NETAJI...THE HERO

MOIRANG INA HEADQUATER----

Kolkata: Moirang became the headquarters of the INA and occupies a place in the historical annals of India's freedom movement. The INA memorial also houses a museum which contains some mementos and personal artifacts of people involved with the INA.

The INA War Memorial is located in Moirang in Manipur. Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose hoisted the Indian tricolor flag on the Indian soil  for the very first time on April 14, 1944 at Moirang. Following the hoisting of the flag, Moirang became the headquarters of the INA and occupies a place in the historical annals of India's freedom movement. The INA memorial also houses a museum which contains some mementos and personal artifacts of people involved with the INA. The museum contains the letters and order copies written and signed by Netaji himself, the specs,pen badges,watch used by netaji is here at the INA museum .The Indian National Army (INA; Azad Hind Fauj;) was an armed force formed byIndian nationalists in 1942 in Southeast Asia during World War II. The aim of the army was to secure Indian independence with Japanese assistance. Initially composed of Indian prisoners of war captured by Japan in the Malayan campaign and at Singapore, it later drew volunteers from Indian expatriate population in Malaya and Burma. The INA was also at the forefront of women's equality and the formation of a women's regiment, the Rani of Jhansi regiment was formed as an all volunteer women's unit to fight the British Raj as well as provide medical services to the INA.

Initially formed in 1942 immediately after the fall of Singapore under Mohan Singh, the first INA collapsed in December that year before it was revived under the leadership of Subhas Chandra Bose in 1943 and proclaimed the army of Bose's Arzi Hukumat-e-Azad Hind (the Provisional Government of Free India). This second INA fought along with the Imperial Japanese Army against the British and Commonwealth forces in the campaigns in Burma, Imphal and Kohima, and later, against the successful Burma Campaign of the Allies. The end of the war saw a large number of the troops repatriated to India where some faced trial for treason and became a galvanizing point of the Indian Independence movement.

The legacy of the INA is controversial given its associations with Imperial Japan, the course of Japanese occupations in Burma,Indonesia and other parts of Southeast Asia, its alliance with the Axis in Europe, as well as Japanese war crimes and the alleged complicity of the troops of the INA in these. However, after the war, the Red Fort trials of captured INA officers in India provoked massive public outcries in support of their efforts to fight for Indian independence against the Raj, eventually triggering the Bombay mutiny in the British Indian forces. These events in the twilight of the Raj are accepted by historians to have played a crucial role in its relatively rapid end.

 It was Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru who first suggested that a memorial be set up to honour those who lost their lives and dedicated themselves to India's freedom struggle with Bose. The construction of the monument began in 1967 when there were reasonable funds collected from the state and central governments. The Netaji Library was completed on October 21.

The site is quite popular with Japanese and English visitors who visit to pay tribute to their forefathers whose lives perished in Manipur during World War II.