The Farrer Park Address - Significance

Significance

Controversy exists as to what was actually said by Hunt in the first of the three speeches, while handing over the troops to Japanese authority. Fay writes in 1993 that a number of the troops gathered at the park remembers Hunt as having told the troops that they now belonged to the Japanese army and should obey their orders while Hunt only remembers having said that they were all Prisoners of War of the Japanese Nevertheless, Fay also points out that the fact that they were all POWs was already self-evident, and the fact that they were addressed separately implies some significance. A number of INA veterans present at the event also insist that Hunt's speech effectively told them they were under Japanese control and command. This also fed a feeling of devaluation (handed over like cattle, as Shah Nawaz Khan later put it), abandonment and of dishonour on part of the British high command that they perceived to have served loyally. In the days and years to come, a number of INA men cited this act of abandonment a major reason to join the first INA. It is estimated that nearly half of those present at Farrer Park later joined the first INA. Significantly however, a large number of Indian officers decided not to, which also kept disinclined those under their command not to.

During the Red Fort Trials, one of the arguments made by Bhulabhai Desai for the defence was that the Malayan command had abandoned the responsibility it had to these troops, allowing the Indian troops to be separated from the rest against the laws of treatment to Prisoners of War and formally handing them over to Fujiwara. This, Bhiulabhai argued, legitimised the subsequent adoption of allegiance to Azad Hind by the troops since their original oath to the King emperor had been nullified by this act of the Malaya Command. Hunt, who was in England during the trial, was called to give evidence but refused on grounds of ill-health.