Azad Hind – Head of Secret Service and Intelligence
Most INA-related books focus on Subhash Bose's central role
as the leader and often overlook details about the people, characters, actions,
and stories of bravery at the lower levels of the force he commanded. However,
the Rani Jhansi army, which he is credited with forming, and the role of
Lakshmi Sehgal are fairly well covered in a few books. Recently published works
highlight the contributions of South Indians such as AM Nair, ACN Nambiar, KP
Keshava Menon, and N Raghavan—individuals involved in the revolutionary
movement from the very beginning. As one might expect, the ragtag INA included
many administrators, clerks, soldiers, sergeants, commanders, and doctors—some
of whom were quite prominent but did not receive much recognition after the war
or the INA trials in Delhi.
We touched on Abid Hasan and his contribution with Jai Hind;
we discussed Col Cyril Stracey; and we mentioned A Yellappa in connection with
the Azad Hind bank, M Sivaram, the pressman, and, of course, the unfortunate TP
Balakrishnan Nair of the IIL. Continuing in the same vein, we will study the
incredible story of NG Swami, one of the first associates of Subhas Bose in his
fight against British tyranny. It was quite difficult to uncover his story, as
he stubbornly remained out of sight and out of the print media, and was only
mentioned in passing in the many INA accounts, old and new. Some called him
Bose’s right-hand man; some termed him the head of the INA subterfuge
organization; some mentioned him as his secretary during Bose’s last days; some
characterized him as his technical head; some as Bose’s intelligence boss;
while some chose not to mention him at all or to show him in their versions of
the INA organization charts.
But friends, even though largely invisible, he was very much
there, an important cog in the INA wheel, had Bose’s ear until the end,
outlived most of his colleagues, and served in a few covert and overt roles
throughout his life. He was, above all, the person Peter Fleming (007 Ian
Fleming’s brother) tried hard to outwit during Fleming’s D Division days. Let’s
take a look. At the outset, let me tell you, it took me a lot of effort to pry
out what you read here, if not all of it!
Swami was born in 1911. He completed his schooling in
Madurai and Kakinada, then pursued secondary education in Madras after his
father moved there. He received his collegiate education at Madras Presidency
College and the English College. In 1930, he left for Germany, completed a
German course at Berlin University, and joined Siemens Dynamo Works as an
apprentice. He then enrolled at the Berlin Technical College and completed his
engineering degree by 1938. He specialized in signaling, radio, and telephony
and rejoined Siemens Engineering Works in Berlin.
Berlin 1930-1943
This was the tail end of a period when others, like
Chempakaraman Pillai, who had set blazing examples and formed the bedrock of dissidence against British rule, and who were based in Berlin, were slowly fading
out. Swami was also a pukka nationalist, heading the students’ association, and
had complained to the German government about its treatment of Indians. Though
he wanted to return to India, war broke out while he was traveling in Vienna,
so he stayed put in Berlin. Briefly arrested by the Gestapo, he was quickly
released when a friend with connections to the Nazis intervened. Though he
continued to work for Siemens and head the Indian students’ association, he was
under surveillance for favoring Jews. The German GFO (foreign office) often
sounded him out about joining propaganda radio transmissions aimed at India,
and he tried it once. When the Siemens engineer Von Zitzewitz, who was working
for the GFO, asked Swami to join up or start a revolutionary movement, he
demurred. As he was incapable of the latter, Zitzewitz suggested that Swami
work with a possible leader from India with a high political profile, and Swami
agreed to meet the person, but without any obligations.
That was how Swami met Subhas Bose face-to-face. He was quite surprised, for he had seen Bose in Berlin and other European capitals in 1933-34, but AIR had declared him dead after he vanished in 1941. They discussed the political situation in India and the progress of the War, and both agreed that, should the Germans be successful, they would soon be at India's western borders. Bose wanted to know how Swami could contribute, and Swami stated that he had a good job at Siemens but would be willing to join Bose after leaving Siemens properly. Asked if he could suggest other accomplices, Swami put forward the name of Abid Hassan and was told to bring him to a formal meeting, but was warned not to tell Hassan who he was meeting. Hassan and Bose hit it off straightaway and joined the growing group, while Swami trained his deputy to take over at Siemens and joined Bose in Oct 1941. Adept, suave, technically qualified, and well-traveled, the 5'10” fair-complexioned recruit could speak Urdu, Tamil, Telugu, German, English, some Italian, and French. For Bose, who did not know these languages, Swami and Hassan were important pillars of his fledgling organization in Berlin.
