Ranks and Heraldry of INA
RANKS AND HERALDRY OF THE INA.
INA was an internationally recognised army following all the rules and regulations and protocols,which in general should be followed by a civilised army of any country.
INA used to follow the ranks and heraldry system which in general was followed by the British Army.
Netaji throughout his life always disliked almost everything British and fought tooth and nail against the British, but probably this is the only exception that he adopted the rank and heraldry system of the British army for the INA.
In my opinion, he did this as he knew that the ranka and heraldry system of the British army was the best at that frame of time.
To an army or defence officer his / her rank is of paramount importance. Even after retirement he / she is entitled to write his / her rank before his name with a "Retd." But I have seen that the officers of the INA are not addressed as per their proper ranks.Even hard core Netaji researchers make this mistake.
For example I have seen umpteen times that Lakshmi Swaminathan is being addressed as CAPTAIN.However she was not a CAPTAIN but LIEUTENANT COLONEL. Though when she joined INA, she was given rank of Captain, but later she got promotions as Major and finally Lieutenant Colonel. As she was an MBBS degree holder she was given seniority and joined straight as a Captain and not at the lowest rank of Sub Officer. British Army also followed this practise. Even now in Indian Army this practise is followed, as it is believed that Doctors have to spend more years to earn their degrees.
Though Sahanawaz Khan is popularly addressed as MAJOR GENERAL as far as I know he was a COLONEL.Same way the Bandmaster-in-Chief of INA Ram Singh was a CAPTAIN.
For the reference I am giving the complete chart of the ranks of the INA. For Non Commissioned officers it was like this:
Soldiers
Lance Naik
Naik
Habildar.
For the Commissioned Officers it was like this:
Sub Officer
Second Lieutenant
First Lieutenant or Lieutenant
Captain
Major
Lieutenant Colonel
Colonel
Major General
Lieutenant General
General.
After independence Indian Army also followed this rank system. But in place of Sub Officer, Second Lieutenant became the lowest rank and the rank of Brigadier came in between Colonel and Major General.
However there was no officer in the INA in the rank of Lieutenant General as far as I know. The senior most officers of INA like Lognathan, A.C.Chatterji, M.Z.Kiyani etc. were in the rank of Major General.
Now it should have been natural that Netaji's rank should have been of GENERAL. However he never used this rank.He was addressed as GOC-IN -C of INA.Though the meaning of GOC-IN-C and GENERAL is same yet there is a little difference between these two words. The word GENERAL belongs to the hard core military terminology where as GOC-IN-C though signifies the same meaning yet it is not a hard core military term. But then why not GENERAL SUBHASH CHANDRA BOSE and why it is SUBHASH CHANDRA BOSE, GOC-IN-C of INA ?
In my opinion it can be for this:
1. Netaji was a super intelligent man and administrator.He understood that if he takes the full fledged rank of GENERAL, his opponents will get a chance to brand him as a military dictator and running a military junta ( instead of a civilian government ) with the help of the Japanese.
2.Another thing is that he was also running and heading a civilian government and many prominent civilians were there who used to help Netaji in running the government.They would have felt alienated if Netaji was addressed as GENERAL which happened in the case of General Mohan Singh,who was heading the INA before the arrival of Netaji in Japan.General Mohan Singh was the last General of INA.
I will be highly obliged if other Netaji researchers can put some more light on this subject.
Photo:
1. Shoulder Epaulettes of INA officers.
2. Shouldet Epaulettes of INA Lieutenant Colonel.
posted by Ujjal Dutta উজ্জ্বল দত্ত उज्ज्वल दत्ता at
12:45 AM
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