Netaji Was Not India's First PM, He Was The Second. And He Was No 'Hindu PM'

A recent claim that Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose had been India's first prime minister leads to some obvious questions – Is the claim authentic? If yes, which government did he lead? Were there other pre-1947 governments?

The Provisional Government of Free India

The answer to the second question is, of course, well known. On 21^st October, 1943, at the Cathay Theater in Singapore, Netaji did proclaim the establishment of the Arzi Hukumat-e-Azad Hind (The Provisional Government of Free India) and the British Empire and the USA. The Azad Hind Fauj (Indian National Army, INA), in the last stage of the anti-colonial struggle remains one of India's most admired facts. It has been officially commemorated in the original volume of the Constitution, by the release of stamps and by the recent raising of the tricolor on its 75^thanniversary. It is reverentially recalled by millions of citizens to this day.

However, what has remained unknown to most Indians – in spite of three prominent biographies of Bose, the memoirs of INA veterans and the scholarly books by professional historians – are some of the interesting details of the Azad Hind government. A detailed presentation is out of the scope of this article. Nevertheless, the United States, the United States, and the United States of America – the flag, the emblem, the choice of words and language, the cabinet composition – clearly demonstrate the pluralist ideals of Bose and how he had envisioned a united and non-sectarian Indian government.

National Flag:	Tricolor, with the Gandhi charka in the center
Motto:	Itmad-Ittefaq-Kurbani (Urdu: Faith-Unity-Sacrifice)
Slogan / Greeting:	Jai Hind
INA Insignia:	'Springing Tiger' of Tipu Sultan, in the center of the Tricolor
Anthem:	Sab Sukh Chain (simple Hindustani translation of the 'Jana Gana Mana')
Language:	Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu mixture in Roman script). Tamil and English were also used in official declarations. (The official newspaper, named 'Azad Hind', was published in Hindustani, Gujarati, Malayalam, Tamil and English)
Bank	National Bank of Azad Hind
Military	Azad Hind Fauj. 45-50000 soldiers at its height. Three divisions (including the famed Gandhi, Nehru and Azad Brigades and the Rani of Jhansi Regiment – all of which saw action in the Burma and Imphal campaigns of 1944-45); five more divisions in various stages of planning and training.
Gallantry medals	Sher-e-Hind, Sardar-e-Jung

Cabinet members	portfolio
Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose	Head of State, Prime Minister, Minister of War Foreign Affairs
Lt. Col. AC Chatterjee (later N. Raghavan)	Minister of Finance
Dr. Lakshmi Swaminathan	Minister of women's affairs
AM Sahay	Secretary with ministerial rank
SA Ayer	Minister of publicity and propaganda
Rash Behari Bose	Supreme Advisor
Karim Giani, Debnath Das, John Thivy, Sardar Ishar Singh, DM Khan, M Yellappa	Advisors from Burma, Thailand, Hong Kong and Singapore
Lt. Col. JK Bhonsle, Lt. Col. Gulzara Singh, Lt. Col. Shah Naawaz Khan, Lt. Col. Aziz Ahmed, Lt. Col. MZ Kiani, Lt. Col. NS Bhagat, Lt. Col. Ehsan Qadir, Lt. Col. AC Loganathan	Representatives of the INA
AN Sarkar	Legal Advisor

International Recognition

Axis Powers and satellite states, Burma, Thailand, congratulatory note from Ireland.

It is impossible to note the pan-India inclusive ideals of the Azad Hind. Of course, it was not exactly new from Bose. From his earliest days as a young lieutenant of Chittaranjan Das, he had shown concern for recognizing the aspirations of various Indian communities. In the 1920s-30s, he had always resisted the imposition of one community over the other, much to the anger of communal organizations. And, with the Provisional Government under his command, Bose's plans for 'inclusive patriotism' would include a) the Tricolor and Charka – a flag that liberty-fighters had identified with for two decades, b) the reliance on 'old' Hindustani in (c) veteran Rash Behari Bose, as representative of the old armed-revolutionary order, (d) Brigades named after Gandhi, Nehru and Azad – the three top-notch leaders of the struggle at home, e) the anti-British symbolism of Tipu Sultan and Rani of Jhansi and f) the use of the North and South Indian languages ​​in correspondence (the idea of ​​the Roman script must have been influenced by Turkey's founding father Kemal Ataturk, whom Bose had admired and hoped to emulate!

In addition to symbolism, Bose would be able to test his idea of ​​'cultural proximity and exchange', even in the smallest unit of his army. He has made this Indian Legion in Germany and would like to scale it up in the INA. And, the results are best reflected in the memoirs of Abid Hassan, '' Baluchis were there among us, and Assamese, Kashmiris and Malayalis, Pathans and Sikhs and Gujeratis, ….. Every region in India is represented and every religion, mixed inseparably together not only in bigger formations but even in small platoons and sections, each unit being a living tribute to the unity of India. We have our different private faiths and we have a well-knit, determined and indivisible whole ". Of course, in these ideals, Bosewas not very different from agnostics like Nehru and declared-atheists like Bhagat Singh. What did he have to do with him? (Devoted to the 'Mother Goddess') all his life. Purpose, as his deputy SA Ayer noted, 'He never even once spoke his God in public ….. He Lived _him_" [Sugata Bose, His Majesty’s Opponent].

