INA trials 1945

History glossary

Also called: Red Fort trials · Topic: The National Movement: Gandhian Era · NCERT: Beyond NCERT

Meaning

The INA trials (Red Fort trials) were British military trials (court martials, i.e. trials of soldiers by army officers) held at the Red Fort, Delhi, from November 1945. The first and most famous trial was of three officers of the Indian National Army (INA): Shah Nawaz Khan, Prem Kumar Sahgal and Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon. They were charged with "waging war against the King-Emperor".

The trials matter because they did the opposite of what the British wanted. They turned the INA soldiers into national heroes and set off protests across India. They also showed that the loyalty of Indian soldiers to the British could no longer be trusted, and this helped speed up the end of British rule.

Explanation

Background: who were the INA soldiers?

  • The INA (Azad Hind Fauj) was made up mostly of Indian soldiers of the British Indian Army who had been captured by Japan in South-East Asia during the Second World War.
  • Mohan Singh first organised it in 1942.
  • Subhas Chandra Bose took charge in 1943. He gave the call "Delhi Chalo" and set up the Provisional Government of Free India (Azad Hind) at Singapore.

  • The INA fought next to the Japanese on the India–Burma front. It was defeated when Japan lost the war in 1945.

  • The British decision: after the war, thousands of INA soldiers were taken prisoner. The British chose to put some of them on public trial as a warning to others.

  • The timing was bad for Britain. In 1945 a Labour government came to power in Britain and committed itself to Indian independence. Elections in India were due in the winter of 1945–46. The Congress leaders had just come out of jail after Quit India and were looking for a cause that could unite people again.

The trial at the Red Fort, 1945–46

  • Place: the Red Fort, Delhi. It was the old seat of Mughal power, so a trial there carried a strong symbolic meaning.
  • The accused: the three officers came from three communities.
  • Shah Nawaz Khan, a Muslim
  • Prem Kumar Sahgal, a Hindu
  • Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon, a Sikh

  • People saw this as a sign of Hindu–Muslim–Sikh unity. The British had not planned it that way.

  • The defence: Congress set up an INA Defence Committee. The team in court included:

  • Bhulabhai Desai, who led the main argument
  • Jawaharlal Nehru, who put on a lawyer's gown again after many years

  • Tej Bahadur Sapru, Asaf Ali and K.N. Katju

  • Main argument of the defence: the INA was the army of a free government (Azad Hind). Its soldiers had fought a war of freedom for their country, so they could not be treated as traitors.

  • Who else joined in: the Muslim League and other groups also backed the INA cause, which was rare at a time when the parties were badly divided.

Public reaction: India rises for the INA

  • The campaign spread very widely. Meetings, funds and posters appeared in cities and small towns. People observed INA Day and INA Week in November 1945.
  • Riots and clashes followed, especially in Calcutta:
  • November 1945: students in Calcutta protested over the INA trials and clashed with the police.

  • February 1946: more violence broke out in Calcutta after Abdul Rashid, another INA officer, was given a harsh sentence.

  • New groups joined: government employees, policemen and even soldiers in the British Indian Army openly showed sympathy for the INA.

Result: the sentences are remitted

  • The court martial found the three officers guilty and sentenced them to transportation for life (being sent away to a distant prison for life).
  • In early January 1946, the Commander-in-Chief, General Claude Auchinleck, remitted (cancelled) the life sentences because he feared an explosion of public anger. The officers were dismissed from service but set free.
  • What it showed:
  • The British could no longer punish Indians who had fought against them, because public opinion would not allow it.
  • The Indian armed forces were no longer fully loyal. Soon after came the Royal Indian Navy (RIN) mutiny of February 1946 in Bombay.
  • Congress used the INA issue strongly in the early 1946 elections, in which it swept the General seats.

Time, place and evidence

  • Period: November 1945 to early 1946. This is the last phase of the national movement, between the end of Quit India and the Cabinet Mission (1946).
  • Place: the Red Fort, Delhi. Protests took place across India, with the biggest in Calcutta.
  • Key people:
  • Accused: Shah Nawaz Khan, Prem Kumar Sahgal, Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon. Later, Abdul Rashid was tried separately.
  • Defence lawyers: Bhulabhai Desai, Jawaharlal Nehru, Tej Bahadur Sapru, Asaf Ali, K.N. Katju.
  • British side: General Claude Auchinleck, Commander-in-Chief, who remitted the sentences.

  • Behind it all: Subhas Chandra Bose, the founder-leader of the Azad Hind government and the INA's commander from 1943. He was not alive at the time of the trials.

  • How we know: the court-martial records, Bhulabhai Desai's printed defence speech, newspaper reports of the protests, and British official reports that worried about the loyalty of the army and police. The study note for this section does not cover the INA trials. The facts here are standard textbook history.

Don't confuse with

  • RIN mutiny (February 1946): a revolt by Indian sailors of the Royal Indian Navy in Bombay. It came after the INA trials and was partly inspired by them. The INA trials were a court case, not a revolt.
  • Formation of the INA (1942–43): Mohan Singh set up the INA in 1942, and Subhas Bose took over in 1943 in Singapore/South-East Asia. The trials happened in 1945 in Delhi, after the INA had been defeated.
  • Meerut Conspiracy Case (1929): a trial of communist and trade-union leaders. The INA trials were court martials of army officers.
  • Quit India Movement (1942): a mass movement started by the AICC in Bombay on 8 August 1942 [1]. The INA campaign of 1945–46 began after the Quit India leaders came out of jail.

Prelims Hooks

  • INA trials: held at the Red Fort, Delhi, starting in November 1945.
  • The first three accused: Shah Nawaz Khan, Prem Kumar Sahgal, Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon, who were Muslim, Hindu and Sikh. They were seen as a symbol of communal unity.
  • Lead defence counsel: Bhulabhai Desai. Others on the team were Nehru, Tej Bahadur Sapru, Asaf Ali and K.N. Katju.
  • Sentences remitted by Commander-in-Chief Claude Auchinleck in early January 1946.
  • Chronology trap: INA formed (1942) → Bose takes over (1943) → Red Fort trials (Nov 1945) → RIN mutiny (Feb 1946) → Cabinet Mission (1946).
  • Trap: the INA was formed by Mohan Singh, not by Subhas Bose. Bose took command of it later.

Mains Points

  • Unity at a moment of deep division: the three accused came from three communities, and both Congress and the League backed them. The INA issue briefly united Indians across religion and party just before the polarised 1946 elections. Use this to show that a shared national feeling still existed even as Partition came closer.
  • The army's loyalty, the real pillar of the Raj, cracked:
  • The British ruled India finally through the Indian army and police.
  • The open sympathy of soldiers and police for the INA, followed by the RIN mutiny, showed that this pillar could no longer be relied on.

  • Together with the Labour government's commitment to independence, this helps explain why Britain wanted a quick exit after 1945.

  • Historians weigh this differently: some argue that the INA and the protests of 1945–46 were a direct cause of the British leaving. Others see them as speeding up a transfer of power that the long Gandhian mass struggle had already made certain. A balanced GS-I answer should treat the INA trials as a catalyst (something that sped up change), not the sole cause.

Related concepts

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Sources

  1. 1Quit India Movementpib.gov.in · tier 1