‘Yes, but they advised caution and to say nothing to the Japanese. They promised to speak to Shah Nawaz Khan and Mohan Singh in Singapore.’
‘Why this caution?’
‘Things were very difficult just then. The INA faced a crisis. Mohan Singh was not strong enough. Many officers were afraid he would let the Japanese use the INA for their own purposes. Also there were many different opinions among INA officers about legality and such-like. They told me that at one time an INA party had even been sent to infiltrate across the Chindwin and contact Congress in India.’
‘Seeking Indian political approval of the INA?’
‘Yes.’
‘I did not know this. This is new to me. What happened to the infiltrating party?’
‘It failed. But one of them deserted and got through to the British and presumably told them everything that was going on. Meanwhile you were all being locked up so there was no one left to contact even if another party had been sent.’
‘Good. Good. So you were all still in the dark and had no crystal ball. It supports the argument I am outlining. And here there is an attempt to act constitutionally in some way. Democratically. Patriotically certainly. What INA were pondering then is the question what is the will of the people of India in this matter? Do they want an INA? And now getting no answer and realizing that it will not be possible now to get an answer. Go on.’
‘The two officers said I would be a useful officer in a properly constituted free Indian Army. They said they’d have a word with Shah Nawaz Khan and Mohan Singh but that I should be patient meanwhile and say nothing. They said Shah Nawaz had had a very disagreeable experience down in Singapore opening a new officers’ training school and then having to close it almost at once because the Japanese told Mohan Singh it couldn’t be tolerated or something like that. The Japs wanted complete control. In their hearts some of their officers despised us and Mohan Singh was unable to resist them effectively.’
‘So you continued a prisoner?’
‘Yes.’
‘Taking care of your men. Good. Did you ever discuss these matters with them?’
‘Sometimes I talked to the NCOS so that they could tell the sepoys and give them some hope for the future, poor fellows.’
‘Then what happened?’
‘Then I became quite unwell for a time.’
‘Why was this?’
‘A Japanese officer humiliated me in front of the jawans.’
‘Tell me about this humiliation.’
‘He assembled all my men and stood me in front of them. He said Lieutenant Kasim would now have personal lessons in Japanese drill and words of command so that he in turn could teach these lessons himself.’
‘So you had these lessons. In front of your own men?’
‘No, I refused.’
‘You said you were humiliated. If you refused what humiliation existed?’
‘The humiliation existed because of what he said in front of everybody after I’d refused.’
‘What did he say?’
‘He said, “Here is a Lieutenant called Kasim. The British have put his father in prison. What sort of man is this who so loves the British that he will not take up arms with us against them?” Then he spat between my feet. Then he slapped my face and then I was taken away and beaten up.’
‘This man’s name?’
‘Hakinawa.’
‘Of course you will say nothing of this at your court-martial. You understand this? Only with the greatest reluctance should you answer questions about it if counsel happens to press for information of this kind. Then only should you give a hint and then leave it to him whether to go on pressing. However much he presses and however much you are inclined to speak out, you will discover your answers are of no importance to your defence. You understand? Try to let prosecuting counsel alone stand convicted of raising this kind of emotional subject in evidence. Only if the prosecution can be seen and heard to squeeze it out of you must you mention such a thing.’ Kasim paused. ‘Of course a clever defence counsel, knowing of this, might manipulate the prosecution into the mistake of pressing such a point. Now, go on. You were beaten up. What afterwards was the attitude towards you of your men, who had seen what you call this humiliation?’
‘I don’t know. I was separated from them.’
‘How separated?’
‘First I was put in solitary confinement for a week or two. Then I was sent to another camp.’
‘How were you treated there?’
‘All right, I suppose.’
‘All right, merely, or very well? Well, which? Come, keep alert, do not think of me as your father but as your prosecutor. How were you treated? All right or very well? Let me suggest you were treated very well. Let me put it to you that a Japanese officer apologized to you and spoke of Hakinawa with contempt, also that perhaps he hinted you might find yourself back with Hakinawa unless you showed yourself more co-operative. Which month was this, by the way. October? November?’
‘November, I suppose.’
‘November, nineteen forty-two?’
‘Yes.’
‘In November, nineteen forty-two, then, you began to be treated well. Thank you, Lieutenant Kasim.’
Sayed stared at him.
Kasim said, ‘You see? You see the dangers of this line of evidence and argument? At this point prosecuting counsel sits down. He asks no more questions so you cannot answer them. The court looks at you and thinks perhaps it sees a man who wanted no more beating up. Every other consideration goes by the board, swept off by this one emotional consideration. The court looks at you and thinks, Well he is a coward –’
‘Father –’
‘Coward! Coward! This is what they are thinking. At this point defence counsel rises and tries to demolish this unfortunate impression by going back over all that old ground when you were supposed to be thinking seriously and objectively about this matter and that matter, about what is constitutional and what is not, and what is for India’s good and what is not. But he does not find it easy. Prosecution has tricked you into raising this emotional question of to what extent Lieutenant Sayed Kasim was thinking of his country and to what extent thinking of his own skin. Defence Counsel’s voice begins to carry less conviction. He knows that nothing can obliterate that impression, that Lieutenant Kasim is a man who joined the INA to avoid being beaten up again by a Japanese officer called Hakinawa. Nevertheless he has his brief and must go on to the bitter end.’
