Roads to Delhi 291nity in Malaya. The Indians reached an un der stand ing with the Bur-
mese not to fight against each other. That agreement was adhered to,
despite the his tory of past racial con flicts and a mea sure of envy in
Burmese government circles of the sounder fi nan cial basis of the Pro-
visional Government of Free India.^115
Subhas Chandra Bose was extremely sensitive on the question of
Indian soldiers’ loyalty to the cause of freedom. He was well aware of
the his tory of Indian treachery at Plassey in 1757 that had enabled the
British colonial conquest in the first place. On March 13 he issued a
statement on bravery and cowardice and gave an order to “arrest and
shoot at the front cowardly and treacherous elements.”^116 Despite in-
stances of cowardice and treachery, the INA soldiers commanded by
Shah Nawaz, Sahgal, and Dhillon fought courageously around Mount
Popa during the month of April. Kanwal Singh and his men distin-
guished themselves in the battle of Legyi in early April. On April 10, the
British bombed the INA field hospital at Kyaukpadaung, killing eighty
men and injuring another thirty. Once Mount Popa had to be aban-
doned, on April 13, the INA struggled toward the south. On April 20, a
battalion of Sahgal’s regiment led by Captain Bagri perished about
twenty miles south of Taundwingyi, fight ing against a column of en-
emy tanks and armored vehicles with rifles and hand grenades. “What
did you mean, you people,” General Gracey would ask Prem Sahgal af-
ter his capture, “by going on fight ing? We had armor, artillery. You
chaps had nothing. But instead of surrendering, you fought. It was
madness.” Sahgal conceded it was madness, but of a deliberate, revolu-
tionary sort.^117 Their determination to fight against the odds was “nei-
ther light- hearted nor born of hurrah- pa tri ot ism.” It was a “grim re-
solve” based on a degree of po lit i cal education imparted at the camps,
perhaps at the cost of military training.^118 By April 1945, the weight of
steel was decidedly against the Indians in Burma.
Eventually, on April 29, Prem Kumar Sahgal became a prisoner- of-
war near Allanmyo; Shah Nawaz Khan and Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon
were captured on May 18, near Pegu.^119 “I have always said that the
darkest hour precedes the dawn,” their leader had told them. “We are
now passing through the darkest hour; therefore, the dawn is not
far off.”^120