Collaborators! Aftermath of Wartime Support for the INA among Indians in China

This article discusses the plight of the Indian community in China after the World War II. During the World War II, a sizeable number of Indian immigrants in China had been mobilised under the banner of the Indian National Army (INA), which was fighting for freedom from British colonial rule in alliance with Japan. This article seeks to understand the complex problems faced by the Indians in China in the aftermath of the War both because of the general dislocation they had suffered on account of war and occupation, and also because of their active or passive participation in a movement seen as ‘collaborationist’. It looks at how, for the British, Chinese and even Indian authorities, the issue of their status as ‘collaborators’ coloured the humanitarian issue of providing relief to a severely afflicted community. It also attempts to show how the wartime political activities of Indians in China not only had immediate consequences for them but also in some cases had an afterlife, which lasted for quite a few years after the War.