The trial of the Officers of the I.N.A. was held in

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Correct — A, Red Fort, Delhi. After Japan's surrender in August 1945 the British began court-martialling captured officers of Subhas Chandra Bose's Indian National Army, and the government deliberately staged the first trial inside the Red Fort in Delhi — the Mughal seat of power and, since 1857, a British garrison. The first and most famous of these trials ran from November into December 1945 and put three officers in the dock together: Major-General Shah Nawaz Khan, Colonel Prem Kumar Sahgal and Colonel Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon — a Muslim, a Hindu and a Sikh. They were charged under section 121 of the Indian Penal Code with waging war against the King, with additional counts of murder or abetment of murder. The choice of venue backfired spectacularly: 'Red Fort trials' became a national slogan, the Congress set up an INA Defence Committee that brought Bhulabhai Desai, Tej Bahadur Sapru, Jawaharlal Nehru, Asaf Ali and Kailash Nath Katju into court together, and the country erupted in demonstrations. All three were convicted and sentenced to transportation for life, but Commander-in-Chief General Claude Auchinleck (he was promoted field marshal only on 1 June 1946) remitted the sentences and set them free. Further INA trials followed at the Red Fort into 1946.

Why the other options are wrong — (b) Gwalior belongs to a different chapter of the freedom struggle. The fort and the town are remembered for the last phase of the Revolt of 1857 — Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi died fighting near Gwalior in June 1858 and Tatya Tope operated in that theatre. Gwalior Fort had no role in the 1945-46 courts-martial, which were conducted by the British Indian Army in Delhi.  (c) Amer (Amber) Fort is a Kachhwaha Rajput palace-fort near Jaipur, associated with Raja Man Singh and with Rajput-Mughal alliance politics of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; it is today part of the UNESCO-listed Hill Forts of Rajasthan. It was never a British military or judicial establishment and had no connection with the INA.  (d) The strongest decoy, because Agra Fort is the other great Mughal red-sandstone fort and is genuinely famous as a place of confinement — Shah Jahan spent his last years imprisoned there by Aurangzeb. But the INA courts-martial were held in Delhi, at the Red Fort, and a candidate who has stored only 'a red Mughal fort' rather than 'Red Fort, Delhi' will land here.

Concept: The Indian National Army was formed from Indian prisoners of war and civilians in Southeast Asia and was reorganised under Subhas Chandra Bose from 1943, fighting alongside the Japanese in Manipur and Burma. When the Japanese collapsed in 1945, the British treated captured INA personnel as deserters and traitors and put them on public trial. The trials, held in the Red Fort in Delhi from November 1945, produced the last great mass upsurge before independence: student strikes, hartals, and a rare pooling of Congress, Muslim League and Communist sympathy behind the accused. The unrest fed directly into the Royal Indian Navy ratings' revolt of February 1946, and the sight of the Indian Army's own loyalty in question was one of the considerations that pushed the British towards a rapid transfer of power.

State PCS 2019 Q136 — History PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2019 Q136 — History PYQ with Answer