Ashis Ray Book ‘The Trial that Shook Britain’: Lucknow Launch | INA Trial 1945 at Lal Qila

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:08]Dr. Oxford medicine presentation.

[00:00:47]I'm singu.

[00:01:06]Uh All right.

[00:01:32]Hindustani Anita program to Anita if you're watching very warm welcome to Lucknau uh and Shuhashini is here you heard her speak just now um and she was absolutely delightful. I wish I could speak Hindustani like her uh but I can't um but you're very welcome. Please stay with us as we move forward. So um Shwashini G um Anan G um S Mani Gvin B um ladies and gentlemen it's a great pleasure as I said uh to be in Lucknau and the city of culture the city of the beautiful language of Udu um I spent a year at Oxford as an academic visitor to research and write a thesis which has now been published uh as a book by Rattlage. The book being the trial that uh Sh wr Britain so educated at Cambridge Shash Bos was a charismatic left-wing leader of the Indian National Congress. He was twice elected president of the Congress.

[00:03:13]Having escaped from house arrest in India, he arrived in Southeast Asia in 1943 to reconstitute an Indian National Army from Indian prisoners of war with Japanese support. The INA as it was popularly called became the military wing of the provisional government of free India which was formed in Singapore and headed the INA as a junior partner of the Japanese army attempted to liberate India by engaging the British commanded Indian army on India's northeastern front. The INA was defeated but the trial of its men at Delhi's symbolic red fort so angered Indians that continuation much longer of British hegmony over India became almost impossible.

[00:04:20]It's not so well remembered that the Indian freedom movement was either dominant or at a complete standstill between 1939 and 1945.

[00:04:33]In 1939, the Congress party governments resigned from all eight of the then 11 provinces in India where they were in power. They did so in protest against Britain dragging India into the second world war. Thereby it sacrificed its commanding position in Indian politics.

[00:04:59]Briefly the Congress struggle reignited with the Mahatma Gandhi le quit India uprising but this was brutally crushed by the British. Congress was banned as an organization. Its leaders and workers were imprisoned. The Congress was unprescribed when the war ended in August 1945.

[00:05:27]It was though at a loss on how to revive the independence movement.

[00:05:33]This is when the British government's decision to court marshall in a men for treason fell on its lap. The Congress formed a 17 member defense committee to stand as council for the INA accused. The trial got underway on the 5th of November 1945. As Shuashini mentioned with three for British army officers who had elites to captains and prince and left tenant charged as they were with waging war against the king George V 6. When asked how did they emphatically and in unison answered not guilty.

[00:06:36]The choice of accused by the British in what was a shpi trial was unwittingly a himaan blunder. Khan was a Muslim, Seagel a Hindu and Dylan a sik representing the three prominent Indian communities. India detonated with a united fury.

[00:07:03]On the 16th of November 1945, a mere 11 days into the trial, Lord Archerald Weaver writing from Viceroyy's house in New Delhi to the British Secretary of State for India, Lord Frederick Pik Lawrence struck a note of distinct concern.

[00:07:27]Quote, I have just had a letter from the commanderin-chief, namely General Sir Claude Okinleck, expressing grave concern, he said at the possible effect on the army, meaning the British commanded Indian army or of the INA trials unquote.

[00:07:53]4 days later.

[00:07:55]So on the 20th of November 1945 came an alarming secret note from the director of the in Indian intelligence bureau sir Norman Smith towell and the India office in London. It warned the quote the possibility of the development of the agitation that is the public unrest in dangerous directions exists in a degree which demands constant watchfulness and the threat to the security of the Indian army is one which would be unwise to ignore.

[00:08:36]He also reported the appearance of threatening posters in Kolkata and Delhi vowing 20 English deaths for every INA man hanged. Sir Norman cautioned that this does not make the position in respect of your appearance as satisfactory as it could be wished.