At this point, in Dec 1939, we encounter a desperate request
from Nagaratnam Iyer to the Indian HC, Viscount Halifax, for information about
his son. The British record states that NG Swami went to Berlin eight years
ago. After preliminary training at the Siemens Schuckert Works, he joined the
Charlottenburg Hochschule to study Electrical Engineering with a view to
specializing in Communication Engineering. During this period, he served as
President of the Federation of Indian Students and represented them at European
conferences. At that time, the Americans were neutral, so they were asked to
find out more. I do not think they discovered anything.
Thus, the Indische or Indian Legion was formed to become a
liberation force for British-ruled India and was composed of Indian POWs and
expatriates such as Swami and Hassan. The first recruits in 1941 were
volunteers from the Indian students and expats resident in Germany at the time,
along with a few Indian prisoners of war captured during the North African
campaign. In Berlin, Bose set up the Free India Centre and Azad Hind Radio,
which began broadcasting to Indians on shortwave frequencies, reaching thousands
with shortwave receivers. In a previous article, we covered this story and
introduced you to Iqbal Shedai, a resident of Rome who ran the Himalayan Radio
broadcasts. The number of POWs being transferred to Germany had grown to about
10,000, and they were housed at the Annaburg camp in Dresden.
Swami was initially involved in discussions with Shedai
about bringing his radio station under Bose’s control. The discussions made
little headway, and as Bose intensified his efforts to form and train the
Indian Legion, Swami decided to become a soldier. Later that year, Swami and
Hasan were tasked with selecting and training those prisoners interested in the
Legion, with Swami targeting Hindus and Hasan the Muslims. Faced with a hostile
group, the process was painfully slow; eventually, a few agreed to meet with
Subhas Bose and hear his pitch. Capt Harbig also teamed up with them. By Jan
1942, the selected group had been sent to Frankenberg and Messeritz. The
volunteers comprised not just Indians but also Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Germans. All
of them, including Hasan and Swami, took the required infantry courses and
parachuting lessons.
Swami and four Indian soldiers (Kartar Singh, Harbans Lala,
Bhagwan Lu, and Kanwal Singh) were sent to Roesrath, near Cologne, for
specialized training in wireless and wired communications, as well as
intelligence. After eight weeks, they were considered proficient in handling
and maintaining wireless radio sets and became the lead sabotage group.
However, by then the Germans had decided not to advance through Afghanistan,
and the whole idea proved to be a nonstarter.
Bose decided to relocate to Southeast Asia and planned to
move Hasan and Swami, along with the trained saboteurs, to Singapore. He had
initially planned to take both Hasan and Swami with him to Singapore, but when
told there was room for only one person in the submarine, he chose Hasan. The
details of Bose’s hair-raising departure and the underwater trip to Japan were
covered in another article. Meanwhile, Swami worked to train a second sabotage
group.
On 5th March 1943, Swami was asked to report to ACN Nambiar
at the Free India center. He was given a letter from Bose that read, 'My dear
Swami, you are shortly to be called on to do your duty. I hope that you will
fulfill it with all your might.' When Swami asked to see Bose, he was told that
the latter was on an inspection tour, though unbeknownst to him, Bose was
already on his way to Japan, having left on Feb 8th. Swami was then introduced
to the Japanese Military Attaché and, privately, told by Nambiar that they were
now destined for SE Asia and would work to Free India. Nambiar mentioned that
Swami would receive his orders from the Free India HQ in the Far East. On his
return to Cologne on 7 March, Swami was ordered by Bose to prepare his party
for an immediate move; he was given his choice of wireless sets and furnished
with codes and ciphers. On 10 March, the party traveled via Paris to Bordeaux
and embarked on the 7000-ton Harpag liner, the M.S.Osorno. Together with
a supercargo of German diplomats, the ship took a roundabout route well south
of Africa, destined for Batavia.
