Lay the proud usurpers low.

Tyrants fall in every foe.

Liberties in every blow, let us do or die.

Robert Burns.

Robert Bruce's March to Bannockburn.

Welcome to the history of the 20th century.

Music Episode 386, Do or Die or Die.

We last talked about India in episode 360.

I told you how the advance of Japanese troops through Burma and to the Indian border

sent shockwaves

through the Indian nationalist movement. Reactions varied wildly. Some responded by declaring

support for the British on the argument that whatever Britain's faults Nazi Germany was

infinitely worse, others looked to the axis for India's liberation.

The Japanese led the creation of the Indian National Army, a nationalist force aligned with Japan

and made up of Indian POWs captured by the Japanese and ethnic Indian civilians from Japanese

occupied Southeast Asia,

who were keen to take up arms for Indian independence

and weren't too picky about who their allies were.

On October 2, 1942, the Indian National Army put on its first public display, a parade through the streets of Singapore.

The force numbered about 12,000 and was divided into three regiments named after Indian nationalist leaders,

Gandhi, Nehru, and Azad. The last of these was named for Malana Abul Azad, the most prominent Muslim in the

Indian National Congress. It was no coincidence that this parade was held on the Mahatma's

...