[00:09:01]The next day, the 21st of November 1945, violent protests erupted in Kolkata and continued for several days. Dozens died, hundreds were injured as police opened fire on Hindu and Muslim demonstrators who after decades of mutual animosity were suddenly on the same page. The governor of Bengal was forced to summon the army to support the police.

[00:09:34]On the 24th of November 1945, in the midst of the Kolkata riots, Okenleck communicated to Waver, quote, after careful consideration, I feel that reconsideration is the wisest. The evidence reaching us now increasingly goes to show that the general opinion in the army is in favor of leniency.quote.

[00:10:02]A court marshall under the Indian army act could only administer one of two sentences a death penalty or life imprisonment. Okenlech in his daughter was already considering clemency. He argued if the sentence is to be committed, it can only be on the grounds that the men acted in good faith and in that case it would be illogical to imprison them. This was a stunning climb down in just a few weeks from branding the INA men as traitors to accepting they might have acted in good faith.

[00:10:47]Waver agreed with Okenlech's thinking and so camouflaged from the Indian and British public operation backtrack was initiated.

[00:11:01]On the 1st of December 1945, Okenlech received Jawahal Nu. It was an unusual gesture. a commander and chief of Imperial Armed Forces, entertaining a relentless opponent of empire, especially when NU was in an overtly implacable mood. It was statesmanship on the part of the general.

[00:11:30]The London Times reported quote he namely NU said that stories of exploits of the Indian National Army had led many younger Indians to question the Gandhi philosophy of nonviolence.

[00:11:50]Many of them were now thinking about the possibility of force as a means of gaining independence.

[00:11:58]Meanwhile, the agitation against the trial intensified as the hearing progressed.

[00:12:07]Mulabai Desai a Congress leader and Bombay lawyer was entrusted with the task of defending Khan Seagel and Dillan and his was a heroic performance which held Indians transfixed for two months and stirred them to a boiling point.

[00:12:28]This I argued, quote, "Here is a case in which I venture to say, and the evidence supports it, that it is not at all a case of what you might call three individuals waging war against the king. The evidence amply bears out the fact that these men charged before you were a part of an organized army which waged war against the king. Even according to the prosecution, what is now on trial before the court is the right to wage war with immunity on the part of a subject race for their liberation." unquote.

[00:13:13]Desai submitted that the matter came under international law for it had been a war against the British government and the provisional government of free India which the INA represented. He cited the American Declaration of Independence and pleaded, quote, "There was before the American people a conflict between the allegiance to the King of England and allegiance to their country." And they chose allegiance to their country in preference to allegiance to a foreign king," unquote.

[00:13:55]Leading the prosecution, the advocate general of India, Sir Nosheran Engineer asserted, I submit that all charges against all the accused have been reasonable doubt. There is no defense in law to the charges against the accused."

[00:14:20]Then came a strange double speak.

[00:14:25]quote, "There is a great deal of evidence to the effect that what the accused did was done by them not with any mercenary motive, but out of what the accused bonafideed consider to be patriotic motives, and impelled by a sense, whether wise or misguided, of doing service to India," unquote.

[00:14:54]The accused were found guilty of the charge of waging war against the king emperor. On the matter of sentencing, the court's hands were patently tied. It pronounced life imprisonments for all three defendants.

[00:15:12]However, as the confirming officer, General Aenleck decided to remit the sentences.

[00:15:24]So desai lost in the courtroom but prevailed at the court of public opinion. He swayed Indians even a section of Britain's in the British commanded Indian army and the commander and chief Okenlech himself on the 12th of February 1946 in a note to general officers commanding chiefs under him. General Okinlech, late Fredbear, that any attempt to enforce the sentence would have led to chaos in the country at large and probably mutiny and dissension in the army culminating in its dissolution.