As Swami later recounted, the only land seen during the
8-week voyage was Bouvet Island in the South Atlantic. It was certainly a
hair-raising and plucky voyage. Off the coast of N. Africa, the ship was
attacked by a submarine and, just after crossing the Equator, was chased by an
American auxiliary cruiser. The ship was also closely inspected by British
aircraft soon after leaving Bordeaux. It flew no flag and, at an emergency top
speed of 27 knots, escaped its pursuers. For some days after its arrival, the
Indian group had no direction, and only after Abid Hasan arrived did Swami have
any idea of what was going on. They were then transported to Tokyo, later moved
to Singapore, and on Aug 1st, 1943, joined up with Bose’s INA, which would
later become the Azad Hind Fauj.
At Penang 1943-45
The dashing Japanese officer who fostered goodwill toward
Indians in 1941 (in Bangkok) and who personally brought Mohan Singh into the
limelight was Iwachi Fujiwara, who later formed the network known as the F
Kikan, or the Friendship Kikan. Soon, the ‘Indian-friendly’ Fujiwara was
transferred back to Japan, and his place was taken by a rigid intelligence
officer, Hideo Iwakuro, who was not too particular about Indians' independence.
He was a spy-maker, which is why Iwakuro sponsored the school for spies in
Penang. Nedyam Raghavan, if you recall, had founded the India Swaraj Institute
in late 1942. The school was founded to provide crash courses for people of
Indian origin in espionage, intelligence gathering, photography, firearms use,
and surveying. The intention, of course, was to create a 5th column and send
them to India.
However, conditions in the military circles in Malaysia
began to deteriorate, mainly due to ego clashes and internal squabbles. Iwakuro
clashed with Mohan Singh and Raghavan, and Keshava Menon resigned from his
post. During this turmoil, Iwakuro forcibly moved the first group of trainees,
totaling about 26 cadets, into a nearby bungalow one night in Nov 1942 and had
them undertake intensive courses in subversion and guerrilla activities. He
then decided to send the first batches into India by submarine and overland. A
total of 26 agents had been deputed by then (including TP Kumaran Nair, who was
sent later overland with Sankaran Nair). All of them were caught, and some,
such as TPK Nair, were hanged. The Swaraj Institute was bound to fail (after
Mohan Singh and Raghavan left) because unbeknownst to them, a 6th column (Gill
and Durrani) existed within the school, passing information to the British.
Raghavan was threatened with arrest and forced to resign from the IIL on health
grounds in Feb 1943.
This was where NG Swami was headed, as Bose had arrived,
taken over, and desired direct wireless links to India. The Japanese decided to
continue plans to send agents by submarine to India for subversion and
intelligence operations. Three teams were being prepared and trained by the
Japanese, one controlled by SN Chopra, another by Gilani/Durrani, and the third
by Roy. Swami wanted to insert his 4 trained agents into a group and take
overall control, but Lt Kaneko disagreed, and Bose had to intervene. Accordingly,
Swami's four agents and three of the four wireless sets (the fourth remaining
under Swami's control) were inserted into Chopra's party, which, thoroughly
briefed by Bose, left by submarine in December and landed on the Kathiawar
coast on Dec 23rd, 1943. They were to transmit from Punjab, Bengal, and Bombay
and were given a list of collaborators to work with.
