. That set many people to think of the so-called Indian Independent Movement with more than passing interest. And preparations were already in full swing for the first conference of Indian leaders in East Asia to reorganize and consolidate the movement on a popular basis.
It was springtime in Japan. The Land of the Rising Sun basked in the finest spate of sunshine since the Sun Goddess descended on the islands. Tokyo, the great metropolis of Japan's vast empire in the making, was bright and gay as the Mikado's armed forces piled up brilliant victories in the Pacific and Southeast Asia. But all this gaiety somehow eluded the Sanno Hotel, in Akasaka, where the Indian Independence Conference was held.
A military plane, carrying some Japanese officers and four Indian delegates, had crashed somewhere on the shores of Japan on the last lap of the flight from Singapore to Tokyo. There were no survivors. The Indian obituary list comprised Giani Pritam Singh, who had been active on the battlefronts in Malaya; Swami Satyananda Puri of the Indian National Council in Thailand; Captain Akram Khan, formerly of the British Army, who had joined the Japanese in the beginning of the Malayan campaign; and Mr. K. A. Neelakanta Iyer, of Kuala Lumpur, well-known for his services to the Indian community as Honorary Secretary of the Central Indian Association of Malaya. The first function of the Tokyo conference, therefore, was to pay homage to "the brave souls of the patriots who died in the service of their Motherland."
Fujiwara, being a specialist in his chosen profession, managed to send out to Tokyo some of the leading figures among the Indian community in Malaya. Among them were Mr. N. Raghavan, a Penang lawyer, who was President of the Central Indian Association of Malaya; Mr. K. P. Kesava Menon, veteran Indian nationalist and advocate of the Supreme Court in Singapore; and Mr. S. C. Goho, another Singapore lawyer who was President of the Youth League, the Indian Passive Defense Corps and other organizations.
Representing the Indian Army in Malaya, in addition to Captain Mohan Singh, was
