“
Abid Hassan, who had accompanied him by
submarine from Germany to Japan.
The INA was
initially a reaction to the discriminatory treatment meted out to Indian
officers in the British army. They were not allowed into canteens and swimming
pools frequented by the British. The body blow came when the Japanese army
entered Malaya, and the British were staring at defeat. The British ordered
their Indian officers and soldiers to assemble at a place called Farrer Park in
Singapore, some 40,000 of them. Here one Col Grant from the Malaya Command
Headquarters handed them over to one Major Fujiwara of the Japanese army, and
told them, “From now on you belong to the Japanese army”. Those familiar with
the army will know the unflinching loyalty that is ingrained into officers and
soldiers towards their regimental honour and commanding officers. So this
cowardly betrayal by the British was dastardly by She is a difficult person to describe,
because she has no complexes of any kind,” said Govind Swaminadhan about 80
years ago. He was struggling to “describe” his younger sister, Padmavibhushan
Capt Dr Lakshmi Sahgal nee Swaminadhan MBBS, DGO, INA. Dare I attempt a
description that her brother could not? Here in Kanpur, which was her karmabhoomi
for 65 years, we affectionately referred to her as Mummyji, a name that I shall
repeatedly invoke in this filial tribute. It is not a description!
Much of the information in this
tribute is gleaned from Mummyji’s autobiography “A Revolutionary Life”,
published in 1997, and “The Forgotten Army” by Prof Peter Fay, of the
University of Michigan, USA, published in 1994. I have both these books
autographed by their respective authors. While thinking of a title for this
tribute I felt it best to use Mummyji’s own self-description – A
Revolutionary Life, as indeed it was. There were three distinct phases –
her Formative Years, the INA Campaign, and the major part of her life as
Mummyji.
PART I – The Formative Years
Fay has a chapter on “Lakshmi’s
Youth”, and her autobiography has a chapter on her “Childhood and Student
Days”. I prefer to call them the formative years, when the first seeds of a
revolutionary life were sown. This was evident in her early discard of English
frocks for khadi pavadis, the local dress. Her independent bent of mind
is expressed from the age of 12, when she wants to become a doctor, to serve
the nation. This is why, while her two brothers and younger sister went to
England and Switzerland for their education, she stayed back in India. Even
though she donated her gold ornaments to Gandhiji’s freedom movement, she
rejected his call to quit school, because as a qualified person she would be of
greater use to her country.
This fierce independence was inherited
from her parents, Subharama Swaminadhan and Ammukutty. Her father had to fend
for himself, giving tuitions to boys senior to him, in order to educate himself
and his family. He graduated from the Madras Law College, and then won the
Gilchrist Scholarship for further law studies at Gray’s Inn in London; while
simultaneously studying science at Edinburgh University in Scotland. Thereafter
he did his PhD from Harvard University, USA, in just six months, as “he didn’t
want to waste time or money”.
He had become an agnostic, who
appreciated the positive things in Western society. He was disdainful of his
Brahmin lineage, marrying a Nair girl 23 years his junior. She knew only
rudimentary Malayalam. He educated her and took her to England, to widen her
horizons. He believed in women’s equality and emancipation. He again broke
tradition by hiring “untouchables” as cooks and household servants. Another
interesting facet of his personality is that though he was fiercely
nationalistic, he held no rancour against the British, calling them “firangi
rascals”, a rather mild term. He even named his house Gilchrist Gardens, after
the man whose scholarship propelled him forward.
Ammu, the unlettered girl from
Anakkara village of Ponnani Taluka in Kerala, was soon to become the first
Indian woman in Madras to drive a car. Her hospitality was legendary, for which
she was labelled the Queen of Madras. She became a loyal member of the Congress
party. Infact Lakshmi’s first glimpse of Netaji was when she accompanied her
mother to Calcutta in 1928 for a meeting of the All India Women’s’ Conference.
Gilchrist Gardens was a confluence of
diverse streams, each of which deeply impacted the young Lakshmi. There were
staunch nationalists and freedom fighters like Rajagopalachari, Aruna Asaf Ali,
Sarojini Naidu and Vijay Lakshmi Pandit. There were three lesser-known women
who seem to have had a major impact on young Lakshmi. Margaret Cousins was an
Irish theosophist and suffragette (the Irish also suffered from British
imperialism, and the suffragettes were striving for equal rights for women,
inclusive of voting rights). The second one was another Margaret (Sangers), an
American proponent of birth control. That was in the 1920’s. The third, and
perhaps most powerful influence, was that of Comrade Subhashini Nambiar, the
sister of Sarojini Naidu. She had returned from Germany where she had studied
Marxism, the Russian and Chinese revolutions. These dramatis personae left
indelible marks on the impressionable young mind of Lakshmi. Those
characteristics of nationalism, Marxism, women’s emancipation, population
control and egalitarianism remained with her through life.