In India and Ceylon, the D company, headed by Peter Fleming,
was tracking the team, which quickly picked them up and used their aliases to
send messages back to the INA. Fleming incidentally headed the Allied strategic
deception program against Japan in India and Burma. Designated ‘D’ Division,
initially based in Delhi and later in Ceylon, his task was to feed false
information (along with truth) by various means to mess up Japanese plans. The
INA in Penang and Singapore were unaware of their agent’s capture and thus
continued to receive useless messages from the Chopra group, surreptitiously
being sent now by the Indian police. This was because most of the Chopra group
had been caught. A trial of five of them followed (including Kartar Singh, one
of Swami's four boys). They were found guilty and sentenced to death, but were
not executed. It transpired that Chopra and others found India quite peaceful
and decided to vanish without carrying out any tasks. The testimony of Kartar
Singh tells us that a lot of misinformation was fed by the Japs to these boys,
such as a disastrous famine all over India, a fleeing British army, lack of
armaments and planes, etc. The attempts to brainwash the common soldier in the
INA failed when they saw that things were much better in India, and in
consequence, they simply gave up and surrendered. He added that most were
simply trying to find a way to return to India. Kartar Singh gave away Swami in
his debrief and provided complete details of their association.
The next batch trained by Durrani was prepared by Swami and,
after several issues with the Japanese, departed for India in Feb 1944. Upon
reaching India, they surrendered to the British as Durrani had instructed,
providing the names of all agents and officers involved in the spy school.
Swami, though despondent, did not give up and, as instructed
by Bose, later in 1944, prepared a group of paratroopers from Penang. They were
trained in Sumatra, and then Swami accompanied Bose to Rangoon. Swami also
trained a special party to sabotage the American pipeline in North Burma.
Toye notes that Swami continued to coordinate radio
communications from Rangoon using his German master set. Later, he sent an
8-man spy group to South India and stayed in touch with some of them. They were
also caught – this was called Operation Hat Trick by the D Division, whose team
was tracking them.
In February 1945, both Swami and Hasan were commissioned as
majors in the INA/Azad Hind Fauj. Swami, returning to Penang, eventually gained
full control of the spy schools after yet another fierce fight with Col
Komatsubara. Swami then organized the Azad School on the INA lines, with INA
instructors, selecting men for a special camp that provided wireless training
and, from time to time, sabotage methods, while Komatsubara was removed from
the hierarchy. However, the Japanese then resorted to stalling tactics and
refused to provide submarine transport, citing monsoon weather.
We do know that Peter Fleming was particularly interested in
Swami and his school, and that he tracked down the agent code-named Owl, a
simple peasant named Adjudya Das (who did not even know how to write), one of
the BATS paradropped into India by Swami, complete with a transmitter. He was
also turned by the British and continued to send useless messages.
In the interim, Swami was asked to move to Mandalay in
Burma. Just before leaving, he heard that Durrani had been arrested by the
Japanese in Penang. Durrani was quickly released and sent to Bose for further
interrogation, while Swami formally took over as Bose’s secretary. Abid Hasan
was sent to battle. With a full-fledged war underway, the spy school was
becoming redundant.
Swami was briefly ill with pleurisy but joined up at Rangoon
on July 1st and continued as Bose’s secretary until Oct, taking on additional
responsibility for directing the sick and wounded returning from a failed
battle at Imphal and for conducting demobilization interviews with those
soldiers, with the intention of giving a lecture tour on battle improvements.
He was also involved in getting the women of the Rani of Jhansi regiment to
safety in Moulmein. SA Ayer recounts many incidents involving Swami in Rangoon
in his book Unto Him, a Witness, and confirms that Swami stayed at the Bose
household there. His last position description read – Major N G Swami,
Confidential secretary to Subhas Bose and in charge of the secret service of
the Provincial government of Azad Hind.
As the end neared and the British swept through Burma in
1945, Swami set up a group of stay-behind agents in Penang, led by MZ Kiani and
Shaukat Ali Malik. On April 24, 1945, Swami joined the Rangoon exodus and
reached Bangkok in May. He then participated in the Netaji week in July before
taking ill again. Bose had decided to leave Rangoon and set up shop in Saigon,
taking Swami, Raghavan, and Hasan with him. Swami and Hasan could not arrive in
time to join Bose, and Raghavan was sick. Later, they all heard the sad news of
Bose’s death in the air crash at Formosa. When information reached them that
the Japanese had capitulated, they closed down all the camps and waited to
surrender to the British.
