Road to Delhi. M. Sivaram
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 Lt. Colonel N. S. Gill who had joined the movement after the surrender of Singapore. Gill was a staff officer attached to the British Northern Command in Malaya and had retreated all the way down the Peninsula. His sudden switch-over to the Japanese camp seemed strange. He belonged to the arch-pro-British family of Sir Sunder Singh Majeethia of the Punjab which had provided five ADC's (aides-de-camp) to five successive British Commanders-in-Chief in India.
There were a few others from Hongkong, Shanghai, and other places. Burma and the Philippines were unable to send delegates as the "pacification" campaign in those countries was not yet complete.
The central figure at the Tokyo conference was Rash Behari Bose but whatever was achieved by the conference was due to the tireless efforts of one Mr. A. M. Nair. Nair-san, as he was called by everyone, was one of the most remarkable characters associated with the movement. He was the man behind Rash Behari Bose—and the man whom the Kudan Hills men sought to use as their "front".
As a youth of 20, Nair-san had come to Japan from his home in Trivandrum, in South India, to study civil engineering and graduated from Kyoto University some years later. But, instead of returning home to his engineering pursuits, he took to Japanese politics and became acquainted with veterans of the Black Dragon Society and other elements that advocated drastic action by Japan to crush Anglo-American influence and power on the Chinese mainland and elsewhere in Asia. For a time, Nair-san went about in Japan as a Ronin—the peculiar species of Japanese politician who professed no worldly ambition, who always remained poor and yet capable of raising enormous funds, who never sought office and yet commanded tremendous influence in the country, whose claim was that they never hurt anybody, though they would readily stoop to murder and arson in implementing their political projects.
From the Ronin's role, Nair-san switched over to some sort of undefined "political work"—in China, Manchuria, Mongolia, and Tibet. A man of dynamic energy, he had all sorts of adventures in the course of his unique assignment and had played many parts, ranging from camel dealer to Living Buddha. Prince Teh of Mongolia owed his contact with the Japanese to Nair and it was through him that the Japanese established liaison with many Chinese politicians. Officially, he was designated "Liaison Officer" at the conference headquarters but the delegates found him to be something of a mystery man, with a great deal of unseen power and influence.
The Japanese proposition was that Indians in East Asia should be organized as members of the Indian Independence League, which would devise and direct activities calculated to promote the cause of India's freedom, in collaboration with the Japanese Government and armed forces. There was agreement, in principle, but the men from Malaya, all lawyers, seemed eager to maintain democratic forms and suggested that such a vital decision should be taken at a really representative gathering of Indians in the region and with some specific understanding of the Japanese plans. They also submitted that it was highly important to regulate their activities on the general lines of policy followed by the leaders of Indian nationalism at home. They stressed that whatever they did in Southeast Asia should not conflict with the larger struggle inside India and the general policy of the Congress Party.
The Japanese Army officers, who conferred with the Indian delegates, recognized the difficulties confronting the overseas Indians. Democratic procedure, they agreed, was ideal but it would only lead to a lot of profitless talk and was, in any case, rather impracticable in wartime. Finally, the conference adopted a resolution to organize the Indian Independence League,