Indian National Army
Indian National Army (INA) A force recruited by Indian nationalists from Indian POWs, principally from the 55, 000-60, 000 captured by the Japanese in Malaya (see Malaya and Singapore campaign). About 25, 000 volunteered for the INA, some from ideological conviction, some from a feeling that British rule in Asia was doomed, but most probably from a justified fear of exposure to much worse conditions in Japanese labour camps (of the 40, 000 Indian POWs who did not join the INA 11, 000 died). The original force was formed by Capt Mohan Singh, a Sikh (see Sikh wars), but he soon became disillusioned by the Japanese attitude towards the INA and on 21 December 1942 ordered its dissolution. Singh was imprisoned and his place taken by a prominent Bengali nationalist politican, Subhas Chandra Bose, who had previously helped to raise an Indian force in Germany from Indian POWs taken in North Africa and known as the Indian Legion (eventually employed on occupation duties in south-west France where it disintegrated). Bose revived the INA whose numbers had sunk to about 8, 000 in early 1943, recruiting more POWs and many Indian civilians, and eventually two weak divisions were sent to Burma (see Burma campaign) to be employed chiefly on line of comunications duties, although the first INA division took part in the battle of Imphal, suffering heavy casualties especially from disease and starvation and from desertion. In 1945 INA morale collapsed: of 15, 500 INA troops in Burma 7, 000 were captured and 5, 000 surrendered or deserted. The military significance of the INA, which was intended to be a revolutionary force, was very small but its political significance was great. During the war the British authorities had endeavoured to cloak the circumstance that a number of Indian troops had gone over to the enemy but at the end of the war it was decided that the most serious offenders must be tried. Nationalist politicians hailed them as national heroes and the sentences were suspended and the trials abandoned. Today INA veterans are more honoured in the subcontinent than those who fought for the British during WW II.
