Military history records the fighting at Nyaung U, Irrawaddy as in the words of Slim himself, “the longest opposed river crossing of World War 2”. Dhillon and his men, despite being hugely outnumbered, with no air cover or artillery, held their ground from February 4th to February 11th, 1945.
Mt. Popa (Photo on left) is in the heart of Myanmar (old Burma). It is like a largish pimple on an otherwise smooth cheek. It is the only hill, steep from all sides in an otherwise flat terrain. It is now an extinct volcano.
My wife and I arrive at Mt. Popa from Yangon (Rangoon) after an interesting plane ride on a rickety old aircraft to Nyaung U, the airport of the ancient capital city of Bagan (two Photos as below) the city of the four thousand Pagodas). We then take a taxi (non A/C) ride over a terribly bumpy road partially running alongside a massive pipeline being laid by the Chinese to transport oil from the Myanmar coast to South China.
Bagan
We are not at Mt. Popa as the regular tourist or as pilgrims to the holy sites around. We do however go and seek blessings from the deity (Photo as below) at the base of the mountain. The deity is much like some in India – it seeks offerings only in the form of liquor.
Deity at Mt Popa
The blessings we seek, hopefully will enable us to find an elusive little place called LEGYI. It is in the region nearby but sadly is not marked on a map. The tourist office in Yangon do not know about it. I, fortunately, had some idea about its whereabouts gleaned from the records of my late Uncle (Col. Prem Sahgal) and late Aunt (Capt. Lakshmi Sahgal) of the INA – Indian National Army (Azad Hind Fauj). Their home in Kanpur was called ‘Legyi House’.
We drive on from Mt. Popa on a small road in the general direction of the Irrawaddy River and Mandalay. Our guide makes the driver stop every few kilometres to ask about Legyi but in vain. Finally at the crossroads of a small village the guide talks to a little old lady. Amazingly the old lady (Photo on the left) knows where the place is. It is right next to her ancestral home. It is the place, as the old lady said, ‘where this great battle took place many years ago’. She asks where we are from. On being told that we are from India she castigates us. The Japanese come regularly bearing the favourite foods and music of their soldier ancestors but no Indians. Apparently we are the first Indians there after the ‘big battle’ in February 1945!
Legyi (Photos as below) is the small knoll of a battleground where one of the battalions of INA’s 2nd Infantry Regiment (under the command of Col. Prem Sahgal) troops valiantly held their ground for days against repeated attacks by formations of the overwhelming might of (then) General Slim’s massive 14th Army. With no Air Force cover or artillery, and with an almost non – existent supply line, they should have been easily wiped out in a matter of hours. Yet they held ground for over a week. They fought valiantly and inflicted huge casualties, largely with the use of guerrilla tactics making Legyi arguably the INA’s most successful battle action.
Author at Legyi
Just before the ferocious fighting took place at Legyi, some 50 kilometers north east, just beyond modern day Nyaung U airport, another notable encounter took place. Two battalions of the INA were tasked to delay and frustrate the imminent attempt by Gen. Messervy’s 7th Indian Division, part of Slim’s 14th Army, to make the crossing of the Irrawaddy River. With 1200 men these battalions, under the Command of Col. Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon, had the daunting task of stalling to the absolute limit the crossing of the river by some 30,000 troops amassed on the river’s western bank. Military history records the fighting at Nyaung U, Irrawaddy as in the words of Slim himself, “the longest opposed river crossing of World War 2”. Dhillon and his men, despite being hugely outnumbered, with no air cover or artillery, held their ground from February 4th to February 11th, 1945.
Lest it be forgotten the INA, starting from Farrer Park Race Course in Singapore went all the way up and crossed the Indian border fighting to plant the National Flag at Imphal, much as the British tried to deride this valiant army.
When we, on our visit, reached the eastern bank of the Irrawaddy at Nyaung U (Photo on left) from Legyi we could visualise what a herculean task Dhillon and his men had performed. The river there is enormous in width. It is rapid flowing, almost torrential. The massive Brahmaputra at Guwahati is not even half that. How did the small force manage to fight back all the frontal and outflanking assaults?
