Roads to Delhi 271The Imphal offensive commenced on March 8, 1944. Bose had drawn
up elaborate plans for civilian administration of territories in India
that fell to the INA. Civil servants were being trained at the Recon-
struction College in Singapore, but few had moved as yet to Burma.
Bose hurriedly sent for A. C. Chatterjee, his erstwhile fi nance minister,
and on March 16 he appointed Chatterjee chief administrator of the
liberated territories. He quickly created a civil affairs group called the
Azad Hind Dal (“Free India Group”), to take charge of administration
within India. The initial team of about seventy administrators left Ran-
goon for the border on March 8. They were to discharge their duties in
two phases. The immediate task would be to restore essential utility
ser vices, provide relief to refugees, furnish the liberated zones with
supplies of food, maintain law and order, and reassure the Indian pop-
ulation of their safety and security. Once military operations ceased in
any particular area, a provisional provincial administration would be
established reporting to the Provisional Government of Azad Hind
until the future, permanent government of Free India could be or ga-
nized. The work of reconstruction would create, in Bose’s words, “a
new po lit i cal, economic and social order by which a better life for the
Indians may be secured.”^63
On March 18, 1944, the INA moved into northeastern India, toward
Imphal and Kohima. With “Chalo Delhi!” on their lips, the Azad Hind
Fauj crossed the Indo- Burma frontier and carried the armed struggle
onto Indian soil. They marched singing their battle song, “Kadam Ka-
dam Barhaye Ja”; step by step they would advance until the Indian flag
fluttered over the Red Fort of Delhi. On that historic occasion, Netaji
issued a lyrical order of the day in which he dwelt on the theme of sac-
rificial pa tri ot ism:
There, there in the distance—beyond that river, beyond those jungles,
beyond those hills lies the promised land—the soil from which we
sprang—the land to which we shall now return. Hark! India is calling—
India’s metropolis Delhi is calling—three hundred and eighty eight
millions of our countrymen are calling. Blood is calling to blood. Get
up, we have no time to lose. Take up your arms. There, in front of you,
is the road that our pioneers have built. We shall march along that road.