The Mainstream Narrative
Badan Chandra Borphukan, an Ahom general brought the Burmese Army in Assam to overthrow the puppet-king Purananda Buragohain and put the "rightful ruler" Chandrakanta Singha on throne. Subhash Chandra Bose, an Indian-Bengali nationalist brought the Imperalist Japanese Army in Assam/NE to drive away the British and allegedly himself become the dictator or "rightful ruler" of India.
Inspite of their awful similarities, the interesting part here is that while Badan is called a traitor by the Assamese people, Subhash Chandra Bose is hailed as a great Indian patriot whose actions of bringing a foreign Imperalist power to allegedly massacre the indigenous "inferior mongloids" of NE (Wesea) has been completely overlooked.
The Burmese war crimes includes raping, pillaging, and burning down even sacred religous sites - a template which they continue to follow in Shan State. But the Imperalist Japanese savagery far-surpass the Burmese savagery in almost everyway. Just like INA, even some Burmese nationalists had foolishly believed that Japanese capturing their land would free them from British. But what entailed was a complete massacre of atleast 100-200k Burmese people during the Japanese Occupation of Burma.
And a very similar thing would have happened in Assam if the Japanese had won the war. There is infact a famous war memorial in Nagaland for the British soldiers who fought against the Japanese and the Indian National Army of Subhash Chandra Bose. In fact one of the main heroes of the war was Sam Manekshaw who bravely fought off the Azad Hind Fauj allies. India cannot consider both Sam Manekshaw and Subhash Chandra Bose s their hero when both fought against opposite sides.
The Unholy Alliance with Nazis
The United Nations considers Bose as a war-criminal and the top Nazi collaborators from IndiaA lot has been written to whitewash the crimes of Nazi Collaborators. "Subhash Chandra Bose only wanted freedom for India" so he didn't mind allying with the literal Nazis, who for-the-record, even considered Indians as untramenscshe race (or sub-humans). Hitler has even famously said that India doesn't deserve Independence and should be forced to live under the "civilized" British.
The Azad Hind Fauj (INA) allying with Nazis, benefited not the Indian cause but the Nazi cause and the extra manpower they got for their Axis Allies. It will not be out of place here that the Nazi-love came not from the need for a "strategic alliance" but from deeply disturbing fanatical idealogical base of some Indians who then considered themselves as same race as the Nazi "Aryan" Supremacists. Bengal, from where Subhash Chandra Bose belonged, was the epicenter of such Nazi Aryan-nationalism.
One particular woman, Savitri Devi, (who claimed to have enabled Subhash Chandra Bose to contact the Japanese Imperalist Army) called Hitler as an "avatar of Vishnu" and her husband Asit Kumar Mukherjee who played a key role in formation of Azad Hind Fauj had openly vowed support for Aryan racism. Infact Subhash Chandra Bose had himself praised genocidal-maniacs like Hitler and Mussolini. Bose even strongly criticized India's actions of giving refuge to Jewish people and called for their deportation. If there is still a doubt in reader's mind about the relationship of Bose and Hitler, then the following was the slogan of Azad Hind Fauj -
"I swear by God this holy oath that I will obey the leader of the German race and state, Adolf Hitler, as the commander of the German armed forces in the fight for India, whose leader is Subhas Chandra Bose"
This proves that Bose not just idealogized Hitler but also allegedly harboured ambitions to become the Hitler (dictator) of India himself, which as we will soon learn, had to come at a heavy cost for indigenous people of NE
The Japanese Alliance and War Crimes of the Imperial Japanese
Many Indian people take pride at INA's alliance with Japanese and arrogantly believe that India would have been an independent country had the Japanese succeeded in his mission. But, truth of-course is far from such child-talk. The Japanese were no peace messengers. The only language the Japs talked was of rape, pillaging and targeted ethnic-genocides of an entire population.
200,000–300,000 deaths and 20,000–80,000 women raped
~3,000 directly killed in experiments and 10,000+ killed indirectly during biological warfare experiments in China
~10,000 U.S. and Filipino POWs deaths
100,000 civilians deaths
~10 million civilian deaths (total estimated civilian deaths under Japanese occupation in China)
50,000–200,000 women forced into sexual slavery
~35,000–50,000 POWs (due to forced labor, starvation, execution, etc.)
50,000–90,000 ethnic Chinese (Singapore, Malaysia, etc.), 100,000-200,000 ethnic Burmese
The total number of civilians and POWs deaths caused by Japanese are estimated to be 10-20 million. That's more than the population of many countries. Some people might still argue what does Nanking Rapes, and Manila Massacre have to do with India? Surely Indians were allies of Japanese and they would not have ever done something so horrible to India like what they did in Burma under excuse of liberating the people from British... Except the fact that they did.
Nagaland was air-bombed by the Japanese with no care for the civilian deaths. The Indian POWs were literally used as target practice and eaten alive by the Japanese!!!
Above: Indian Sikh Soldiers used as target practice by the Japs (allied with INA)
Because of is low population, almost all indigenous people of Assam/ NE would have been completely wiped out if Bose succeeded in his mission. So in a way Bose was even a bigger "patriot" than Badan :)
Ending Note: Scholarship Bias in Assam and India
A lot of scholars defend or whitewash the actions of Badan by arguing that he was no traitor but a patriot who only wanted the rightful ruler on the throne and not a usurper. Similarly many left-liberal scholars defend the actions of Bose arguing he had no love for Nazis and only wanted freedom for India. Both of these people only point towards the invisible intentions of their subject-concerned rather than the visible consequences of the actions that their heroes did.
Badan was no Hero. And his actions brought unimaginable pain and suffering to Assamese people at the hands of the rapist Burmese military. Nor was Bose a real patriot who cared less for liberation of his people but allegedly more for his own status as the de-facto dictator of India. As this short thesis attempts to show.
I thank you for reading and urge you to show this article to any person who worships Bose but calls Badan as a traitor when both of them belonged to the same category of opportunists masquadering as revolutionaries.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article completey belong to the author alone. This article was published only after thoroughly verifying the facts mentioned.