BENGALURU: One sign in texts that students of history would do well to ponder over is the asterisk. Also known as the footnote, it sometimes points to a completely different story or perspective, even a watershed moment. Or it could rekindle memories of a lost chapter.
Last Sunday, the Mythic Society in Bengaluru hosted an event that sparked thoughts on the need to chronicle rarely-visited episodes of Indian history. One of the films screened at the event was Choodie Shivaram’s “At the Altar of India’s Freedom: INA Veterans of Malaysia”, which chronicles the struggles of the INA war veterans of Malaysia.
Choodie Shivaram’s film evidently left a few members of the audience moist-eyed, even if it mainly records memories of some veterans like N Sundaram, Seethapathi, Datuk Rasammah Boopalan and Meenachi. They talk about their training, the ignited spirit of patriotism and their admiration for Netaji Bose. The presence of women who formed the Rani of Jhansi Regiment, one of the first all-woman combat regiments in the world, was a feature of that struggle.
In the season of Kabir Khan’s web series, “The Forgotten Army”, the story of the INA is bound to have gathered renewed and popular interest. A freelance journalist and researcher, Choodie spent five years studying the Indian National Army and military operations in Southeast Asia during the World War II. She then chanced upon references to role of Malaysian veterans and sought to record their impressions. Of particular interest to her were the women. What struck her most about these women, she says, was their fearless determination to liberate India, a country they had never seen; even at the cost of laying down their lives. “They were all teenagers just about 15 or 16. I’m baffled at the courage of their mothers to send their daughters to war; not sure of whether they would come back, unmindful of the injuries they may encounter. There were a number of families where three daughters together joined INA – the Penang sisters, Rasammah Boopalan, so many of them. It was single-minded devotion to free India and unflinching faith in Netaji whom they saw as God that inspired these people to join INA. They had suffered at the hands of British occupation and knew what their brethren in India were experiencing.”
If that was an instance of the influence of patriotism going well beyond boundaries and individual concerns, it was also was a story of women’s freedom and choices. “In an age of super connectivity and enhanced security, we make headlines about women’s empowerment now, of equality and rights. In 1944 these women were empowered, there was no gender discrimination; the women empowered themselves. And look at the families, how progressive they were, way ahead of their times, allowing their daughters to train for military service and go to war. And it was no ordinary war, it was WW II,” she says. When these women returned from the battlefront, they continued to put considerations of service before self. Many of them were engaged in community projects and causes for social welfare. Rasammah, a teacher and social activist, was to later fight for equal pay for women teachers, apart from playing a big role in the anti-drug abuse movement.
Recording these oral histories was only one part of the job. The film-maker says she had the footage for almost a year and “no one wanted to produce it”, until the Indian High Commission of Malaysia stepped in to help.
Talking of constructing collective memory, presenting events as they are is critical. Daily news is often referred to as history of the present. But there’s no denying that an event in the present works as a reference point in a distant future. Not too different from how archivists, historians, researchers and bloggers peer through the rear-view mirror to collect memories and experiences. Just the way remembering the forgotten army can serve as a metaphor.
Last Sunday, the Mythic Society in Bengaluru hosted an event that sparked thoughts on the need to chronicle rarely-visited episodes of Indian history. One of the films screened at the event was Choodie Shivaram’s “At the Altar of India’s Freedom: INA Veterans of Malaysia”, which chronicles the struggles of the INA war veterans of Malaysia.
Choodie Shivaram’s film evidently left a few members of the audience moist-eyed, even if it mainly records memories of some veterans like N Sundaram, Seethapathi, Datuk Rasammah Boopalan and Meenachi. They talk about their training, the ignited spirit of patriotism and their admiration for Netaji Bose. The presence of women who formed the Rani of Jhansi Regiment, one of the first all-woman combat regiments in the world, was a feature of that struggle.
In the season of Kabir Khan’s web series, “The Forgotten Army”, the story of the INA is bound to have gathered renewed and popular interest. A freelance journalist and researcher, Choodie spent five years studying the Indian National Army and military operations in Southeast Asia during the World War II. She then chanced upon references to role of Malaysian veterans and sought to record their impressions. Of particular interest to her were the women. What struck her most about these women, she says, was their fearless determination to liberate India, a country they had never seen; even at the cost of laying down their lives. “They were all teenagers just about 15 or 16. I’m baffled at the courage of their mothers to send their daughters to war; not sure of whether they would come back, unmindful of the injuries they may encounter. There were a number of families where three daughters together joined INA – the Penang sisters, Rasammah Boopalan, so many of them. It was single-minded devotion to free India and unflinching faith in Netaji whom they saw as God that inspired these people to join INA. They had suffered at the hands of British occupation and knew what their brethren in India were experiencing.”
If that was an instance of the influence of patriotism going well beyond boundaries and individual concerns, it was also was a story of women’s freedom and choices. “In an age of super connectivity and enhanced security, we make headlines about women’s empowerment now, of equality and rights. In 1944 these women were empowered, there was no gender discrimination; the women empowered themselves. And look at the families, how progressive they were, way ahead of their times, allowing their daughters to train for military service and go to war. And it was no ordinary war, it was WW II,” she says. When these women returned from the battlefront, they continued to put considerations of service before self. Many of them were engaged in community projects and causes for social welfare. Rasammah, a teacher and social activist, was to later fight for equal pay for women teachers, apart from playing a big role in the anti-drug abuse movement.
Recording these oral histories was only one part of the job. The film-maker says she had the footage for almost a year and “no one wanted to produce it”, until the Indian High Commission of Malaysia stepped in to help.
Talking of constructing collective memory, presenting events as they are is critical. Daily news is often referred to as history of the present. But there’s no denying that an event in the present works as a reference point in a distant future. Not too different from how archivists, historians, researchers and bloggers peer through the rear-view mirror to collect memories and experiences. Just the way remembering the forgotten army can serve as a metaphor.
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