Swami was picked up with many others and interred in the
Changi camp, where he was interviewed by Hugh Toye and told by his superiors
that he was not a person of interest, though he was also interrogated by the
CSDIC(I) team. His Penang students, briefed for their stay-behind roles, were
later picked up in Saigon, Thailand, and Malaya.
Singapore 1946
At this juncture, the story takes a peculiar turn.
Jawaharlal Nehru, preparing to defend the INA stalwarts at the Delhi trials,
took a personal interest and asked his special emissary, SK Chettur (nephew of
Sir C Sankaran Nair), to go meet NG Swami and make sure he was OK. Nehru asked
Chettur to visit Swami at Changi (interred with Japanese prisoners) because he
had heard that Swami was being tortured. Chettur visited him and found the
allegations to be untrue. Swami and J Dhillon were in good health and were
there only in protective custody. Interred elsewhere were Abid Hasan, JA Thivy,
and AM Sahay.
Gurbachan Singh Mangat, however, mentions in his memoirs
(pub. 1991) that NG Swami accompanied the Chopra group, was caught, and jailed
in Lahore. Later, according to him, Swami, like Chopra, became a Sadhu and
worked briefly with Escorts India. However, we can see that this is not
correct.
With that, Swami's role in SE Asia and the INA/Azad Hind
Fauj came to an end, leaving many questions unanswered. Why was he considered a
person of no interest by the CSDIC(I) and not tried? Why did Nehru have him
checked personally? Did he help Nehru set up the Intelligence Bureau? We do not
know, at least as yet. I believe he did. Swami dropped out of sight, writing no
memoirs, giving no interviews, unsung and unheralded, even after India became
independent. In 1948, however, he was spotted on a flight to Rome by Sarat
Bose, who believed that Swami was tailing him on behalf of the Nehru government
and the IB.
Berne - Switzerland with ACN Nambiar 1948
In 1948, he was personally recommended by ACN Nambiar, who
had been asked to join the Indian legation as Consul in Berne, Switzerland (TG
Sanjeevi Pillai, the first director of IB, seems to have shown interest in
using Swami in Switzerland, and the files confirm that Swami had been with the
DIB). Nambiar was open to having either Swami or Abid Hasan fill the role, and
it became clear that Swami was living in Delhi in 1948. Accordingly, Swami flew
to Berne in late 1948 and joined the Legation as an Attaché to work on
‘business development’. How long he worked in Switzerland and in what precise
role are not documented, but Nambiar moved on to Sweden in 1954, and we can
only catch up with Swami much later, with a 1964 timestamp, leaving an
unexplained 10-year gap. Perhaps he continued in Berne or moved to Germany,
where he had many contacts.
Germany - Düsseldorf 1964-68
In Oct 1964, the Düsseldorf investment center was
inaugurated at the Dugal-India House, making it India’s first European office,
and NG Swami became its resident director. He appears to have remained there
for at least 2-3 years before disappearing from public view for the last time.
Any reader with further information is invited to comment so
that we can bring to a proper close the story of this interesting person’s
checkered career in engineering, espionage, war, communications, intelligence,
and business. He, as you will agree, was indeed a phantom.
Foreign Office files, Delhi Case-3 files
ACN Nambiar – interrogation reports KV 2/3904
Berne Indian Legation appointments file 1948, ACN Nambiar
MSS EURC0743 Notes taken by Toye Sep/Oct 1945, When Swami came to Tea
Subhas Chandra Bose – The Springing Tiger – Hugh Toye
Passage Through a Turbulent Era – Dr. M. R. Vyas
Picture - N G Swami attending a conference of Oriental
students, as the President of the Federation of Indian Students - Extracted
from The Modern Review, 1935
I had the occasion to read the Springing Tiger version,
autographed by him, and his handwriting, as you will agree, is elegant! Now,
who is Madame Dodo? I believe she is from Laos, where Toye was posted in the
60s and where he completed his book.
Related articles
Indian Swaraj Institute – 5th Column Part
1, Part
2
Col
Cyril Stracey, INA, A Remarkable Man
Japanese
Monsoon Missions, the I-29
Nedyam
Raghavan, Unknown to Most
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