‘Subhas Chandra Bose and the Indian National Army awakened an unprecedented sense of national consciousness among both the Indian armed forces and masses.’ Evaluate.

Formation. The Indian National Army was first raised in 1942 from prisoners of war taken at Singapore, by Mohan Singh with Rash Behari Bose, and collapsed in a dispute over its status. Subhas Chandra Bose, who had founded the Forward Bloc in 1939, escaped from Calcutta in 1941, reached Berlin and travelled by submarine to Southeast Asia, took command in July 1943 and revived it. He proclaimed the Provisional Government of Azad Hind on 21 October 1943, raised the Rani of Jhansi Regiment under Lakshmi Swaminathan, and advanced with the Japanese to Imphal and Kohima in 1944, where the flag was raised at Moirang before the offensive collapsed.

Effect on the armed forces. This was the decisive effect. The Indian Army had been the ultimate guarantor of British rule, and its reliability had never been seriously in question. The INA broke that assumption. When three officers — Shah Nawaz Khan, Prem Kumar Sahgal and Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon, deliberately a Muslim, a Hindu and a Sikh — were tried at the Red Fort from November 1945, serving soldiers followed the case closely. Auchinleck advised that convictions could not be enforced without risking the loyalty of the army. The Royal Indian Navy mutiny of February 1946 confirmed the reading.

Effect on the masses. The trials produced nationwide agitation, with a defence committee including Bhulabhai Desai, Tej Bahadur Sapru, Nehru, Asaf Ali and K. N. Katju. The INA's genuinely composite character — its Azad Hind government recognised no communal distinction and used Hindustani as its language of command — made it a powerful symbol at the very moment communal politics was hardening.

The honest verdict. Militarily the INA failed; it never held Indian territory and depended on a defeated Japan. Its consciousness-raising, however, was real and consequential. Britain could rule India only through Indian soldiers and Indian officials, and after 1945 it could no longer be certain of either. In that precise sense the awakening was unprecedented.