From 1942 to 45 the Congress Party was banned in India after its Quit India movement. At a loss on how to revive itself and public enthusiasm for independence once the censorship was lifted, the Indian National Army (INA) trial (1945-6) fortuitously fell into its lap, the court martial of three defectors from the British Indian Army to the INA. Under military law, the only penalties could be death or transportation for life.

During the turbulent period from the ‘Sepoy Mutiny’ to the Second World War, the masses largely refrained from participation in the sporadic violent outbursts for nationalism, there was no outreach to encourage public participation, and Gandhi’s movement was for non-violent non-cooperation. Subhas Bose’s campaign against British colonialism took another path; leading a splinter group from the Congress, he appealed first to Hitler and then to Tojo, premier of Japan, for support for Indian independence, and called for armed revolt by the Indian masses, believing in Japan’s assurances that Japan had no territorial or economic ambitions in India, though it had captured the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

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The INA numbered between 40,000 and 50,000 but it caused greater concern to the British than its numbers due to its potential effect on the general Indian public. As for the Japanese, author Ashis Ray writes that their “resources were proving deficient and .., India was of peripheral concern”. Japan could not satisfy INA’s demands for more material and military support, but “Bose’s burning desire for Indian freedom rendered him slightly blind to reality”. He thought the Indians in the Indian Army would desert to INA “in droves”, and declared that “The battle for … Imphal will be in essence … the battle of India”. However, the INA itself suffered from mutinies, inadequate training, commitment and liaison with the Japanese army, and ‘appalling’ internal communications. Ray concludes that “in essence, [Bose’s] gambit was more symbolic than substantial”.

The Congress chose to ignore Bose’s stray from its declared non-violence and his alliance with Japan. After Japan’s defeat, 800 INA men were determined to be tried and the first of these courts martial was to be the trio of Shah Nawaz Khan, Prem Sahgal and Dhillon, by curious chance a Muslim, Hindu and Sikh. The Congress fielded 17 lawyers under Bhulabhai Desai for the defence and the Muslim League also assembled a legal team but who did not appear at the trial. Gandhi was to declare, “India adores these men who are on their trial”, and Nehru addressed huge crowds in many demonstrations in support of the three defendants.

The trial commenced at the Red Fort in November 1945 before a bench of seven military officers including three Indians- also Muslim, Hindu Sikh –  and generated considerable public tension in favour of the under-trials, giving the British the impression that the situation was getting out of hand, and an uprising on the lines of the 1857 mutiny was in the making.

Desai’s main argument was that a subject race had the right to wage war for its liberation, and the prosecution itself also hinted at the desirability of mitigation. On the last day of 1945, the sentences were the milder transportation for life but three days later Auchinleck, Commander-in-chief of armed forces in India awarded clemency, as he was empowered to do. This came to Indians as “a pleasant and unexpected surprise”, and according to Nehru, the decision “showed vision and true judgement. But the triumph was that of the Indian people as a whole.”

In one sense, as Ray notes, Bose “presided over India’s destiny as he had never relished in his lifetime, and posthumously achieved what he failed to accomplish in his lifetime”. Auchinleck was later to assuage the feelings among the regular Army officers by stating that “the over-riding object is to maintain the stability, reliability and efficiency of the Indian army”.

The British had kept in mind the resentment against the INA of the regular Army and the PoWs held by the Japanese, but the staging of the trial proved a windfall for Congress, which could then revive its campaign for independence. Previously kept from the public by censorship, the activities of the INA were now publicised and disorder took place in numerous areas with the trial giving the nationalists the best propaganda weapon they ever had. There were fears of mutiny in the Indian Air Force, and riots took place in Calcutta.

The remaining INA trials remained a matter of concern and were cancelled in May 1946. There was an “almost unprecedented communal camaraderie in India” and Nehru said “the trial has taken us many steps forward on our path to freedom”.  A naval mutiny that started in Bombay in February 1946 and spread to other naval establishments was, unlike the Red Fort trial, not supported by Congress and was against a background of famine, drought and threatened strikes among certain public services. It was localised, fostered no communal amity and the complaints included mundane matters like food, pay and rail tickets. One officer and nine other ranks were killed and 42 others wounded, but 250 civilians were killed during the associated riots. The importance of the naval agitation was that the British became convinced that the Indian armed forces could not be trusted.

British Prime Minister Clement Attlee gave higher priority to the Indian question than his predecessor Churchill, and expedited discussions with Indian leaders, saying “it is no good applying the formulas of the past to the present…the tide of nationalism is running very fast in India”. In February 1946, he declared that rather than dominion status, Britain was prepared to concede full freedom to India.

Ashis Ray is the noted author of the definitive and incontrovertible version of Subhas Bose’s last hours in his book Laid to Rest (2018). In the current book on the INA trial, he completes the story of the Bose campaign for independence in a narrative that is clear and persuasive, though marred somewhat by poor copy-editing and some unnecessary repetitions, Ray’s champions from the INA trials are made clear; Subas Bose, Bhulabhai Desai, Nehru, Auchinleck and Clement Attlee. Besides these worthies, he gives proper attention to the sentiments and statements of Viceroy Wavell and Gandhi, the best-known adversaries during the last stages of India’s freedom movement.

The reviewer is a former foreign secretary

Spotlight

The Trial That Shook Britain

By Ashis Ray

Routledge, Abingdon, 2025

160 pages, Rs 1,295/-