HOW TRANSPARENT!

Eventually we did reach Delhi - our destination - not as free persons but as prisoners. We were vanquished and the British were the victor. Dungeons of the Red Fort were our abode. Our trial was held from 5th November to 31st December 1945. The autumn of that year was one of the gloomiest the Indian nation ever had. The people did not light their homes on Diwali - The Festival of lights. The charge against us was of waging war against the King and of murder and abetment of murder. The trial was held in the dormitory of a British Barrack on the Red Fort of Delhi. According to the law death appeared to be the just punishment for us. The British Government were determined to set an example, so as to teach the Indian soldier a lesson never to dare to take up arms against the King. They had not won the World War to liquidate the British Empire. But for us it was the last chance to pay the price of India\\'s liberty.

During the War the British had succeeded in keeping the INA actions and even the name of the Indian National Army a well guarded secret. They could not keep that secret anymore. Soldiers coming home after the War had gone through a complete psychological revolution when the brother did shed brother\\'s blood on either side in the battle-field on lands abroad. The Indian soldier had seen the INA fight against the British guns with rifles, and tanks with bullock carts and the aircrafts with empty stomachs in tattered uniforms. As if that was not enough, the British victorious officers and men in towns of Singapore, Malaya, Thailand and Burma, were greeted with "JAI HIND" by boys and girls of Balak Sena. Greetings of "JAI HIND" meaning "Victory to India" made soldiers of Indian Army pause and ponder as to what did they fight for? For their bread or for the British? Thus when we, the soldiers of the INA., were prisoners behind the gates of carious jails and detention camps tiny tots of Netaji\\'s Balak Sena were still in the field shouting JAI HIND. The British had no weapon which could be used against the Balak Sena.

Under those circumstances the British Government\\'s decision to put on trial three INA officers - a Muslim, a Hindu and a Sikh, was a blunder. The Indian public were yet in the dark about us and our actions. Actions which were noble, nationalist, according to civilized rules of International war, and for the liberation of our motherland. The British were determined to teach us a lesson and we were determined with unity and faith to sacrifice our life to pay the price for India\\'s liberty. In a situation like that no enemy could ever favour her arch-enemies by providing such a grand (nor a better) stage than the historic Red Fort of Delhi. We were further favoured by our own people who united as a man to defend us during the trial. Tallest of the tall legal luminaries of India got together with Shri Bhulabhai Desai as their chief Counsel to defend the accused officers of the INA. In his historic address Mr. Desai explained, that it was the right of a subject race to wage war for their liberty. Desai\\'s address awakened the whole nation.

How apply the British Commander in chief in India, General Sir Claud Auchinleck, who had spent all his life in the Indian Army and known the soldiers\\' mind well, did assess the situation then prevailing is apparent through his letter to Army Commanders dated 12th February, 1946. The letter is marked STRICTLY PERSONAL AND SECRET: NOT TO BE PASSED THROUGH ANY OFFICE.

It is a long letter in which Sir Auchinleck labored hard to explain to his Army Commanders the effect of the action taken in respect of the first INA trial on the Indian Army as a whole. I quote just an excerpt form his letter (Published by Her Majesty\\'s Stationary Office, in The Transfer of Power - 1942-47, Volume VI, Pp 939-946)

It is most important that we should study and analyse carefully these effects, as they may influence very greatly our ability, to maintain the solidarity and reliability of the Indian Army in the difficult times which undoubtedly lie ahead of us. It is for this reason that I am writing this letter to you. I have considered the desirability of making a personal public statement in explanation of my action in commuting the sentences of transportation passed by the Court on the first three accused, but I have decided that this would not be in the best of interest of discipline of the maintenance of my influence and authority as Commander-in-Chief.

I feel however, that we should do all we can to remove the feelings of doubt, resentment and even disgust which appear to exist in the minds of quite a number of British Officers, who have not the knowledge or the imagination to be able to view the situation as a whole, or to understand present state of feeling in India.

As I see it, the communication of the sentences of transportation on Shah Nawaz, Dhillon and Sehgal has had the following effects in India:

(a) On the general public, moderate as well as extremist, Muslim as well Hindu. Pleasure and intense relief born of the conviction that confirmation of the Sentences would have resulted in violent internal effect.

(b) This feeling does not, in my opinion, spring universally from the idea that the convicted officers were trying to rid India of the British and therefore, to be applauded, whatever crimes they might commit, but from a generally genuine feeling that they were patriots and nationalists and that, therefore, even if they were misled they should be treated with clemency, as true sons of India. In this connection, it should be remembered, I think, that every Indian worthy of the name today a "Nationalist", though this does not mean that he is necessarily "anti-British." All the same, where India and her independence is concerned, there are no "Pro-British Indians."

Netaji\\'s contributions in the making of India are unique. What to talk of INA, Netaji inspired not only the Indians as a whole, but also the nationals of those countries who where still not independent. The actions of the Royal Indian Navy and certain personnel of all the three Military Services at Bombay, Karachi and other places in the name of Netaji were like the last straw which broke the back of the mighty British Colonial Empire on whom the Sun never used to set. According to Netaji\\'s oft-repeated words, "India shall be free and before long", we did attain freedom of which we are celebrating the Golden Jubilee today along with Netaji along with Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose\\'s Birthday when he completes a century and enters the new one.

I wish Netaji was here today to see us free. He was the only leader who could keep India united. But when the partition of the subcontinent is an established fact, let us wish all the offsprings of Hindustan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, happiness, peace, plenty and glory.

Jai Hind!

Netaji Zindabad!

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