Kasim took out his squared handkerchief and dabbed his forehead. ‘I remember the first case I pleaded in front of a British magistrate. A very minor case to do with a land dispute between two brothers. In private consultation my client made much of the emotional rift in family feeling. Presumably his brother, the claimant, had been doing likewise because when we got into court his counsel began to present the case as though it were a dispute between Cain and Abel, with my client cast as Cain. I had to listen to many of my excellent pleas and arguments being turned against me before even I had a chance to speak. I looked at the young magistrate. For a moment I could not interpret his expression. Then it suddenly struck me that he was wanting to hear none of this. It embarrassed and disturbed him. He was keeping his eye on his papers and trying to get it all down in writing. So when my turn came to stand up I proceeded very haltingly – at first actually because I had no alternative. I had lost all inspiration. I fell back on legal precedents, almost automatically, and he kept interrupting me, getting his clerk to show him this reference and that reference from this book and that book. While he did this I stood silent. At first I thought his interruptions were his way of accusing me of incomplete preparation. And then we happened to glance at one another at the same time and instinctively I knew that he was grateful just to be referred to points of law and the land records. Instinctively I knew I had provided him with a way out of this emotional situation that claimant’s counsel had tried to establish. So then I became deliberately even more dry and boring, boring to
the court but not to this boy-magistrate. And to make sure of this I sometimes made an old legal joke, old to the court, but new to him in the sense that while he had probably already heard the jokes from his tutors this was probably the first time he had heard them repeated in a courtroom. My client was in despair. The claimant and the claimant’s counsel were looking very smug. So I stopped looking at them. I looked only at the boy-magistrate and his expression was sufficient to encourage me to continue along these lines. I could see him beginning to feel that it was exactly for this that he had been trained for so long and so expensively. I could see him recognizing that this training had some point after all. I began to refer to the very old cases I knew he must have studied for his initial examinations. He became very confident, almost peremptory. Sometimes he rebuked me for getting a reference wrong. Mostly he rebuked the claimant’s pleader for interrupting. His table became piled with books and documents. Sometimes he said, “What is your point in regard to such and such a sub-section, Mr Kasim?” I would tell him and at the same time refer him to another sub-section which I guessed he had had to answer questions about more recently. The public benches began to empty. The claimant’s pleader pretended to go to sleep. People were yawning. It was the most boring case of the year. But it was the one the boy-magistrate will probably never forget and the one I must always remember, Sayed. From this case I removed every last speck of emotion. I made him see that Indians too are capable of detachment. There was practically nobody left in the court when he found in favour of the counter-claimant, my client.’
‘Yes, I remember all that, father. You told us many years ago. Many times.’
‘Oh, did I?’ He dabbed his forehead again and suddenly felt very old. ‘The reason I tell you again –’ he began.
‘I know the reason, father. You’ve always believed that the English are very emotional but unwilling to show it in public.’
‘This is so, isn’t it?’
‘I can’t take it into consideration. What the English feel or don’t feel is no longer important. We’ve finished with them, whether you like it or not.’
‘Why do you say whether I like it or not? What has my life been, then? What have I been doing? Asking them to stay?’
‘No. Not asking. But perhaps making it possible because you believe so much in the power of the law. Their law.’
‘In this case you’ll be well advised to rely on it too. You will be finished if you persist in making emotional appeals. Now, go back to November, nineteen forty-two. How long were you in this new camp where you were treated all right, as you put it?’
‘Until the following February. One of the two officers I’d already spoken to came to see me. He said Mohan Singh had been arrested by the Japanese in December for withholding full cooperation and trying to insist that only the INA should deal with India. But now they’d had word that Subhas Chandra Bose was coming from Germany to take charge. Shah Nawaz was raising a new INA and determined that the Japs wouldn’t be allowed to interfere, but made to treat us as equals and not as a puppet army they could do what they liked with.’
‘So you yourself now joined?’
‘Yes. I went down to Singapore.’
‘Taking some men with you, other recruits?’
‘Yes, I visited my old camp. I told the men my decision. I left it to them to make up their own minds. A few NCOS volunteered immediately. I took them to Singapore with me.’
‘Was Bose there already?’
‘No, he didn’t come for several months. We concentrated on training and on stopping the Japanese from interfering. Someone in the Japanese Government had told them to treat us with more respect and when Bose did come it was a revelation. You only had to see and listen to him once to know that at last we had a real leader. And then of course he put everything on a pukka footing.’
‘By pukka footing you mean his establishment of a so-called Government of Free India in exile?’
‘Why so-called, father? What was de Gaulle’s Free French Government, then? You don’t hear people referring to that as so-called.’
‘You know the difference between de Gaulle’s and Bose’s governments. There is no need for me to tell you. That sort of statement would be very smartly thrown out to sneered at as a quibble by the president of the court.’
