Who among the following is not associated with Azad Hind Fauz (INA) ?

Question

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — D, S. A. Dange. Note the negation before anything else: the booklet sets 'not' in bold italics and the plain text you see here loses that emphasis, so the question asks who does *not* belong. Three of the four names are core Azad Hind Fauj figures and the fourth belongs to an entirely different political tradition. Shripad Amrit Dange was a founder of the Communist Party of India, an accused in the Kanpur Bolshevik Conspiracy Case of 1924 and the Meerut Conspiracy Case of 1929, and a leading figure of the All India Trade Union Congress. He had no connection with the INA whatever, and the disconnection was ideological as well as biographical: after Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941 the Communist Party adopted the 'People's War' line, supported the Allied war effort, stood aside from the Quit India movement of 1942, and was hostile to an army raised with Japanese assistance. The other three are all documented INA men. General Mohan Singh raised the first Indian National Army at Singapore in 1942 from Indian prisoners of war, before it was dissolved in December that year over disputes with the Japanese. Shah Nawaz Khan and Prem Kumar Sahgal were senior officers of the reconstituted INA under Subhas Chandra Bose, and were two of the three defendants — with Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon — in the Red Fort trials of 1945-46, a fact UPSC has itself keyed. On any reading, Dange is the outsider.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) Associated, so not the answer. Shah Nawaz Khan was a senior INA officer and one of the three tried together at the Red Fort in 1945-46 — the trial deliberately staged against a Muslim, a Hindu and a Sikh, which turned it into a national cause and produced the defence team of Bhulabhai Desai, Tej Bahadur Sapru, Asaf Ali and Jawaharlal Nehru. He later served as a Union minister.  (b) Associated, and in fact the man who began it. He raised the first Indian National Army at Singapore in 1942 out of Indian prisoners taken after the fall of Malaya and Singapore, with Japanese encouragement. The first INA was dissolved in December 1942 after he fell out with the Japanese over the force's autonomy, and the army was revived under Subhas Chandra Bose in July 1943.  (c) Associated. Prem Kumar Sahgal was an INA officer and the second of the three Red Fort defendants; UPSC named him alongside Shah Nawaz Khan and Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon in a 2021 question and keyed all three as officers of the Indian National Army. He later married Lakshmi Swaminathan, who had commanded the INA's Rani of Jhansi Regiment.

Concept: The Azad Hind Fauj had two lives. The first was raised at Singapore in 1942 by Mohan Singh from among the tens of thousands of Indian soldiers taken prisoner when Malaya and Singapore fell, with Japanese sponsorship arranged through the Fujiwara Kikan; it collapsed in December 1942 when its Indian leadership concluded that the Japanese meant to use it as an auxiliary rather than treat it as the army of an allied nation. The second was built by Subhas Chandra Bose, who reached Singapore in July 1943, took command, and proclaimed the Provisional Government of Azad Hind on 21 October 1943 — a government recognised by several Axis and Axis-aligned states, with its own currency, court and women's regiment, the Rani of Jhansi Regiment under Lakshmi Sahgal. Its campaign came with the Japanese into Manipur and Nagaland in 1944, and at Moirang, Colonel Shaukat Malik hoisted the Tricolour on Indian soil on 14 April 1944. Militarily the offensive failed at Imphal and Kohima. Politically the INA had its greatest effect after the war, when the Red Fort trials of 1945-46 turned the defendants into national heroes, produced mass demonstrations, and contributed to British doubts about the reliability of the Indian armed forces.

State PCS 2025 Q81 — History PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2025 Q81 — History PYQ with Answer