The INA actions at Legyi and Nyaung U are perhaps the best examples of what a truly secular force comprising Hindu, Muslim, Sikhs, Christians, the lot under the command of Indian officers can achieve when they fight for the cause of the country – in this case, Independence. Lest it be forgotten the INA, starting from Farrer Park Race Course in Singapore went all the way up and crossed the Indian border fighting to plant the National Flag at Imphal, much as the British tried to deride this valiant army.
Let us recall, it was on February 17, 1942, that the Indian officers and men of Lt General Arthur Percival’s army in the then Malaya marched into Farrer Park Stadium under the command of the senior most Indian officer, Col Zaman Kiani. There were no British officers and men with them. Gen Percival and his army had ceded Singapore to the conquering Japanese two days earlier. The British officers decided that they would surrender separately at Changi. The Indians troops were ordered to surrender by themselves at Farrer Park, pretty much abandoned to their own fate by their British colleagues. After their surrender, they were separately incarcerated at Neesoon Camp in Seletar. Peter Ward Fay writes in The Forgotten Army: India’s Armed Struggle for Independence: “Much later, in the chorus of anger and embarrassment that rose among Englishmen on the subject of the INA, no one was heard to suggest that Percival should have refused to let himself and his colleagues be separated from their brothers in arms, the Indian officers.” This was to be a crucial factor in what ensued.
For their valiant stand against Slim’s 14th Army, Sahgal and Dhillon along with their superior officer, Gen. Shah Nawaz Khan were placed under arrest. They were to be made examples of for their audacity! After the termination of hostilities at the end of the war the three were brought to Delhi and incarcerated in a remote part of the Red Fort awaiting a Court Martial to be held within the premises of the Fort.
This, for the usually astute British, was quite a blunder. First to select for trial a Hindu, a Sikh and a Muslim (exemplifying INA’s secular make up and credentials) and then to hold the trial in Delhi’s Red Fort, the very icon that Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, the Supreme Commander, had projected as the goal to be attained. Worse, the trial would be held in the same premises where India’s last Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar was tried, sentenced and deported to Rangoon where he died. The symbolism perhaps had somehow escaped the colonial rulers.
Also that independent undivided India’s first Government, with Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose having taken his oath as its first Prime Minister had been formed in Singapore. News now came in that the National flag had already been hoisted at Imphal and at Port Blair in the Andamans. Free India’s first currency notes and stamps had been issued. The nation was in uproar!
When the curtain of secrecy was finally lifted and the ‘INA Red Fort Trial’ began, the populace finally got to know about the INA, the extraordinary fight by its men as well as women. Also that independent undivided India’s first Government, with Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose having taken his oath as its first Prime Minister had been formed in Singapore. News now came in that the National flag had already been hoisted at Imphal and at Port Blair in the Andamans. Free India’s first currency notes and stamps had been issued. The nation was in uproar!
Many of the then leading politicians with legal backgrounds volunteered to lead the legal defence team – Nehru, Katju, Patel et al. My grandfather, a sitting Judge of the Punjab High Court, applied and received leave of absence to supervise the legal defence arrangements for the ‘Lal Qila 3’. He rejected the offers by the politico lawyers. Instead he opted for the one he thought was quite simply the best legal mind of the country – Bhulabhai Desai. He would be the lead attorney.
The then Advocate General, Sir Nowshirman Engineer for the prosecution argued that the three accused had committed treason by violating the oath they had taken on being inducted as officers into the British Indian Army. Bhulabhai Desai in defence argued for some ten hours over a period of two days. Firstly, he claimed, the so called oath of office became invalid when Gen. Percival and the British Officers decided to surrender separately at Changi in Singapore and ordered all Indians to go to the surrender ceremony at the Farrer Park Race Course.
Equally importantly Bhulabhai Desai argued (1) that an enslaved nation had the legal right to engage in military action to free itself from a foreign coloniser (2) That the INA fought on the behalf of a properly constituted Government of free India recognised by other international governments, and (3) That the INA was a properly constituted disciplined army, managed entirely be competent Indian Officers with this army having its own uniforms, ranks, ethos, and ‘regalia’.
