Читать книгу Road to Delhi - M Sivaram - Страница 9

Foreword

DECEMBER 1941, in war-torn Malaya. The British forces were on the rout with the Japanese in hot pursuit, sweeping everything in their path.

Tied to a rubber tree in the jungle stood a young Indian officer of the defeated British Army. A few yards away stood a Japanese corporal, gun in hand.

"Austorarian-ka?" yelled the conquering corporal. He had mistaken the handsome Indian for an Australian.

The Indian officer had resigned himself to his fate. He knew there was no escape. In a flash, he fainted and would have collapsed on the ground. But he was secured fast against the rubber tree. And the helmet fell off his drooping head, revealing a tuft of long hair—one of the caste-marks of the orthodox Hindu.

Suddenly, the Japanese corporal became a changed man. With profuse apologies, he rushed to the Indian officer, released him from captivity, and overwhelmed him with goodwill and kindness.

India won the first round in the great war between rival imperialisms in Southeast Asia.

* * *

August, 1945. The war was over. The victorious Allied forces were busy restoring peace, enforcing law, order, and justice.

They arrested war criminals and set up war crimes tribunals everywhere. The British nabbed thousands of Indians in the re-occupied territories in Southeast Asia, launched endless investigations and interrogations, with threats of dire action against them.

Facing a military court-martial at the historic Red Fort in Delhi were three Indian officers of the wartime Indian National Army. Death stared them in the face.

But India rallied to the support of the men involved in that test case and the cause they represented. Eloquence at court, riots on the streets, protest meetings everywhere— the entire country took up the fight to vindicate the freedom fighters.

The result was staggering. From gallows to glory was the change for the Red Fort heroes and their comrades.

* * *

On August 15, 1947, two years after V-J Day, India proclaimed its independence. There was no doubt that Japan, then at the initial phase of its recovery from defeat and disaster, was indirectly responsible for hastening the freedom of India and other Asian nations from colonial domination.

It was the saga of the wartime Indian National Army, closely followed by a mutiny in the Indian Navy, that ultimately influenced Britain's decision to quit India. British statesmanship realized that, if the Indian armed forces could not be trusted to remain loyal to the Raj, it was better to go while the going was good.

The British Commander-in-Chief in India had estimated that he would need a minimum of a quarter million British officers and men to sustain British rule in the country after World War II. That clinched the issue. Britain decided to withdraw from India, though the legacy of partition, on the eve of Britain's exit, still plagues the sub-continent.

The independence of other Asian nations followed in quick succession. Burma became an independent sovereign republic in January, 1948. The United States, which had already agreed to grant the independence of the Philippines, fulfilled the pledge immediately after that. Indonesia proclaimed its freedom and resisted the restoration of Dutch colonial rule. French power withdrew from Indochina in 1954, after a bitter colonial war. Malaya became independent in 1957. With the establishment of Malaysia in 1963, Hongkong and Macao astride the Chinese mainland became the only specks of colonial territory in this part of the world.

* * *

The growing pains of freedom still afflict most of the newly-independent nations of Asia. A new brand of imperialism casts its shadow over southern and southeastern Asia. It has spread strife and conflict in Vietnam and Indonesia. It poses a threat to freedom, peace and security everywhere else.

But the face of Asia has changed beyond recognition in the last two decades. And Japan, in its triumphs and tears between the assault on Pearl Harbor and the surrender ceremony in Tokyo Bay, has made a significant contribution to this change.

Probably the most amazing feature of post-war Asia is the Japanese miracle itself, the rise of Japan from the ruins of war to what it is today—one of the most prosperous nations in the world and a major force for peace, freedom, stability, and a better life in all Asia.

Looking back at the fierce, bitter conflict that raged in the Pacific and Southeast Asia region between December, 1941 and August, 1945, the parade of Asian events since the conflagration looks like a classic in the "glory of the vanquished."

* * *

In the annals of India's struggle for national independence, the period between Pearl Harbor and V-J Day has been most eventful, inside and outside India. In this book, I have tried to deal with one phase of the campaign —the story of the wartime Indian Independence League, the Indian National Army and the Provisional Government of Free India—and its impact on Southeast Asia.

At least inside India, a strange legend grew out of the exploits of the wartime Indian National Army, under the leadership of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. After the sensational court-martial at the Red Fort in Delhi, this was a natural development, accelerated by the upsurge of nationalism. Now that the passions of the freedom struggle have subsided almost everywhere, it is time for a close, objective assessment of the hectic events which have considerably influenced the molding of post-war India and Southeast Asia.

* * *

This, therefore, is the simple, unvarnished story of a very significant phase of World War II in Asia. It is based on cold facts, many of them hitherto unrevealed, some perhaps unpalatable to the major participants. Besides the story of the Indian independence movement in East Asia, this book provides glimpses of wartime Japan and several Southeast Asian countries and introduces the reader to men and affairs in the entire region during the war years.

This book is based on official documents and other authoritative material, besides my own observations, impressions, and experiences in a chequered career as a fairly important member of the movement. Almost the entire text is compiled from a diary which I had kept during the war years, while I lived through the events described in this book. And, in the heat of the moment, I had spared no one associated with the movement, including myself.

Viewed against the fast pace of world events since 1945, this saga of the Indian independence movement in East Asia has probably become part of history. But this is the story of an incredibly complex "liberation war," set inside a major world war between rival power blocs. And it may perhaps strike a strangely refreshing note, amidst the confusing melody of the new-fangled "liberation" campaigns that seek to enslave the free nations of Asia and Africa.

New Delhi, India

M. Sivaram