Roads to Delhi 257in the Roman script, became the national language; but given the large
south Indian presence, translation into Tamil was provided at all public
meetings. Even the proclamation of the Azad Hind government was
read in Hindustani, Tamil, and En glish. A simple Hindustani transla-
tion of Rabindranath Tagore’s song “Jana Gana Mana Adhinayak Jai
He” became the national anthem. A springing tiger, evoking Tipu Sul-
tan of Mysore’s gallant resistance against the British, featured as the
emblem on the tricolor shoulder- pieces on uniforms. Gandhi’s charkha
continued to adorn the center of the tricolor flags that INA soldiers
were to carry on their march toward Delhi. Three Urdu words—Itmad
(“Faith”), Ittefaq (“Unity”), and Kurbani (“Sacrifice”)—encapsulated
the motto of the Azad Hind movement.^42
The spirit of solidarity was infused in the soldiers of the Azad Hind
Fauj (literally “Free India Army,” the Indian National Army) through a
pro cess of po lit i cal education. Netaji either wrote or in flu enced the
platoon lectures that were delivered to the troops in their training
camps. One such lecture given to INA recruits, titled “Unity of India,
Past and Present,” rehearsed the his tory of Hindu- Muslim relations on
the subcontinent. “Once the Moghul rule was established,” the recruits
were told, “Hindus and Muslims lived as brothers.” In more recent
times, Mahatma Gandhi was credited with being “very largely respon-
sible” for inspiring and uniting the masses of India. Bose showered
high praise on Gandhi, choosing to forget their differences of 1939. On
the occasion of the Mahatma’s seventy- fourth birthday, on October 2,
1943, he made a broadcast from Bangkok describing Gandhi’s contri-
butions to the Indian struggle as “unique and unparalleled.” Gandhi
was at this time languishing in British detention. “No single man could
have achieved more,” Bose said in his eulogy, “in one single lifetime
under similar circumstances.” The lesson to be learned was that Indians
in Southeast Asia “should form one common blood brotherhood for
the achievement of Purna Swaraj [complete in de pen dence] for India.”^43
Bose’s and Gandhi’s discourses on unity sanctified by the fire of sacrifi-
cial pa tri ot ism relied more on the language of blood than on the lan-
guage of rights, even though there was room for both in their formula-
tions. Gandhi’s call in 1942 that “rivers of blood” must flow to pay the
“price of freedom” was not qualitatively different from Bose’s exhorta-