A Flaming Sword Forever Unsheathed 5was fond of quoting the emperor’s Urdu couplet: “So long as ghazis
[heroic warriors] are imbued with the spirit of faith / The sword of
Hindustan will reach London’s throne.”^10
On October 21, 1943, Bose proclaimed the formation of the Pro-
visional Government of Azad Hind (“Free India”) in Singapore. He
wrote the proclamation himself, well past midnight on October 19–20,
1943, drawing on Indian his tory and on elements of the Irish and
American declarations of in de pen dence.^11 In early January 1944, the
headquarters of the provisional government were moved forward from
Singapore to Rangoon. Having first seen action on the Arakan Front in
February 1944, the INA moved into northeastern India toward Imphal
and Kohima on March 18, 1944. With “Chalo Delhi” on their lips, the
INA soldiers crossed the Indo- Burma frontier and carried the armed
struggle to Indian soil.
The promised march to Delhi was, however, halted in Imphal. The
British and Britain’s Indian Army, with American air support, were
able to break the siege of Imphal after three and a half tense months,
and to beat back the Japanese forces and the INA from the outskirts of
Kohima as well. The military debacle in Imphal by August 1944 gave
way to a harrowing retreat speckled with a few determined rearguard
actions by the INA in Burma during late 1944 and early 1945. Bose re-
treated on foot from Burma to Thailand with the soldiers of the INA,
including the women he had recruited into a women’s regiment named
after the Rani of Jhansi, a heroine of the 1857 uprising. A dangerous
trek under constant enemy fire in late April and early May 1945, the
retreat helped to fortify his reputation as a selfless and fearless leader.
The atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in early August
1945 brought the war in East Asia to an abrupt end. On the day of Ja-
pan’s defeat on August 15, 1945—exactly two years before India’s in de-
pen dence—Netaji issued his last order of the day and a special message
to Indians in East Asia. “The roads to Delhi are many,” he told his sol-
diers, “and Delhi still remains our goal.” Urging his civilian followers
never to falter in their faith in India’s destiny, Bose expressed con fi-
dence that “India shall be free and before long.”^12
The victory parade at the Red Fort came to be enacted in a most
unusual way. When the Second World War ended, the Indian in de-