Forward Bloc and Ina
Forward Bloc and Ina
A falling-out with Gandhi
Vocal support for Gandhi increased within the Indian National Congress, meanwhile,
and, in light of this, Gandhi resumed a more commanding role in the party. When
the civil disobedience movement was started in 1930, Bose was already in detention
for his associations with an underground revolutionary group, the Bengal Volunteers.
Nevertheless, he was elected mayor of Calcutta while in prison. Released and then
rearrested several times for his suspected role in violent acts, Bose was finally
allowed to proceed to Europe after he contracted tuberculosis and was released for
ill health. In enforced exile and still ill, he wrote The Indian Struggle, 1920–1934, and
pleaded for India’s cause with European leaders. He returned from Europe in 1936,
was again taken into custody, and was released after a year. Meanwhile, Bose
became increasingly critical of Gandhi’s more conservative economics as well as his
less confrontational approach toward independence. In 1938 he was elected
president of the Indian National Congress and formed a national planning committee,
which formulated a policy of broad industrialization. However, this did not harmonize
with Gandhian economic thought, which clung to the notion of cottage industries
benefiting from the use of the country’s resources. Bose’s vindication came in 1939
when he defeated a Gandhian rival for re-election. Nonetheless, the “rebel president”
felt bound to resign because of the lack of Gandhi’s support. He founded
the Forward Bloc, hoping to rally radical elements, but was again incarcerated in July
1940. His refusal to remain in prison at this critical period of India’s history was
expressed in a determination to fast to death, which frightened the British
government into releasing him. On January 26, 1941, though closely watched, he
escaped from his Calcutta residence in disguise and, traveling
via Kabul and Moscow, eventually reached Germany in April.
Activity in exile
In Nazi Germany Bose came under the tutelage of a newly created Special Bureau
for India, guided by Adam von Trott zu Solz. He and other Indians who had gathered
in Berlin made regular broadcasts from the German-sponsored Azad Hind Radio
beginning in January 1942, speaking
in English, Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Gujarati, and Pashto. A little more than a
year after the Japanese invasion of Southeast Asia, Bose left Germany, traveling by
German and Japanese submarines and by plane, and arrived in May 1943 in Tokyo.
On July 4 he assumed leadership of the Indian Independence Movement in East
Asia and proceeded, with Japanese aid and influence, to form a trained army of
about 40,000 troops in Japanese-occupied Southeast Asia. On October 21, 1943,
Bose proclaimed the establishment of a provisional independent Indian government,
and his so-called Indian National Army (Azad Hind Fauj) alongside Japanese troops,
advanced to Rangoon (Yangon) and thence overland into India, reaching Indian soil
on March 18, 1944, and moving into Kohima and the plains of Imphal. In a stubborn
battle, the mixed Indian and Japanese forces, lacking Japanese air support, were
defeated and forced to retreat; the Indian National Army nevertheless for some time
succeeded in maintaining its identity as a liberation army, based in Burma and
then Indochina. With the defeat of Japan, however, Bose’s fortunes ended.
A few days after Japan’s announced surrender in August 1945, Bose, fleeing
Southeast Asia, reportedly died in a Japanese hospital in Taiwan as a result of burn
injuries from a plane crash.
FORMATION OF THE FORWARD BLOC
The Forward Bloc of the Indian National Congress is a Political Party that was
formed on May 3, 1939, by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose in Makur Unnao, Uttar
Pradesh, who had resigned from the presidency of the Indian National Congress on
29 April after being out-maneuvered by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. The
formation of the Forward Bloc was announced to the public at a rally in Calcutta.
Bose said that who all were joining, had to never turn their back to the British and
must fill out the pledge form by cutting their finger and signing it with their blood. First
of all, seventeen young girls came up and signed the pledge form. Initially, the aim of
the Forward Bloc was to rally all the leftwing sections within the Congress and
develop an alternative leadership inside the Congress. Bose became the president
of the Forward Bloc and S.S. Kavishar is vice president. A Forward Bloc Conference
was held in Bombay at the end of June. At that conference, the constitution and
program of the Forward Bloc were approved. In July 1939 Subhas Chandra Bose
announced the Committee of the Forward Bloc. It had Subhas Chandra Bose as
president, S.S. Kavishar from Punjab as its vice-president, Lal Shankarlal from Delhi,
as its general secretary, and Vishwambhar Dayalu Tripathi and Khurshed
Nariman from Bombay as secretaries. Other prominent members were Annapurniah
from Andhra Pradesh, Senapati Bapat, Hari Vishnu Kamath from Bombay,
Pasumpon U. Muthuramalingam Thevar from Tamil Nadu, and Sheel Bhadra
Yager from Bihar. Satya Ranjan Bakshi was appointed as the secretary of the
Bengal Provincial Forward Bloc.
In August, of the same year, Bose began publishing a newspaper titled Forward
Bloc. He traveled around the country, rallying support for his new political project.
At the start of World War II, Bose was placed under house arrest by the Raj. He
escaped in disguise and made his way through Afghanistan and Central -Asia. He
came first to the Soviet Union and then to Germany, reaching Berlin on 2 April 1941.
There he -sought to raise an army of Indian soldiers from prisoners of war captured
by Germany, forming the Free India Legion and the Azad Hind Radio. The Japanese
ambassador, Oshima Hiroshi, kept Tokyo informed of these developments. From the
very start of the war, the Japanese intelligence services noted from speaking to
captured Indian soldiers that Bose was held in extremely high regard as a nationalist
and was considered by Indian soldiers to be the right person to be leading a rebel
army.
In a series of meetings between the INA leaders and the Japanese in 1943, it was
decided to cede the leadership of the IIL and the INA to Bose. In January 1943, the
Japanese invited Bose to lead the Indian nationalist movement in East Asia. He
accepted and left Germany on 8 February. After a three-month journey by submarine
and a short stop in Singapore, he reached Tokyo on 11 May 1943. In Tokyo, he
met Hideki Tojo, the Japanese prime minister, and the Japanese High Command.
He then arrived in Singapore in July 1943, where he made a number of radio
broadcasts to Indians in Southeast Asia exhorting them to join in the fight for India's
independence.
OBJECTIVES OF THE INA
The idea of the INA was conceived in Malaya by Mohan Singh, an Indian officer in
the British Indian army. He decided not to join the retreating British army and instead
went to the Japanese for help. Indian prisoners of war were handed over by the
Japanese to Mohan Singh who inducted them into the INA.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
https://en.banglapedia.org/index.php/Forward_Bloc
https://www.britannica.com/event/noncooperation-movement
https://www.icseboards.com/forward-bloc-and-ina-chapter-summary-icse-class-10-
history/#:~:text=Objectives%20of%20Forward%20Bloc,-%E2%80%A2&text=Its
%20immediate%20objective%20was%20liberation,%2C%20peasants%2C%20and
%20other%20organisations.&text=Re%2Dorganisation%20of%20agriculture%20and
%20industry%20on%20socialist%20lines.&text=Abolition%20of%20the
%20Zamindar%20System.&text=Introduction%20of%20a%20new%20monetary
%20and%20Credit%20System.