‘It wasn’t a quibble to us. It made us independent of the Japanese. The Azad Hind Fauji became a properly constituted army, the armed force of a properly constituted and independent government.’
‘You joined the INA before Bose took over. You would be sensible to say nothing on these lines. Tell me, why did you do this broadcast? Colonel Merrick says you admit to helping with propaganda generally and to doing a broadcast. I knew about the broadcast quite a long time ago. Someone listening in Ranpur thought they recognized your voice. I of course was in prison so heard nothing, but I was told about it afterwards. This was your voice?’
‘Probably. I did one broadcast. Early last year. January, I think. After that I moved up into Burma in command of a battalion for the advance into Manipur.’
‘What sort of thing did you say in the broadcast?’
‘I just spoke in general terms, about the fight for India’s freedom and the choice that had to be made by someone like myself, an officer in the Indian Army. They have a copy of the broadcast on their files in Delhi. All these broadcasts were monitored.’
‘What was the main purpose of these broadcasts?’
‘To encourage people here at home who had opportunities to listen. It was important for them to know that if the Japanese invaded, Indians would be with them. One couldn’t say anything about not trusting the Japanese, but people listening could read between the lines. They’d realize that we’d be doing our best to stop the Japs giving them trouble.’
‘Very well. Then you moved into Burma, you said. And then across the Chindwin and into Manipur.’
‘Eventually, yes.’
‘And waged war against the King.’
‘Yes, I suppose so.’
‘Not “yes, I suppose”, Sayed. Just yes. Yes. Yes. You waged war against the king. It was the unavoidable result of the decision you made. We have already dealt with that. What remains to be dealt with is your attitude at this time to the Japanese.’
‘It was the same as Netaji’s.’
‘Netaji? You mean Bose. What was Bose’s attitude?’
‘For him it was a question of wait and see. Under Netaji the lives of thousands of Indians in Asia were made better and the Japanese said repeatedly that we were allies, they’d no quarrel with India. But Netaji said many times to us in private that we must be prepared to fight them too if necessary. We should never fully trust them. Also he said they were perhaps afraid of us. I think this was why they kept us short of supplies and equipment and why in Burma they stopped us operating as a fully independent and major force. Whatever the Japanese Government said, we knew there were many Japanese officers who had their own ideas and way of dealing which wasn’t in line with the official policy. They were the ones who didn’t agree that India should be Netaji’s sphere of influence. They only wanted to see the Rising Sun hoisted in Delhi in place of the Union Jack.’
‘Good. Remember that. That could be a helpful point. But what does this mean, sphere of influence?’
‘Surely it is obvious, it was fundamental. Netaji said –’
‘I want it in your own words, not Netaji’s.’
Sayed again hesitated. He said, ‘What have you against Netaji? He spoke to me about you with much warmth and admiration.’
‘What did you expect? For him to tell you he thought I was a bloody fool? No matter. Just that he and I never got on. Anyway he’s dead –’
‘Perhaps –’
‘Perhaps, perhaps. Perhaps Hitler did not die in the bunker. Perhaps Bose did not die in a plane crash. The world must always have its myths. Let us get back to spheres of influence. You should avoid that phrase. It is one used by journalists when they are really talking ab
out a political carve-up. You must try not to give this impression, that Bose sat down with Togo and said, right, you keep Burma and Malaya, and all the rest. We’ll have India.’
‘What is wrong with that? It’s our own country.’
‘The British still happen to think that legally it is theirs. Just do not use that phrase. Rely more on what you said about the Rising Sun and the Union Jack. Rely entirely on the question not of what appeared to be agreed between your Netaji and the Japanese within a framework of spurious legality, but on the underlying distrust, the fear that if and when the British were defeated, which seemed imminent, the Japanese would run riot in the country, looting and raping and enslaving, and that the best way to try to stop them doing this was unfortunately to march with them.’
Sayed said nothing.
‘So now there comes the question, of whether there was any deepening of your distrust as a result of your experience of marching with them into India. Did the distrust increase?’
‘Yes, because they dealt with us unfairly.’
‘How?’
‘Over things like rations, supplies, arms and ammunition. In not giving us proper operational information. They tried to palm us off with coolie work. The men were getting browned off. I was always having to dispute with Japanese officers mostly junior to me in rank to get the men a proper deal.’
‘Morale in your battalion was not as high as you would have liked?’
‘Morale was always high. We were fed up only with the Japanese. Among ourselves things were okay. I tried to share their hardships with them.’
‘Sometimes no doubt you had to punish some of them.’
‘Never to appease the Japanese. If a Japanese officer complained of any of my men’s behaviour I told him to shove off.’
‘I did not mean this. You were what you call a properly constituted army. You had a disciplinary code, no doubt, an army act laying down rules and regulations and punishments for infringement.’
‘Everybody accepts this necessity. Our regulations were based completely on the Indian Army Act.’
‘You cannot use the words based and completely together. Either they were a duplicate or based merely. Based with variations for local conditions and circumstances.’