Why Imperial Japan Backed Indian Independence Fighters

Great power wars are, despite their name, not only for the great powers. Small states, and even nonstate actors, can participate in the bloodbath, gunning for the spoils of victory, if their interests align with the great powers’ interests enough for the great power to “sponsor” the weaker party’s participation. Great powers need allies too, and the desperation of losing a war may force them to grasp at straws. 

A fascinating historical example of such an alignment is between Imperial Japan and Indian independence fighters in World War II. The foundations of this little-studied partnership were being laid even before Pearl Harbor: Imperial Japan was trying to cultivate closer ties with Indian diaspora communities in Southeast Asia as of September 1941. When Subhas Chandra Bose declared the Provisional Azad Hind (“Free India”) Government in October 1943 in Japanese-occupied Singapore with Japanese assistance, Imperial Japan was one of the nine states that granted diplomatic recognition to Bose’s new government. Imperial Japan helped stand up the first Indian National Army, which was active from December 1941 to December 1942, and the second Indian National Army, which was active from June 1943 until the war ended with Imperial Japan’s defeat in August 1945.

This case touches on two important topics in the study of international relations: the dangers of entrapment by weaker allies and the dangers of lobbying by foreign entities. Alliances and foreign lobbying are intrinsically important topics to understand because they can impact the likelihood of conflict initiation and escalation. Perhaps the most famous candidate for a case of great power entrapment is the relationship between Germany and Austria in the lead up to World War I. The tight, pre-1914 alliances are generally understood as one potential cause of WWI. Regarding the role of foreign lobbies, the Taiwan lobby and the Israel lobby in the United States are illustrative examples of how foreign lobbies can impact a great power’s grand strategy.

The potentially destabilizing or corrupting influence of alliances and foreign lobbies are constant themes in any discussion of great powers’ grand strategies, especially during periods of great power retrenchment in the face of relative decline. As important as these discussions are, they are also limited in two important ways. First, the focus on the relationship between alliances and war initiation ignores the important ways in which alliances can impact the great power’s conduct during the war. Second, the focus on foreign lobbies in democracies needs to be complemented by a better understanding of how foreign lobbies operate in autocracies.

A closer reflection on the dynamics of the Imperial Japanese partnership with Indian independence fighters offers a broader perspective on these issues. Weaker parties can have harmful effects on great powers even during wars and even in autocracies. What was at stake in the Imperial Japan-Indian independence fighters’ relationship was not entrapment, as Imperial Japan launched the Pacific War against the United States on its own. Instead, by engaging with the Indian independence movement, Japan risked horizontal escalation, as Bose wanted Imperial Japan to invade India even when it was not in Imperial Japan’s strategic interest to do so. Bose’s siding with an impetuous, hotheaded Japanese officer on the frontlines in Myanmar did lead to horizontal escalation that cost Imperial Japan dearly in the last days of the war. Imperial Japan was going to lose to the United States and Great Britain regardless of what actions it took in the Indian subcontinent in 1944, but Bose, together with Lieutenant General Mutaguchi Renya, successfully lobbied Tokyo for a policy decision that led to the senseless loss of even more lives in the assault on Imphal.

Major Fujiwara Iwaichi, a Japanese intelligence officer, was the first to build relationships with the Indian diaspora community, and brought the Indian National Army into existence from a motley collection of defeated Indian prisoners-of-war. He co-opted a longtime Indian leader as the civilian head, Rash Behari Bose, and Captain Mohan Singh was recruited from the captured Indian soldiers to be their military leader. Despite Fujiwara’s enthusiasm and idealism, or perhaps because of it, the mantle of Japanese liaison was passed on from Fujiwara to Colonel Iwakuro Hideki after Japan’s victory in Singapore in February 1942.

Shortly after, the All-Indian Independence League was founded as the civilian counterpart to the Indian National Army in June 1942. From the Bangkok Conference, Imperial Japan received the All-Indian Independence League’s request for recognition, but studiously ignored such requests. When the civilian-military split in the Indian independence movement became too great, driven by different degrees of trust in the Japanese patron (the civilians tended to trust the Japanese more than the military leaders did), Singh was arrested in December 1942 and the first Indian National Army dissolved. 

From September 1941 to December 1942, what is remarkable is the degree to which Imperial Japan, more specifically the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA), was able to keep the Indian independence fighters in check. Imperial Japan wanted the Indian National Army for propaganda purposes, i.e. to attract more supporters from Southeast Asia, to demoralize Indians living in British India, to persuade Indian soldiers in the British military to defect, and to gain legitimacy for their rhetoric of “Asia for the Asians.” When the Indian independence fighters demanded more men and more equipment than what the Imperial Japanese Army could supply them with without hurting their own military effectiveness, the IJA declined to meet such demands.

What changed after June 1943 is the return of the charismatic Subhas Chandra Bose to the Asian theater, after he had traveled from British India to Nazi Germany and sought Hitler’s favor there. With Bose at the helm, which exponentially increased the propaganda value of the second Indian National Army, and with the Pacific War going against them, Imperial Japan slowly lost its ability to keep the Indian independence fighters’ ambitions in check. Mutaguchi played a key role in convincing Tokyo to authorize an offensive against India – against the better judgment of his comrades and subordinates in the field. The Imphal campaign, which lasted from March to July 1944, was a disaster for Japan and led to Mutaguchi being relieved from command and recalled to Tokyo, where he was forced into retirement.

Not all autocracies are as fragmented and beset by civil-military relations problems as Imperial Japan was. But if any autocracy was going to be susceptible to the pressures of foreign lobbies, it was Imperial Japan in the middle of the Pacific War. And not all great powers have weaker allies that have goals motivating them to push the great power to horizontally escalate the war. But if the propaganda value of such a weaker ally is high enough, great powers may just give in and make strategically unwise policy decisions that carry immensely high human costs. The Imperial Japan-Indian independence fighters’ partnership is a fascinating piece of history to study on its own terms, but it is also a great example that highlights the importance of thinking about the role of weak allies in wartime and foreign lobbies in autocracies when discussing the grand strategy of declining great powers.