Context: Recent political discussions have focused on the establishment of the Provisional Government in 1943 by Subash Chandra Bose, which marked a significant moment in India's political history.
Azad Hind government:
- Subhas Chandra Bose proclaimed the formation of the Provisional Government of Azad Hind (Free India) in Singapore on October 21, 1943.
- Bose was the Head of State of this provisional government, and held the foreign affairs and war portfolios.
- A. C. Chatterjee was in charge of finance, S. A. Ayer became minister of publicity and propaganda, and Lakshmi Swaminathan was given the ministry of women’s affairs.
- A number of officers from Bose’s Azad Hind Fauj were also given cabinet posts.
- The Azad Hind government claimed authority over all Indian civilian and military personnel in Britain’s Southeast Asian colonies (primarily Burma, Singapore, and Malaya) which had fallen into Japanese hands during World War II.
- To give legitimacy to his government, Bose chose the Andamans. The Azad Hind government obtained de jure control over a piece of Indian territory when the Japanese handed over the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in 1943, though de facto military control was not relinquished by the Japanese admiralty.
- The government also handed out citizenship to Indians living in Southeast Asia, and 30,000 expatriates pledged allegiance to it in Malaya alone.
- Diplomatically, Bose’s government was recognised by the Axis powers and their satellites: Germany, Japan, and Italy, as well as Nazi and Japanese puppet states in Croatia, China, Thailand, Burma, Manchuria, and the Philippines.
- Immediately after its formation, the Azad Hind government declared war on Britain and the United States.
Other provisional governments:
- In 1915, the Provisional Government of India was formed in Kabul by a group known as the Indian Independence Committee (IIC).
Note:
- The Berlin Committee, later known as the Indian Independence Committee after 1915, was an organisation formed in Germany in 1914 during World War I by Indian students and political activists residing in the country.
- The purpose of the committee was to promote the cause of Indian Independence.
- Members: Virendranath Chattopadhyaya,Chempakaraman Pillai, Jnanendra Das Gupta, and Abinash Bhattacharya.
- During World War I, Indian nationalists abroad (mostly in Germany and the US), as well as revolutionaries, attempted to further the cause of Indian independence with aid from the Central Powers.
- The IIC, with the help of the Ottoman Caliph and the Germans, tried to bring insurrection in India, mainly among Muslim tribes in Kashmir and the British India’s northwestern frontier.
- IIC established a government-in-exile in Kabul under the presidency of Raja Mahendra Pratap, and prime minister ship of Maulana Barkatullah, revolutionary freedom fighters.
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