By Zhokusheyi Rhakho (EMN)
When Subhas Chandra Bose reached Singapore on July 2, 1943, he was received with a tumultuous welcome. His presence not only revitalized the Indian National Army (INA) but galvanised the whole Indian community in South East Asia. Renye Mutaguchi’s dream of victory in the offensive over India was encouraged by the lobbying of Bose who assured both Mutaguchi and Japanese Prime Minister Tojo that India would rise in rebellion once his men planted their flag on Indian soil. On 7th March 1944, Tokyo radio informed that attack of India had begun by the Japanese 15th Army under the code name U-Go operation commanded by Lieut. Gen. Renya Mutaguchi divided into three Divisions viz; 15th, 31st and 33rd, of 15,000 troops each. Marching across the Naga Hills was the 31st Division under the command of Lieut. Gen. Kotuku Sato divided into three columns, viz; first, via Homalin-Ukhrul-Maram-Kohima, second, via Somra-Kharasom(here some went to Jessami)-Mao-Kohima, third, via Tamanthi-Layshi-Jessami-Phek-Kohima. Contingents of INA advanced along with them on its historic march “On to Delhi.” The INA was given independent charge by the Japanese Generals to proceed on to Kohima with instruction that with the fall of Imphal “to advance rapidly and cross the Brahmaputra into the heart of Bengal” (Pol. Hist. Of Assam, Vol. III, Govt. Of Assam, Dispur, 1980).
An understanding was made between General Kawebe and Bose wherein it was decided that the Japanese Army and the INA would share equal status and would work on common strategy and under common command. The INA would also function under its own military law. Lastly, the Indian tricolour alone would fly over liberated Indian territory (N.G Jog, In Freedom Quest, New Delhi, 1969, p.251). After the main issue was settled, Bose decided in consultation with the military officers that a new Brigade, known as No.1 Guerrilla Regiment should be raised by selecting soldiers from the other three Brigades, i.e., Gandhi, Azad and Nehru and that this Brigade should go into action first. Shah Nawaz Khan was appointed its commander. The soldiers themselves gave it the name Subhas Brigade. This Brigade was properly organised and an intensive spiritual and military training was given to the soldiers (R.C Majumdar, History of Freedom Movement in India, Vol. II, Kolkota, 1977, p.591). A special operation group was also to be set up called the Bahadur group to operate behind the enemy line.
Not surprisingly, the INA was disappointed that instead of being placed on the vanguard of the main Japanese army attacking India as it was mutually agreed upon- it was side-tracked to comparatively minor task. To this the Japanese General said the INA was put in the sole charge of a sector in order to test its efficiency and if it passed the test it would be placed in front of the main Japanese army attacking India (Majumdar, ibid. p.597). The INA men proved themselves battle-worthy in the offensive they carried out in the Haka-Falam region. The Japanese were satisfied with the military skill and efficiency of the INA and issued instructions that the main body of the Brigade should proceed to Kohima. Accordingly, about 150 and 300 men of the INA were left respectively at Haka and Falam and the rest marched towards Kohima (Shah Nawaz Khan, INA and Its Netaji, Delhi, 1964, p.134).
In the weeks before they first arrived in the villages in force, Japanese-INA reconnaissance patrols had moved extensively across the Naga Hills, identifying tracks and sources of food. Writing of his memoir on 3rd April 1944, Lieut. M.G. Mulkar wrote, “We were passing through Naga Hills. Here and there we found a peculiar type of cultivation, i.e., terrace cultivation on the sides of hills. Naga village is on the top of a hill.” He further wrote on 7th April, “Kohima town was besieged by us. The fighting is severe and on it depends our future success (Lieut. M.G. Mulkar, INA Soldier’s Dairy, pp.128-132). Khumbo Angami, recollecting the event at Kohima said that he encountered several Indians in military dress who were officers of INA where they showed the people the Indian national flag and some badges (Fergal keane, Road of Bones, 2010, p.237). Initially, fighting on Imphal-Kohima sector was mainly done by the Japanese with the INA playing the auxiliary role. But when the Japanese were pressed hard, they asked for the services of the Subhas Brigade (N.G Jog, op.cit., p.253). Apparently, this could be the reason why no specific mention of INA independently attacking a sector in Kohima was not highlighted in many accounts. The INA’s own strategy was to avoid set-piece battles for which it lacked arms and armament as well as man-power. The general operation plan envisaged the INA units pushing to Kohima and Imphal with Japanese forces and as the latter fell, the INA was to cross the Brahmaputra and enter Bengal. At phek, a villager said, “Indian officers led the Japanese into our village and when they spoke to our elders, they did not sound threatening” (Robert Laymen, End of Empire, 2014, p.79). Sipohu Venuh of the same village said, “I saw men of Black race (INA) who came with the Japanese (Laymen, ibid., p.112). When the battle of Jessami was raging, Sato, Bose and phizo were reported to have camped at Lanye river valley for few days wherein villagers who went to meet them said Phizo met them with his palm covering the side of his chin apparently to hide his distort chin. Stories are abounding embedded in oral narrative of the natives that Phizo reached Kohima, though this has been found to be lacking in British reports. Bose himself was reported to have been few miles away from Kohima during the battle (Gordon Graham, Trees are All Young on Garrison Hill, 2005, p. 53) Women soldiers probably from the INA’s Jhansi Regiment accompanied the large body of soldiers who came (Laymen, op.cit.,p.112). Yet, whether these women were comfort women or from both still lies in obscurity.
