They fought for freeing India from foreign rule. Thousands of them died in the effort. Those who survived to see India as an independent state realised that their role in the effort was pushed into a footnote in history books. Forgotten, perhaps was the better state. For when remembered, their legacy was always viewed in a bittersweet fashion. They had joined forces with the enemies of their rulers; they were considered traitors. In free India, these soldiers weren't allowed to join the Army, neither did they get the pension granted to freedom fighters.
Who were these 45,000 odd soldiers, men and women, of the forgotten army, the Azad Hind Fauj? Filmmaker Kabir Khan's upcoming Amazon original The Forgotten Army: Azaadi ke liye takes viewers to the Singapore of the early 1940s, to the thick jungles of Burma and the fighting fields of northeast India. It takes them to Manipur where these soldiers first unfurled the tricolour on mainland India, in 1944.
“The stories of these soldiers is one that I have been wanting to tell ever since I passed out from film school,'' said Khan in an interaction with THE WEEK. “My first project was a documentary I had made on the Azad Hind Fauj in the 1990s. I was fortunate then to have met many of these officers—Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon and Captain Laxmi Sahgal—and heard the stories first hand. I have had my script ready ever since.''
Khan, however, said he wanted to wait till he had matured as a filmmaker. Then came a new platform, that of web series, and he realised it was more suitable for the scale of his narrative. In a typical film, there are compulsions of time, and also, with historical stories, of having to simplify the story itself.
The Azad Hind Fauj is intricately associated with Subhas Chandra Bose, who revived it and helmed the charge in the struggle against the Empire. Khan's web series, however, is not so much about Bose as it is about the forgotten soldiers, those who gave Bose the name he is more fondly remembered by, Netaji. “Imagine their patriotism, their drive and valour. How brave were those men and women. Twenty-seven thousand of them died fighting to liberate the country, and for all their effort, they were branded as traitors and charged with waging war against the nation. They are a forgotten chapter in our history, and this story is an effort to make people realise of their existence. Of their dreams and efforts,'' said Khan.
Bose's association with Adolf Hitler is a dark blot in history. “But people know so little even about that association or the compulsions that made him seek that alliance. I want people to know more about the history of the time. They are free to judge Bose and these soldiers, but at least they should know who these people were.''
Khan is among those fortunate filmmakers who had access to original sources of information. During the making of his documentary, he had traced the journey of the army from Singapore to India with erstwhile members of the Fauj. The notes he took while interacting with those veterans is the backbone of his story, though he has accessed material from personal diaries and also from places like London's Imperial War Museum and archives in Japan.
It has taken two years to make The Forgotten Army: Azaadi ke liye.
Most of the series has been shot in the jungles on the border of Thailand and Myanmar, where it was easy to recreate the sites of the actual battle in Manipur and Kohima, too. Recreating the Singapore of the 1940s was a labour of love, the modern city nation of present day is a far cry from the Singapore of 75 years ago.
The protagonists of Khan's story are fictional, but they are actually an amalgamation of several real heroes. The hero, essayed by Sunny Kaushal, is Dhillon, Prem Sahgal and Shah Nawaz Khan rolled into one. These three were the officers who were tried at the famous Red Fort trials for “waging war against the King''. The female lead, Sharvari is a combination of the feisty Lakshmi Sahgal and Janaki Thevar, both of whom commanded the Rani of Jhansi regiment of the Azad Hind Fauj.
The web series ends in 1945, with the surrender of the army in Singapore. Khan is not usually known for sequels. “Even if my movies have sequels, they are made by others,'' he said, but added that the Red Fort trials and their consequences have enough material for another story.
Do we see a sequel working in his mind? Who knows, he said.