| History
of the flight |
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| It was on the night
of August 10, 1945, that Major-General Inayat Kiani's
call from Kuala Lumpur broke the News that Russia had
declared war o\n Japan. The News did not worry Netaji,
who was then at the Seremban Guest House, near Singapore,
along with Major-General Alagappan, Colonel G R Nagar,
Colonel Habibur Rehman and S A Ayer.
"What if Russia has declared war
on Japan? How does it affect us in any way? We shall
have to go on whatever happens. I cannot leave until
I finish my work here", Netaji told S A Ayer, who
was one of his most trusted men. That the Major-General
had called again the next day, this time wanting Netaji
back in Singapore, still did not betray the turn of
world events to Netaji. Netaji had come up from Singapore
on what was first meant to be a brief visit to Seremban.
Naturally, no one had cared to put up a shortwave radio
set in the Guest House.
That was a long day for Bose and his
men. There was a meeting at INA Training Camp in Seremban
that ended at 10 o'clock, which was followed by a late
dinner. By the time everyone retired to bed, it was
1 a.m. The ring of a long distance call from Malacca,
however, brought the men out of their beds. The caller
said that Dr Lakshmayya, General Seceretary and Mr Ganapathy,
Acting Secretary of the Publicity Department of the
ILL headquarters in Singapore, were on their way to
Serembam to see Netaji.
Lakshmayya and Ganapathy were
bearers of an ominous news. Locked in with Netaji and
S.A.Ayer in the privacy of a room, the two broke the
news: "Japan has surrendered!"
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| Impact
of the surrender |
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Bose had known as early as September
1937 that the Germany and Japan would fail if they went
into a long war with the Anglo-American powers. In an
analysis in the Modern Review of Calcutta, he had inferred
that Germany, plagued by a resource shortfall, would
let its initial war gains slip to America and Great
Britian.
However, he had not anticipated that
Japan would surrender so soon after the fall of Germany.
He had hoped that between the defeat of Germany and
the fall of Japan there would be an interval for him
to combine his INA with Aung San's Burma Defence Army
and continue the fight against Britain, making Burma
and eastern India as the nationalist base. However,
when America hit Japan with atomic bombs, Emperor Hirohito
decided to surrender.
For the INA, Japan's surrender presented
a peculiar problem. The joint forces of Britain and
America had defeated Germany, INA's ally during the
early parts of World War II. Unlike Burma's Aung San,
the INA did not want to change sides and join the British,
as Aung San did at the last moment, when the Allies
were re-occupying Burma.
Meanwhile, Japan had Britain,
America and, most recently, Russia, waging war against
it, and Japan was INA's latest war ally. Japan's surrender
meant that the INA was now almost on its own.
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