‘Our only goal was to ensure that the country was free’
GURUGRAM: On a sunny afternoon, as one walks through the quiet lanes of Fazilpur Badli village in Farrukhnagar, a lilting sound wafts through the air as one approaches the house of freedom fighter Parmanand. Dressed in a kurtapyjama, the 100-year-old lies on a charpoy in the courtyard of his house reciting fragments of poems from memory.
“Gandhi, Nehru aur Subhas, Azad jo brigade they/ Singapur ke junglomein mein hum roz karte parade they [Gandhi, Nehru and Subhas, the brigades of Azad Hind Fauj/ We’d conduct parades every day in the jungles of Singapore],” recited Parmanand, one of the last surviving members of the Azad Hind Fauj (Indian National Army or INA). He was among the four INA veterans who took part in the Republic Day celebrations in 2019, and is among the few surviving freedom fighters who participated in the struggle for independence.
In April 1940, Parmanand, then 20, joined the First Regiment Army in Gurugram. He was sent to Ambala and Karachi for training, and then his regiment left for Singapore to fight against Japan in the ongoing World War II. In December 1941, Japanese aircraft attacked the British Army base, after which Parmanand and others were taken into captivity.
“We could hear the planes hovering in the air. Following the escalation of the attacks, Japan took British soldiers under captivity,” he recalled. The Indian prisoners of war were told that Japan would help them fight against the British for India’s independence. Parmanand’s life turned around and from being part of the British army, he became a havildar in the INA.
Subhas Chandra Bose, who had staged a daring escape from house arrest in Calcutta in 1941 had one aim as the World War raged across the globe, between the Axis powers on one side (Italy, Nazi Germany, Japan) and the Allied powers (Britain, United States of America and Soviet Union) on the other. Rather than support Britain, Bose wanted to use the war to establish a provisional Indian government and an army that would fight against the colonial power. Not everyone supported his decision to take help from fascist states like Italy and Germany. In 1943, Bose who had left Berlin for Tokyo, Japan, proclaimed the establishment of the INA which comprised several thousand troops trained with Japan’s help.
Parmanand recalled meeting Bose for the first time in 1943. To welcome Bose, he penned a special song that exhorted Churchill to leave India. Over the years, the memory of the lines in the song has dulled, but a little nudge from his family members gives him the incentive to recite it with full gusto. “Paapi Churchill se kehdo, bhaag jaye Hind se [Tell the sinner Churchill to leave India with haste], ” he said.
“I used to recite poems to motivate my friends and fellow soldiers. Our job was tough and we needed to keep our spirits high among the difficult conditions,” said Parmanand, pausing intermittently to recite another stanza.
“Netaji used to love me a lot. He used to call me affectionately with love, like one reaches out to children. ‘Parmanand, come here!’ he would say and ask me to do chores. ‘Haan ji,’ I would say. He used to give me attention. I, on the other hand, was from a village and not very well-read,” Parmanand said.
During the war, INA fought against British and American armies in Meghalaya, Tripura, Mizoram. “In Kohima, a major battle took place in 1944. In retaliation, the British Army damaged the bridges through which we used to get food grains,” Parmanand said.
The siege of Imphal, or the Battle of Kohima as this confrontation came to be called ended badly for the Axis powers, but Bose’s liberation army succeeded in establishing itself as a force to reckon with.
During this time, Parmanand was asked to spy on the British base. But he, along with two other soldiers, got arrested. Parmanand faced physical torture while imprisoned in Jhikargachha Jail (in present-day Bangladesh). Six months later, Parmanand was sent to Multan jail, and court-martialed.
On February 11, 1946, several months after the Second World War ended with the defeat of the Axis powers and the reported death of Bose, Parmanand returned home. “Azad Hind Fauj sacrificed for the freedom of the country. Our only goal was to ensure that India became a free country.”