The 'first' Indian government

Interestingly, Azad Hind was not India's first The credit for establishing that – formally known as "Hukumat-i-Moktar-i-Hind" – in Kabul on 1^st Dec, 1915, goes to Raja Mahendra Pratap and Maulana Barkatullah who served as President and Prime Minister respectively. Other members included Ubaid al Sindhi as Minister for India, Maulavi Bashir as War Minister and Champakaran Pillai as Foreign Minister. Its purpose is to enroll the Afghan Emir as well as Tsarist (and later Bolshevik) Russia, Turkey and Japan for the Indian freedom struggle.

The prime mover of this (forgotten) enterprise was Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh (1886-1979) Prince of the Native State of Hatras and Alumnus of the Aligarh Muslim University (where his portrait adorns the library wall). An uncompromising man, Mahendra Pratap travels far and wide for enlisting support for India's freedom. He met the German Kaiser Wilhelm II in Berlin, traveled to Istanbul to contact the Ottomans and had discussions with Leon Trotsky and Vladimir Lenin in Moscow. In Afghanistan, he negotiated the support of the anti-British sections of Afghan elite who helped in recruiting an Afribi tribe-based force that hoped to attack British India from the North-West. In this, he was assisted by Maulana Barkatullah, a founder of the Gadar Party, whose rousing articles in the newspapers were widely appreciated. Resistance from the pro-British Afghani and the changing course of war in 1919, British diplomacy succeeded in shutting down the provisional government. Overall, the effort can be considered part of the global efforts by Bagha Jatin, Rashbehari Bose, Lala Hardyal, Sachin Sanyal, Bhupendranath Dutt, Kartar Singh Sarabha and others of the Gadar Party, the Jugantar, and the Berlin 'Aid-India' Committee to take advantage of WWI to uproot British rule. In their approach -although not in scale or success – they can be considered to be strategic predecessors of Bose.

[Pratap-atrueinternationalist-escapedtoJapanandcontinueditstravelsthroughChinaMongoliaandSouthAsiaAsincerebelieverinuniversalfraternityheaddresseshimselfas'servantofmankind'foundedthe'WorldFederationCenter'inTokyoandstrovefora'happinesssociety'HiseffortsearnedhimaNobelnominationinthe1930sNehruwhoputshiminSwitzerlandhaswritten''[Pratap-atrueinternationalist-escapedtoJapanandcontinuedhistravelsthroughChinaMongoliaandSouthAsiaAsincerebelieverinuniversalfraternityheaddressedhimselfas’servantofmankind’foundedthe’WorldFederationCenter’inTokyoandstrovefora’happinesssociety’HiseffortsearnedhimaNobelnominationinthe1930sNehruwhomethiminSwitzerlandhaswritten”Don Quixote who had strayed into the twentieth century. But he was absolutely straight and thoroughly earnest. Although settled in Japan in the 1940s, Pratap could never bring himself to accept Japan's imperialist arrogance and stayed away from the Azad Hind. He returned to India in 1946, made his enjoyable (more haphazard) memoirs and won the 1957 Lok Sabha seat from Mathura defeating Jan Sangh's AB Vajpayee. It is a pity that he has been all but forgotten today

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'Who is first? Who is greater?

The portfolios in the 1915 and 1943 cabinets should make us return to the first question. The facts are – i) Netaji did hold the portfolios, including prime minister in 1943, ii) Mahendra Pratap and Burkatullah held the first posts in 1915.

But, the pointworthy point is that both were PROVISIONAL governments. In fact, the title – chosen carefully by Netaji himself – explicitly states that. It was a provisional / temporary government established outside the formal (and traditional) borders of India by the people of India, to formally fight an armed struggle for the freedom of the motherland. It had no jurisdiction over Indian soil (except the Andaman and Nicobar Islands which the Japanese nominally handed over), and Netaji himself stated that its role would have come to an end India had been liberated. Obviously, if the provisional government was already in control of the country, then it would have been impossible for a Red Fort in end-1945!

Today, such 'Who is first? Who is better? 'Ponderings serve us little beyond pre-election crackers. Rather, they (deliberately?) Help us to forget the ideals of those men and women who fought against the most tyrannical of all regimes. Rather than engaging in this favorite online quest for making 'angels and demons', it's more appropriate to recall Netaji's concluding words to the proclamation of the Azad Hind government – "… .The Provisional Government is entitled to, and hereby claims, the allegiance of every Indian. It guarantees religious liberty, as well as equal rights and equal opportunities to its citizens. It declares its firm resolve to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and transcends all the differences cunningly fostered by an alien government in the past. "

(Anirban Mitra is a molecular biologist and a teacher based in Kolkata, whose interests include the history of science and the lesser known aspects of India's freedom struggle.)