Serving in the Indian National Army

From Singapore’s battlefields to mutinies in India, Mookonda Kushalappa follows the lives of two Kodagu soldiers in Bose’s army.

He never got any recognition or pension,” says Janaki, the 93-year-old widow of late soldier Mukkatira Aiyamma Mandappa, who hailed from Arapattu. “He was in Subhas Chandra Bose’s Army,” claims Janaki. 

Mandappa reportedly joined the Corps of Signals in the British Indian Army on December 6, 1941, during World War II. He was sent to the Jabalpur Training Centre, where he became an army electrician by trade and rose to the rank of a Naik, equivalent to a corporal. 

“My husband participated in a ‘strike’ in the army,” says Janaki. This strike corresponds to the 1946 Jabalpur Mutiny, a largely forgotten event in Indian history. “After the strike, his head was shaved and he was put into a cell.” Those who mutinied in Jabalpur, against the Indian National Army (INA) trials, were dismissed without pension.

Among them was Mandappa, who was dismissed on May 4, 1946, from the British Indian Army. “He was released, and he came home. If he did not join the strike, he would have been a head clerk and even promoted further,” adds Janaki. 

One of the INA officers held on trial was Kodandera Ponappa Thimayya from Mercara, Coorg (now, Kodagu). 

“The INA officers were labelled in three ways by the British authorities: Black, grey, and white. Ponappa was labelled black, or in other words, most dangerous and not deserving to be integrated back into the British Indian society,” says Major General (retd) Kodandera Arjun Muthanna, who shared Ponappa’s interrogation report obtained from the National Archives of India. 

This Ponappa was a brother of General K S Thimayya. Ponappa (nicknamed Ponnu) first joined the British Indian Army and later joined Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s INA, after he was captured by the Japanese. 

Like his well-known brother, Ponappa had studied at Bishop Cottons in Bangalore. He saw action in Singapore in February 1942, when Thimayya was serving as a brigadier. Japan’s victory in the Malayan campaign during the Second World War led to the fall of Singapore. 

After the surrender, the Japanese took Ponappa and his men as prisoners, along with many others of the British Indian Army. Separated from his British officers, he assumed command of the 2/10 Baloch unit.

The prisoners of war (POW) were sent to concentration camps. At first, they did not volunteer to join the INA. Like their leader Mohan Singh, Ponappa was initially wary of the INA becoming a puppet force under the Japanese. However, as the INA soldiers’ conditions proved better than those of the POWs, he agreed to join in the December of 1942 for the sake of his men.

By October 1944, Ponappa was stationed in Rangoon (now Yangon in Myanmar) and promoted to Lieutenant Colonel in the INA. In April the following year, Bose invited him to accompany him from Rangoon. Within a month, however, Ponappa was captured by the British and brought to India, along with the other INA officers. He was identified by the label B954.

Even under interrogation, he referred to Bose as ‘Netaji’ and his ‘Chief’, called the INA ‘the cause’, and spoke of the Indian nationalist spirit. “Our work, one day, will have some influence,” he remarked at the time. He regarded his membership of the INA as ‘right, natural, and his duty as an Indian’ and showed ‘no sign of repentance or regret’. In July 1945, the British authorities decided not to release him, fearing he would rebel.

The INA officers gained public support. Protests broke out across India, and the Navy and the Army mutinied in various places. As a result, the charge of treason against the INA officers was revoked, and they were simply dismissed from the army.

Ponappa returned to Kodagu, where he lived as a bachelor until his death in a car accident.

Mukkatira Aiyamma Mandappa who served in the
Indian National Army and Janaki.