INA Veterans and Netaji

During my travels, I once met an old man, a Freedom Fighter and an INA Veteran.

He told me, he still dreamt of an India which is developed and where the elders of the society are respected. He didn’t want any undue favors, but wanted atleast some respect towards his age and his actions in his youth. He was disgusted by corruption all around him and he was always trying to take a stand against it. When I met him, he was yet to receive his pension for the past 7-8 yrs as he refused to pay bribes. There was no honest officer incharge of that office to help him out. And this old man was now making a living as a street vendor.

He is a Tamilian who joined the INA heeding the call of Rash Behari / Netaji and saw action in Burma mainly.

When they initially came back to India, the INA they were treated as heroes by the common populace. But this man I met, was hugely disgusted by the Congress leadership who in those days capitalized on the Red Fort Trail. It seems the Congress leadership collected donations from the public for the defense. These donations ran into millions of rupees in those days. The Congress leadership gained a lot of publicity from this whole action. But after the trial and soon after when India was given its freedom, none of these INA veterans were recognized as army veterans and for a very long time they were not even recognized as freedom fighters. These were the people who sacrificed the prime of their youth for the country, dreamt of a free India and of a glorious national future. They are heroes who should have been equally respected as other congress functionaries. But these veterans were humiliated and not even recognized as freedom fighters. Many had already sacrificed their all for their nation, but after 1947, were reduced to even more poverty and some of them died in hunger.

Just imagine, soldiers coming from traumatic battles and battlefields, already depressed by war, being subject to non recognition. They were dishonorably discharged from an army that refused to accept them even after Independence and no pension.

It was only in 1972, that the government found it fit to award a pension to the INA Veterans. I wonder why this discrimination happened at all. Why were these guys pushed to the gutters of society?

A lot many people claim that Netaji was alive and lived in India also for some time. If this was/is true, I lose my respect for him for he had forsaken the lives of those who believed in him. He would not be a true leader. Whatever be the compulsions of his isolated existence, if at all he was alive and did not lift a finger to help out the veterans, it was an extremely shameful act on his part.