Lakshmi completed her medical studies
in 1938 and then moved to Singapore in 1940, at the behest of a doctor friend,
whom Fay code-names “K”. Lakshmi’s impressions of life in Singapore are
incisive. Of the three main ethnic groups there, she found that the Chinese
were dominating and valued the dignity of labour. The Malays were servile, and
the Indians were happy with their careers and children. She found the Indian
middle class mindset “barren”. They were affected by neither the Independence
movement, nor the turmoil in war-torn Europe. “Singapore had no character. Its
god was money”. Some things don’t change!
PART II – The INA Campaign
The second phase of Lakshmi’s life is her
induction into the Indian National Army (INA). Contrary to common belief, the
INA began with one Capt Mohan Singh, a former Sikh officer of the 1/14 Punjab
Battalion (a unit of the British Army). He was made the Supreme Commander, with
the rank of General. Subsequently he was eased out by Rash Behari Bose “who was
more Japanese than Indian”. In turn, Rash Behari handed the INA over to Subash
Chandra Bose on his arrival in Singapore in July 1943. Another popular
misconception that one may dispel at this juncture is about the slogan “Jai
Hind”. It was not coined by Bose, but by
his private secretary both political and military standards.
To the credit of the Indians, they very
grudgingly came under Japanese control, driven more by the desire to oust the
British than to support the Japanese. These developments had a direct bearing
on the infamous Red Fort Trial of Maj Gen Shahnawaz, Col Gurbuksh Singh Dhillon
and Col Prem Sahgal (later to be Lakshmi’s husband). Bhulabhai Desai, Nehru,
Sapru, Katju and Asaf Ali brilliantly argued that they were not deserters of
the King’s Army. On the contrary the King had deserted them! The “war
criminals” were exonerated.
Lakshmi entered the INA after the advent
of Netaji, who “dropped a bombshell” by opting for an all-women’s regiment,
named after Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi. Impressed by Lakshmi’s ability and
agility, Netaji gave her charge of the regiment, nicknamed the Ranis. They
underwent rigorous military training by former JCOs of the erstwhile British
Indian army. They learnt the use of firearms, route marches, jungle warfare and
map reading. The Ranis swelled to 1000, of whom just 200 were for nursing. The
rest were battle ready. Netaji took the salute at their passing out parade at
Singapore on 30th March 1944.
Capt Lakshmi then led the Ranis to the
battlefront at Maymyo on the Indo-Burmese border near Imphal. The plan was to
enter India via Imphal and then move down via Chittagong to Calcutta. That was
not to be. After 4 months of heavy fighting “under overwhelming odds and a
torrential monsoon”, the INA had to retreat in April 1945. The Ranis did not
see action at the battlefront. They neither killed, nor were killed. But even
in retreat they experienced all the rigours of war. They could not even cook
food for fear that the smoke would give their position away to the enemy. The
Ranis may have spent just a year in actual deployment. That in no way detracts
from their commitment and heroism. Couch potatoes watch TV “reality shows” on
survival in the wild. It is not a patch on the “real thing”, especially in a
war scenario.
Capt Lakshmi’s strenuous task in
establishing the Ranis was compounded because many of them were illiterate.
They first had to learn Hindustani in the Roman script (Netaji’s idea). This
was because most of them were from Tamilnadu and Kerala, whereas their
instructors were north Indians – Garhwalis, Punjabis and Dogras. Unfortunately,
this ethnic divide continued even after Independence. The independent Indian
Army refused to absorb the INA cadres into their ranks because they were not
from the martial races of the north! Capt Lakshmi challenges this, saying that
the Nairs were a martial race, “with swords, shields and blunderbusses” adorning
their homes.
For the uninitiated, the Indian Army, and
most of its regiments, still follow the British tradition of ethnic groupings.
Their reasoning – it improves spirit de corps. Incidentally, after
Independence, the political establishment again differed from Netaji’s espousal
of Roman Hindustani as the national language. Ethnic chauvinism and linguistic
States won the day, and the idea of nationhood lost.
In June 1945 Capt Lakshmi and her Ranis
were taken prisoner in the Karen Hills in Burma, but most of them were released
immediately. However, Capt Lakshmi, being a leader and ideologue, remained
under house arrest and subjected to sustained interrogation. Her diaries and
notes on the INA, the Ranis and the Burma campaign were all confiscated. Despite
that, her razor sharp memory has given us a detailed history of those turbulent
years and the struggle for independence. Perhaps this tribute will rekindle
those fires in our potbellies.
On 15th August 1945 Emperor
Hirohito of Japan accepted defeat. In the words of Fay, “The INA lay defeated,
scattered, caged. Its leader had fled, and in three days would be dead”. Capt
Lakshmi was repatriated to India on 4th March 1946, escorted by a
British army officer. As soon as the aircraft entered Indian airspace he told
her that she was now free. Unheralded, she took a taxi to her brother’s house
in Calcutta, only to find it locked. The cab driver refused to take the fare
from her, which was just as well, because she had no money anyway! She later
flew to Delhi where she was accorded a rousing welcome, which she attributed to
peoples’ “pent up emotions after a long
drawn war”, rather than personal adulation for her. True heroes/ heroines are
humble.
