Legacy of The Free India Legion
The integral associations of the Free India Legion with Nazi Germany and (later) Japan means its legacy is judged from two distinct view points – one of a collaborationist army of the Third Reich, and the other as the realization of a 'liberation' army against the British Raj in India. Comparisons have been made to the Vlasov movement in Russia.
The Free India Legion was conceived with the same doctrine as the Indian National Army and the entire Azad Hind movement, it has found little exposure since the end of the war even in Independent India, possibly due to a perception that their fight was far removed from the Battlefields of Burma, a land much closer to India where the troops of the INA fought and died and caught the public imagination. To consider the legacy of Free India Legion, however, one has to consider both the Azad Hind movement (of which the legion was possibly a birth mother, and certainly an integral plan of Bose's initial plans) and the events that happened at the time, both in and away from the public eye.
Finding itself desperately in the need of a leader after the disappearance of Subhas Chandra Bose, the legion surrendered to the British and the Americans soon after.
Read more about this topic: Indische Legion
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