Bangkok Conference
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The Bangkok Conference was a conference held on 22 June, 1942 by Indian Nationalist groups and local Indian Independence leagues at Bangkok to proclaim the formation of the All-India Independence league. The conference further saw the adoption by the league of a thirty-four set resolution known as the Bangkok resolutions that attempted to define the role of the league in the Independence movement, relations with the nascent Indian National Army, and clarify the grounds and conditions for obtaining Japanese support for it. The resolution further attempted to clarify the relations of Japan and the GEACPS with a free India.
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[edit] Indian Independence League
The Bangkok conference defined the structure of the league as consisting of a Council for Action and a Committee of representatives below it. Below the committee was to be the territorial and local branches.[1]Rash Behari Bose was to chair the council, while K.P.K Menon, Nedyam Raghavan were among the civilian members of the counil. Mohan Singh and an officer by the name of Gilani were to be the INA's members.[2] The committee of representatives took members from the 12 territories with Indian population, with representation proportional to the representative Indian population.[3][4] The Bangkok resolution further decided that the Indian National Army was to be subordinate to it.[5]
[edit] Bangkok Resolutions
The introduction to the resoltuion states:[6]
| “ | That Indian be considered as ONE and indivisible. That all activities of this movement be on a national basis and not on sectional, communal or religious bases. That in view of the fact that the Indian National Congress is the only political organisation which could claim to represent the real interests of the people of India and as such acknowledged as the only body representing India, this conference is od the opinion that that the programme and plan of action of this Movement must be so guided, controlled and directed as to bring them in line with the aims and intentions of the Indian National Congress. | ” |
The resolution itself adopted a thirty-four point resolution, to each of which it expected the Japanese government to respond to. These included the demand that the Japanese government clearly, explicitly and publicly recognise India as an independent nation and the league as the nation's representatives and guardians.[7] Other points also demanded assurances from the Japanese on Free India's relation with Japan, respect for her soverignty and her territiorial integrity, to all of which the council unanimously demanded that Japan clearly and unequivocally commit themselves before the league proceeded any further in collaboration.[8] The resolution further demanded that the Indian National Army be accorded the status of an allied army and treated as such, and that all Indian PoWs be released to the INA. The Japanese must ehlp the army with loans, and not to ask it to march in any other purpose than for the liberation of India.[9]
The resolution was duly passed on to what was then the Japanese liasing office, the Iwakuro Kikan.
[edit] Notes
[edit] References
- Green, L.C. (1948), The Indian National Army Trials. The Modern Law Review, Vol. 11, No. 1. (Jan., 1948), pp. 47-69., London, Blackwell..
- Fay, Peter W. (1993), The Forgotten Army: India's Armed Struggle for Independence, 1942-1945., Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press., ISBN 0472083422.