To put it succinctly what Bhulabhai Desai told the Court Martial was that it was as a sovereign nation with a recognised Government in place, that India had declared war on Britain and sent its Army i.e. the INA, to fight.
To put it succinctly what Bhulabhai Desai told the Court Martial was that it was as a sovereign nation with a recognised Government in place, that India had declared war on Britain and sent its Army i.e. the INA, to fight. Hence under International Law the Indian National Army had the status of a legitimate ‘belligerent’. Accordingly the defendants could in no case be tried for treason or other offences under a Penal Code based on British ‘Municipal Law’, as Desai put it.
To quote from Bhulabhai’s arguments, he stated “….The position now is that international law has reached this stage that if liberty and democracy are to have any meaning all over the world, and not merely just for a part of it, and this is not politics, it is law – any war made for the purpose of liberating oneself from foreign yoke is completely justified by modern international law. And it will be a travesty of justice if we were to be told as a result of any decision arrived at here or otherwise, that the Indian may go as a soldier to fight for freedom of England against Germany, for England against Italy, for England against Japan, and yet a stage may not be reached when a free Indian State may not wish to free itself from any country including England itself.”[1]
Whether these lucid arguments had any real effect on the senior British Officers sitting on the Court Martial Bench and influenced their decision, we do not quite know. The final sentence against the three defendants whilst finding them guilty of treason did not go as far as delivering death sentences. The three brave officers were dismissed from service and forfeited any pay and allowances due.
At the news of the release of Shah Nawaz Khan, Prem Saghal and Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon from their detention cells in the Red Fort there were massive and jubilant countrywide celebrations. The colonial administration, we now know, took due notice – not only of the exploits of the INA, the nationwide consternation during the Red Fort trial and jubilations at its end, but also of the Naval Mutiny at (then) Bombay and the Air Force Mutiny at Karachi around the same time.
“…..Gandhi is not a problem. We can deal with him and handle him. The Congress is also not a problem. We can easily deal with them. But now that India and Indians know about the INA as also about the mutinies in the Royal Indian Navy and the Royal Indian Air Force, the Indians know that we have lost the love of the Indian Armed Forces. It is time to leave India!” …. note to the Viceroy, Field Marshal Wavell from the then Commander-in-Chief in India, Field Marshal Sir Claude Achinleck
Deep down in the 4th basement level in a temperature and humidity controlled hall of the British Library near Euston Station, London are stored the ‘India Office Records’. These records are pretty nearly everything that the British colonial rulers had with them in India and transported them back ‘in toto’ before Aug. 15th, 1947. Amongst these records is a document penned by the Commander in Chief in India – Field Marshall Sir Claude Auchinleck. It is a Memo to the then Viceroy – Field Marshall Wavell. The purport of this extraordinary memorandum is that “…..Gandhi is not a problem. We can deal with him and handle him. The Congress is also not a problem. We can easily deal with them. But now that India and Indians know about the INA as also about the mutinies in the Royal Indian Navy and the Royal Indian Air Force, the Indians know that we have lost the love of the Indian Armed Forces. It is time to leave India!” As Alex von Tunzelmann writes in his excellent book[2] “… neither Gandhi nor Congress party agitations forced British hands. It was…. the possibility of full scale military revolt due to the influence of Subhas Bose (and the INA) which led to the British exit from India.
And yet generations of young Indian students in schools and colleges are still being taught that it was Gandhi and the Congress that got India’s independence!! They are still being taught that Nehru was India’s first Prime Minister. Yes he was but that of ‘DIVIDED INDIA’. The record shows that it was Subhash Chandra Bose – Netaji, who was the first Prime Minister – OF AN UNDIVIDED INDIA.
JAI HIND!
References
[1] “Two Historic Trials in Red Fort” – Moti Ram; Roxy Print Press, 1946.
[2] “Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire”; Alex von Tunzelmann;
All colour photos by the author.
1 comment
An erudite article of historical eminence and recall.
2. The author’s own family predecessors involvement and his personal travel experience over the very land of interest, makes the reading akin to a memoir of sorts that engages the reader.
3. The article being of much historical and archival value that needs to be better known and disseminated, as the author mentions, the addition of a select bibliography would have been welcome.