The Japanese troops were frequently accompanied by the detachment of INA who prowled and howled using loud-hailer in English and Urdu to seduce the Indians in British Army to forego their allegiance (Lucas Phillips, Springboard to Victory, 1966, p.41). As a measure of psychological warfare, the British christened the INA as Jiff (Japanese Inspired Fifth Columnists or Japanese Indian fighting force) so as to defang the nationalist image of Bose Army (keane, op.cit., p.87). By the end of May when regular INA troops arrived at Kohima, the military position of the Japanese forces in this area had changed for the worse (Esther Kathar, Naga Response to INA movement, 1991, p.47). INA men at Kohima held their post most gallantly though and beat back attack after attack (Majumdar, op.cit., p.598).
Before withdrawal, the commander of the INA Brigade was occupying approximately 200 sq. Miles of Indian territory which was administered by the Azad Hind Dal. The commander was reluctant to withdraw from those liberated area and in a conference of the local Naga chiefs, he explain the whole situation (Majumdar, ibid., p.601), wherein the Nagas implored them not to go back (Shah Nawaz Khan, op.cit., p.155). But the Japanese troops withdrew to Tamu and the INA much against its will, had to withdraw to the same place. The INA suffered the same fate as the Japanese at Kohima and there were heavy casualties on the retreat where troops complained bitterly of being used as porters by the Japanese (keane, op.cit., p.230).
The climax of suffering for the INA was reached when they were at Kohima. Rations and medicine were completely exhausted. Referring to this withdrawing, Shah Nawaz Khan wrote, “This retreat from Kohima was perhaps one of the most difficult retreats that any army in the world had to face. Torrential rains had washed away all tracts, men-made fresh tracks soon became almost knee deep, men eating horses death for four days, death bodies of Japanese and Indian soldiers lying on either side of the road due to exhaustion, starvation, disease, etc. (Shah Nawaz Khan, op.cit., p. 137). Lieut. M.G Mulkar wrote in his memoir that on 25th June 1944, they retreat from Kohima area. The rain came and they were forced to leave Kohima-Imphal road (Mulkar, op.cit., p.138).
But as War intensified and the condition of the Japanese-INA soldiers worsen as no supplies reached them, lax of discipline began to wrought large antagonising many Nagas though this was more a breakdown of order and not a policy. There were cases of rape, murder and maltreatment (Govt. of India, Confidential Dept, file No.496, pp.4 & 5, NSA). This action was said to have been committed more by INA which earned the resentment of the Nagas and the villagers who had initially welcomed the Japanese-INA, watched them silently in their pitiful retreat (Graham, op.cit., p.137). This traumatic experience had a deep mental and psychological impact upon the native populace where a totally new socio-economic and political order emerged in the course of the War and after in the Naga Hills.
Mutaguchi, the Commander of the Japanese 15th Army, had underestimated his enemy’s defensive skills. Likewise he misjudged the Allies’ ability to bring up reinforcements. The Japanese were defeated because of lack of supply, bickering of the commanders and inability to provide Air support. The Japanese 15th Army, 85,000-strong, eventually lost 53,000 dead and missing in this U-Go operation and the British sustained 16,564 casualties. During the Battle of Kohima alone, the British and Indian forces had lost 4,064 men, dead, missing and wounded, and against this, the Japanese had lost 5,764 as battle casualties in the Kohima area and many of the 31st Division subsequently died of disease or starvation (Allen, Louis, Burma- The Longest War (1941-1945), London, 1984, p.643). Half the participating INA perished.
