Related Notes of Interest while on this topic

4. Attitude of Southeast Asian Nations Against Colonization:

The colonies throughout South and Southeast Asia were thus rife for anticolonial stirrings, particularly because colonial subjects were denied access to economic and political power and because of individualistic trend of thought brought about by the upsurge of new rationalistic trends in the Western world via Christian missionaries and religious reforms in both Muslim and Buddhist spheres. The Japanese did not seem to rely much on INA, despite their acknowledgment of Netaji and his brand of leadership umbrella. Perhaps Japanese military strategy aimed at delivering Manipur from Britain (marking their successful onslaught on South Asia, after having swept the entire Southeast Asia, Thailand also brought over under Japanese influence) and handing over Manipur, rather than annexing it, for the then Japanese Emperor Hirohito to offer it to the Manipuris on the occasion of Hirohito's next birthday. All these naturally got fizzled out earlier because of the since euphemistically described "the three M's" and later Japan had to turn back following the unprecedented bombing of the two Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

In the wake of modern organizations and nationalism colonial authorities were shaken in their roots, throughout South and Southeast Asian colonies. The weakening of colonial authority as a consequence of the Japanese conquest and occupation of practically the whole territory of Southeast Asia boosted the organizational forces of the peoples of Southeast Asia so as to give them a victory shortly after the war was over in nearly all the area. INA could come into being also because Japan faced the mammoth task of maintaining some 45,000 Indian soldiers led by a British officer who surrendered. Initially these surrenderees were treated with scant courtsey, and even used to build a railway in Thailand - hence gaining notorious name of "Death Railway" because of the victims claimed by the process. Later, under the magnanimous Japanese General Fujiwara and an Indian soldier Captain Mohan Singh, the INA was innovated and these surrenderees - unhappy with British officers because of their discrimination between whites and Indians - became a new tool to turn back and fight these very British and the Allies in East Asia.

Singapore has had a specific role in India's perspective since it is India's eastward gateway, anchored by many ethnic Indians, forming a homogeneous population along with Malays, Chinese etc. Even in Netaji's transit and epochal INA-formation Singapore has a major role, which was mirrored in 1994 when India's prime minister Narasimha Rao initiated the embryonic perspective of India's reform story _ since oft-referred to as "Narasimha Rao's Singapore Lectures".

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