Now Capt. Lakshmi’s first task was to bring
relief to her repatriated INA cadres, especially her beloved Ranis. She
organised fund raising drives for them in Kerala and Tamilnadu. Her great
sorrow – that even after Independence, the country did not give the INA its
due. A greater pity is that the unity in diversity that the INA had fostered, a
more egalitarian society, and a common national language, were lost in the
euphoria of Independence. We are the poorer for it.
It would be easy to dismiss the INA, the
Ranis and Capt. Lakshmi’s war effort as a flash in the pan, like monsoon moths,
come and gone. Only those who have been in the “pan”, facing the intense heat
of war, will understand. In Capt Lakshmi’s case it was her baptism by fire, her
agni pariksha, from which she emerged, not as a burnt offering, but as
one who has been refined in a smelter at high temperature.
PART III – Mummyji
In March 1947 Capt Lakshmi married Col
Prem Sahgal, her colleague in the INA. He was a former officer of the 2/10
Baluch Regiment. Later he became Netaji’s Military Secretary. After marriage
they “settled down” in Kanpur, “a dirty, disease-ridden city from which there
seems to be no escape”. “Settling down” is a terrible turn of phrase for
Mummyji, as it is synonymous with complacency and drudgery. Such words were not
in her lexicon. Infact, even at the age of 97, the day before she had her heart
attack, she was attending to patients at her clinic.
She had taken the place on rent 50 years
earlier. It still had ordinary wooden chairs and benches. She did not “develop”
her clinic, lest the increased overhead costs would take medical treatment
beyond the reach of her poor patients. This is in stark contrast to modern day
doctors who spend lakhs/ crores on capitation fees, and then in purchasing
“specialised” and expensive equipment. Their investment is recovered many times
over in the form of “specialist’s” fees. But Dr Lakshmi, the revolutionary, the
emancipator, the life giver, was a “speciality steel” from another furnace.
Infact, when Mummyji was the Left
sponsored candidate for the President of India in 2002, I was pleasantly
surprised to find her, stethoscope in hand, on that same wooden chair. At that
time she had confided in me a dream she had; that she had become the President,
and she had converted Rashtrapati Bhawan into a hospice for the destitute,
which she handed over to Mother Teresa to run.
Mummyji was sorely disappointed with
post-Independence events, especially Partition. She immediately started work
among the refugees from Punjab, as Kanpur was a major centre for them. She felt
that U.P. had a greater communal divide than other States. She also felt that
the white rulers had been replaced by “darker ones”, the Brown Sahibs.
Comrade Subhashini Nambiar of her youth was
now replaced by another Subhashini, her elder daughter. In 1967 she had gone to
a college in the USA, at the height of the Vietnam War. In 1969 she returned as
a confirmed Marxist. Shortly thereafter Mummyji herself joined the CPM.
Ironically, post-Independence, the CPI had declined to accept Mummyji and other
INA cadres, labelling them fascists. Turning full circle!
In the aftermath of the liberation of
Bangladesh (1971) Mummyji again took up arms, medical ones. She was off to the
refugee camps in Bengal. She has an interesting anecdote. The Norwegians wanted
to help, and heard that the Bengalis liked fish, so they sent planeloads of
frozen fish as relief material. They rotted on the tarmac. Misplaced ardour.
It reminds me of another anecdote from
her INA days. In its infancy, it was totally dependent on the Japs for their
rations. The Jap troops only ate rice sprinkled with dried fish powder, and
didn’t know the Indians’ eating habits. So one day they issued them rice only,
the next day dal, and on the third day only chilly powder!
I have two special memories of working
with Mummyji. She had started a small technical institute for women – for
computer training and stenography. Because of her trusting nature the Secretary
of the society was taking her for a ride. So Subhashini said that she should find
a trustworthy person, and the lot fell on me. I was also the Secretary of the
Manav Sadbhav Abhiyan, of which she was the Patron. We often went to address
NCC training camps on national integration and communal harmony. Mummyji would
march ramrod straight to take the salute. Once again full circle – the Indian
Army, that had once fought against her, was now saluting her.
On the last occasion that my wife and I
visited her, Subhashini told us that Mummyji wanted to eat pork chops in true
Goan style, so could we make them for her? We did. The warrior had not lost her
teeth.
In
1998 a grateful nation belatedly bestowed on her the Padmavibhushan. At her
funeral there was talk of posthumously awarding her the Bharat Ratna. Mummyji
gave of herself till the very end. She donated her eyes, and even her body, to
the medical college, for anatomical research.
After her passing on (why call it death?)
I asked her younger daughter Anisa Puri, what was her enduring and
endearing memory of her mother? She said, “It was her simplicity and humility.
She never boasted of her accomplishments. She gave her life for the poor. There
was no dichotomy between thought and action. She was a totally transparent
person. The only one who matched her was Dad. She was as happy as a lark,
especially when her purse was empty”.
Mummyji must now be soaring somewhere
high above with the larks. Hers was a truly revolutionary life. She never took
life, but gave life to thousands; and inspired or touched the lives of
thousands more like me. I pay her this filial tribute, the last salute. JAI
HIND!
August 2012
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