[00:16:09]On the 2nd of March 1946, the Indian Daily the Statesman quoted NU as saying Khan, Seagel and Dylan were not released pointing to demonstrations in India but because the Indian Army that is the British commanded Indian Army had demanded their release. Earlier in a forward to a book which published the transcript of the trial, NU wrote, quote, "No trial in India either by court marshall or in the civil courts has attracted so much public attention or has dealt with issues of such fundamental national importance. Those three officers and the Indian National Army became symbols of India fighting her independence. A trial of strength between the will of the Indian people and the will of those who hold power in India. And it was the will of the Indian people that triumphed in the end.

[00:17:21]intelligence inputs about the disconcerting public mode in India as exemplified by the Kolkata riots and Okenlech's second thoughts about the trials resulted in London extending a hand of a hand of consiliation.

[00:17:39]On the 4th of December 1945, Lord Pic Lawrence made a statement in the House of Lords. The Times newspaper reported, quote, "The British government regarded the setting up of a constitutionmaking body in India as a matter of greatest urgency."

[00:17:59]But public outrage in India rumbled on.

[00:18:03]So on New Year's Day 1946, Bethic Lawrence reached out to Indians again, this time over the BBC.

[00:18:15]The Times reported, quote, he, the Secretary of State for India, believed the whole British people earnestly desired to see India rise quickly to the full and free status of an equal partner in the British Commonwealth. There was no longer any need for denunciations or organized pressure to secure recognition of India's due position in the world."

[00:18:42]unquote. The new formulation of quote equal partner unquote in the British Commonwealth though meant persevering with King George V 6 as India's head of state. This was unacceptable to Indian nationalists and of course the Congress.

[00:19:03]Behind the scenes, work had begun in London to conceive concrete measures to meet Indian aspirations.

[00:19:15]The situation worsened. On the 18th of February 1946, mutiny broke out in the ranks of the Royal Indian Navy. A commission of inquiry into the revolt concluded that contact with the INA, the trial of its men and political meetings which ripped up pro-Ina and patriotic sentiments were among the factors that rendered mutiny a political complexion.

[00:19:49]The Sunday Times newspaper in London carrying a dispatch from Delhi on the 24th of February 1946 described that quote strong racial feeling against the British temporarily submerging the traditional Hindu Muslim differences undoubtedly underlies the recent outbursts of mob violence and naval in discipline.

[00:20:19]The all India Congress committee in its annual session in Lahore in 1929 had passed a motion demanding nasaraj or complete independence. For 17 years the British authorities paid little or no attention to the resolution.

[00:20:42]King George V 6 in his address at the opening of parliament in August 1945 had said quote in accordance with the promises already made to my Indian peoples my government will do their utmost to promote in conjunction with the leaders of Indian opinion the early realization of full self-government in India unquote self-government still meant dominion status So on the 5th of November 1945, the day the epoch making first INA trial began, Britain was only prepared to concede Dominion status.

[00:21:29]But that position changed in just 18 weeks to exceed to complete independence. matters moved speedily in London in the aftermath of the trial to culminate in an acceptance of the principle of complete independence. On the 15th of March 46, 15th of August 1947, Prime Minister Clement Atley told the House of Commons, quote, I hope that the Indian people may elect to remain within the British Commonwealth. If on the other hand, she elects for independence, in our view, she has a right to do so."

[00:22:18]unquote. For the first time in Britain's rule of India since 1757, the word independence had been uttered at any consequential level of the British government whether in Britain or in India that too from the pedestal of the UK's prime minister. In the same statement, Atley informed the house that the idea of nationalism in India had quote spread right through and not least perhaps among some of those soldiers that is the that's that is soldiers of the British commanded Indian army who have done such wonderful service in the war.

[00:23:09]He could not have been clearer that the phenomenon of the INA trials triggering the naval and other mutinies had disturbed the devotion of Indian soldiers in the British commanded armed forces. So ladies and gentlemen, I commend the book to you. The book is available um at Rutlage's website and at uh Amazon. Do read it if you wish. And uh thank you very much for listening.