In the course of the War, Nagas gave a mixed reaction where it participated on both sides of the camps. They did not participate in the War collectively or with common objective and co-ordination. They were dragged into the War unknowingly and individually. Especially those Nagas living in proximity with the administrative centre of the British government had greater involvement with the British and those farther from the administrative seat who felt lesser influence of the British were drawn more towards or had developed stronger intimacy and relationship with the Japanese-INA. Many villages managed to establish immediate bonhomie with the Japanese-INA and welcomed them as they marched across their villages. Schools though rudimentary were also set up at few villages by the Japanese. For instance, at Lozaphuhu, the Japanese commanding officer was so impressed by the hospitality of the villagers that he scribbled them a note (seized by Indian civil agent after the War) saying never to lose it but showed it to any Japanese who comes to the village promising to meet up again even after the war. It was said Phizo who was in Burma, joined the Japanese on their march to India, apparently in return for the promise of Naga independence should they succeed in winning their War against the British (Nirmal Nibedon, Nagaland; the Night of the Guerrillas, 1978, pp.24-25). Phizo was reported to have guided them through the Naga Hills (K.R Singh, The Nagas of Nagaland, Desperadoes and Heroes of Peace, 1997, p.69).
The British were alert to the political and intelligence danger posed by the INA (Keane, op.cit., p.86). Bose as shrewd as he was knows very well how he would be the centre of target if the Allied got wind of his presence, thus, might have kept his presence as covert as possible in his marches while in the hills. The Congress movement being unaffected in the Naga Hills, simple villagers not aware of persona grata of Bose might not have elicited that much excitement to amplify his presence in the vicinity before or soon after the war. After the war, Pawsey the then D.C of the Naga Hills too never have the leisure and time to be enquiring about things apart from relief measure works being heavily preoccupied with post war rehabilitations and the fledging Naga nationalism that soon came to dominate the scene. Also taking the obsessive patriotic zeal of Bose and his constant insistence to let the INA be at the very tip of Japanese advance into Indian plain, it may not be possible for Bose to laze at the safe haven of Maymyo or Rangoon or Manipur fringes alone for 64 days battle of Kohima, when his troops were at the forefront fighting a fierce battle especially when there were no more obstruction on the 150 miles stretch to Naga hills after British outpost were overran at Sanshak, Kharasom and Jessami. But much ado about Bose or Phizo, very less has been written about the whole event and the Allied 14th Army that fought in this War considered itself as the forgotten Army. Thus, when very little is written about the whole event, information written so far alone can’t be limited to be taken as the sole source or authentic. Of the British 2nd Division who fought in the Battle of Kohima, Commanding officer Lieut. Gen. Grover said, “We were insignificant in the Swept of history” (Graham, op.cit, p.73). Though the natives have information of women in the Japanese-INA advances yet even this information is scanty or hardly highlighted in British accounts. The exact organisation of the INA and its precise troops’ strength is not known since its records were destroyed by the withdrawing Azad Hind Govt. before Rangoon was recaptured by Commonwealth forces in 1945.
Vast treasure trove of Japanese reminiscences remains locked out of view of international scholars because they have not been translated into English and at the same times reluctance of Japanese themselves to recount the event until recently where they seems to be opening up. For this reason, most sources of information fed to us has been Anglo-American bearing mostly one side story written by victors in their own light. In the midst of whom the battle took place, places are awash with stories which still lies embedded in the local narrative forming and important piece of oral history. For a long time, hardly local authors have written anything comprehensive on the event bearing the local perspective. Only lately the lacunae is getting filled with the works of local researchers and authors. For example, the presence of Phizo and Bose in Naga Hills has been simmering in local narrative for a long time where some writers mentioned about their presence in their works in early 1990s and before though nothing elaborative. Mostly the available works have been Kohima centred and very less about the more distant places. For instance, little or no mention has been made about the battle or skirmishes at Chozuba, phusachodu, straffing of Phek, or even Pansha in Tuensang for this matter. Similarly, not just from one or two accounts but numerous accounts from different locations are cohering with information about the presence of Bose in Naga Hills though this has to be subjected to further methodological test and scientific analysis. Conclusion is rift and further investigation and research simmers where continual possibilities and if remains. With the central govt. consenting to declassify Bose file and hopefully more accounts of the Japanese coming to public domain, it may add succour to the whole narration and hypothesis.
