Congress leaders were however, not prepared to concede any such decisive role to Bose or the I.N.A. Most of them who mattered -Sardar Patel, Rajendra Prasad, Gobind Ballabh Pant - were active associated of Gandhiji in his bid to wrest Congress Presidency from Subhas Bose in 1939, and `were incapable of transcending their mental reservations about Bose. Jawaharlal Nehru intellectuality too close to the Allied aspirations did not appreciate Bose's efforts to liberate India with the help of the Axis powers.

The Congress leaders rode the crest of the "I.N.A. Wave", its gains from I.N.A. trials could be gauged from the result of elections of the Constituent Assembly in which its candidates were returned from practically every "general" seat. But as the year 1946 wearing out, it was clear that Congress leaders had lost all the zeal for freedom struggle and had become unabashed mendicants of power. During one of his meetings with the veteran Journalist Durga Das, Gandhiji told him that his followers "had let him down badly. Now that power was within their grasp, they seemed to have no further use form him."

The Transfer of Power (1942-47), Vol.VII, 1976, throws on the attitude of the top Congress leaders towards I.N.A. The armed forces motivated by considerations other than mercenary were unacceptable to them. The re-instatement of the I.N.A. personal in the Armed Forces was out of question. In a speech on January 9, 1946, Jawaharlal Nehru said that the I.N.A. personnel were fit only for absorption in the public works like Industrial Co-operatives village re-construction.

But more shocking was the device used to ease them out by offering the terms which were humiliating - disregarding I.N.A. rank and exclusion of I.N.A. service. In a speech in the Central Assembly delivered on March, 1948, Nehru turned down the demand for reinstatement of the I.N.A. personnel on the ground that "there had been a long break in their" shockingly implying thereby that the glorious service rendered by these patriotic men in the I.N.A in staking their life was of no consequence to the national government of free India.

The I.N.A. soldiers were hurriedly despatched to their villages. Some of the pliable officers were given insignificant jobs - two Major Generals, Shah Nawaz and Bhonsle became at different time, Deputy Ministers at the Centre.

Three questions had cropped up between Commander-in-Chief Auchinleck and the Defence Minister of Interim Government, Sardar Baldev Singh : (I) release of the remaining members of I.N.A., (ii) payment of arrears of pay and allowance and (iii) their reinstatenment. At the very outset the Congress abandoned the last question. On the other two questions, Sardar Baldev Singh requested the Interim Cabinet, headed by Jawaharlal Nehru, to make recommendations to the Commander-in-Chief because he had to face questions in the Central Assembly.

Auchinleck rejected these demands. The British Viceroy Wavell threatened to veto any consideration of these two matters. The British Government in London endorsed its Viceroy,s stance. The Commandar-in-Chief also threatened to resign. The British Viceroy as well as C-in-C were sure that not a single Congress minister would offer to resign on these issues.

They were not mistaken. Alan Campbell Johnson in his Mission with Mountbatten tells us that although it was Nehru who had prodded Sardar Baldev Singh to raise these issues the C-in-C, during debate in the Central Assembly on April 2, 1947, Nehru "backed Auchinleck to the hilt as he promised he would", Surprisingly I.N.A. personnel were not even treated as freedom fighters till 1974 and it was only twenty seven years after independence, in 1974, that the Government of India thought it to pay them pension of Rs. 150/- per month.