Jai Hind! and its Karnataka connection
In 1943, when Subhas Chandra Bose took over the INA, a military unit under the Japanese made up of Indian soldiers captured by the Japanese army during WWII, he chose “Jai Hind” as rallying cry.
Jai Hind! Although that rousing cheer to the motherland is used prodigally through the year, it is around Republic Day and Independence Day that it packs a truly patriotic punch. It also links two extraordinary Indians born on either side of January 26 – Subhas Chandra Bose (born on the 23 in 1897), and our own Field Marshal KM Cariappa (born on the 28th – he would have been 126 today).
Neither man coined the slogan – that honour belongs to Champakaraman Pillai (1891-1934), a prominent name in the pro-Indian revolutionary movement in Europe. Sometime between 1920 and 1921, as a student at Cambridge, Bose ran into Pillai. That meeting may have been reinforced Bose’s eventual decision to abandon his ICS dreams and join the Indian freedom movement. In 1943, when Bose took over the Indian National Army (INA), a military unit under the Japanese made up of Indian soldiers captured by the Japanese army during WWII, he chose “Jai Hind” as its rallying cry.
In August 1945, just before Japan - and with it, the INA - surrendered, ending WWII, Bose died in a plane crash. Over the next few months, the British Indian army held the INA Trials, where captured INA soldiers and officers, who had originally been part of their own army, were tried for treason. When Col Prem Kumar Sahgal, Col Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon and Major General Shah Nawaz Khan came up for joint court-martial, one of the things that led to a more lenient sentence for the men was the word of an insider who intervened on their behalf. That insider was the first Indian to have attained the exalted rank of Brigadier in the British Indian army, Kodandera Madappa “Kipper” Cariappa.
Born in Shanivarasanthe, Kodagu, in 1899, Cariappa was a keen sportsman as a boy, adept at both tennis and hockey (Bangalore’s hockey stadium is named after him). Graduating from Daly Cadet College, Indore, in 1919, he was granted a commission with the 2/88 Carnatic Infantry, and was moved around some before he settled into the 1/7 Rajputs, one of the oldest infantry regiments of the Indian Army. Rising rapidly through the ranks, he achieved a series of firsts – in 1934, he became the first Indian military officer to crack the entrance exam of the elite Quetta Staff College, Baluchistan; in 1942, the first Indian to lead a battalion – the 7th Rajput Machine Gun Battalion.
In 1947, acutely conscious that Indian officers would soon have to occupy all positions in the army, including the highest ones, his British superiors selected Cariappa, among others, to train at the Imperial Defence College in the UK. Post the training, convinced that divvying up the Indian Army would be disastrous for both India and Pakistan, especially because it would mean inexperienced officers in top positions on both sides, Cariappa made several recommendations, to no avail. Instead, during Partition, he was the one picked to preside over the division.
Soon after Independence, as deputy chief of general staff, he led the first Indo-Pak war, capturing critical areas like Poonch, Zoji La, Dras, Kargil and Ladakh. On 15th January 1949, KM Cariappa took over as the first Indian Commander-in-Chief of the Indian army (ever since, the date is celebrated as ‘Army Day’ in his honour).
And what of “Jai Hind”? One of the things Cariappa was adamant about as C-in-C was his refusal to induct officers of the INA into the Indian Army, believing it would weaken the institution from within. However, as a mark of respect to the INA, he adopted “Jai Hind” as a personal greeting. Since 2012, following an order by Chief of Army Staff, Gen Bikram Singh, all ranks of the Indian Army have done as Kipper did – greet each other with a resounding “Jai Hind!”
(Roopa Pai is a writer who has carried on a longtime love affair with her hometown Bengaluru)
