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.

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.

Perceptions as collaborators

In considering the history of the Free India Legion and the ramifications of its creation, the most controversial aspect comes to be its integral link to the Nazi Germany, with a prevailing perception among some historians that they were mere mercenaries and collaborators of the Third Reich by the virtue of their uniform, oath and field of operation. To properly assess this, one has to first assess what actions it is that may be termed collaborationist. Throughout Europe, during and after the war, collaboration came to be defined broadly as; being party to the Nazi philosophy of Aryan- and even more so, German- supremacy as a race; actively supporting and participating in the Nazi atrocities against inferior races and occupied people in support of furthering the Nazi ideology, and; actively supporting the Nazi war effort.

As a prologue to the main debate on these issues, it is necessary to consider the views of the founder and leader of the Free India Legion, Subhash Chandra Bose (for Bose was life blood of the entire Free India Movement in Germany, and later in South Asia). Bose, in 1931, had organized and led protest marches against the Japanese invasion of Manchuria and of China itself in 1938 when he was Congress president. In 1937 he published an article attacking Japanese Imperialism in the Far East, although he betrayed some admiration for other aspects of the Japanese regime. Bose's earlier correspondence (prior to 1939) also reflects his deep disapproval of the racist practices of, and annulment of democratic institutions in Nazi Germany. He also, however, expressed admiration for the authoritarian methods (though not the racial ideologies) which he saw in Italy and Germany during the 1930s, and thought they could be used in building an independent India.

However, this does not address whether the men of the Freies Indien were party to or in collaboration with the Nazi machinery. In these contexts, it is doubtful that the Indian PoWs were party to or held any loyalty to the Nazi ideology of racial supremacy given that they would have been aware of their perceived status as an inferior race. It is also fallacious to say that the soldiers of the Free India Legion were mere mercenaries who fought with the Reich, for money or power. Indeed, when the first PoWs were brought to Annaburg camp and met by Subhash Chandra Bose, there was marked open hostillity towards him as a Nazi propaganda puppet . Subsequent to this, at a time when Bose's efforts and views had gained more sympathy, a persistent query among the (then) PoWs had been "How would the Legionary stand in relation to the German soldier?" . Neither were they prepared to fight Germany's war for Germany's people for Germany's interests. Italy had in 1942 created the Battaglione Azad Hindoustan, with Indian PoWs captured by Italy, and Italians previously resident in India and Persia and led by an Indian resident in Rome for a long-time, Iqbal Shedai, whose rallying cry was to raise an Indian Unit to fight for India. In November 1942 the unit was three hundred and fifty strong, having been trained by Italian officers. Much has been said of the "dubious loyalty" of this unit. On 9 November, after the Allied landing in North Africa, the Italian high command made the decision to send the men to Libya to fight the allies instead of to India to fight for India's freedom, contrary to Shedai’s promises. The men refused to go and mutinied, insisting that they were only willing to fight for the Indian cause Shedai refused to intervene. Consequently, the Centro Militare India was disbanded. The men of the Battaglione Azad Hindoustan are later said to have been either integrated into the Free India Legion or sent back to PoW camps. In another instance, immediately prior to the first deployment of the Free India Legion in Holland in April 1943, after departure of I Battalion from Koenigsbrueck, two Companies within the II Battalion refused to move. The Free India Centre- in charge of the Legion after the departure of Bose in January 1943 for South Asia- came to face a number of grievances, prime of which stood out two in particular; some were influenced by a rumour that Netaji had abandoned them and had gone off leaving them entirely in German hands; a second grievance was a perception that the Wehrmacht was now going to use them in the Western Front, instead of sending them to the East to fight for India’s liberation.  Even in the east, where the Indian National Army took its colossal shape, the first efforts under Capt. Mohan Singh came to nought essentially because  Rash Behar Bosee, who led the Indian Independence League (of which the first INA in the east was integrally linked) lost credence among the troops, appearing as a Japanese pawn. These goes to show that the men never possessed loyalty either to the Fascist or the Nazi cause or ideology and that their motivation was to fight for India' liberation, their loyalty lay to India. They were unwilling to fight for an alien nation and for a cause that was distant to the sacrosanct one for which they had abandoned their oath to the King Emperor.

These, at the least, indicate that the Free India LFegion was not a lovechild of desire to serve the Reich or its philosophy, wed to an opportunity to do so. If anything, Bose sought from early on to ensure that the troops were seen and treated as equal to their German counterparts 

As for having participated in the Nazi war effort, in Europe the unit's deployments in Holland and France appear to be solely for training purposes, according to Bose's plans for the unit to be trained in some aspects of coastal defence. Bose had also had the German High Command committed to not deploying the unit for purposes of German military interests and strategy. . Indeed after the invasion of France by the Allies, the unit was ordered back to Germany. BBC, in a revisionist article (see external links below) suggests that the unit participated in Nazi atrocities, especially in the town of Ruffec. This is not corroborated by any other records. Furthermore, the French resistance, certainly very strong through-out the German occupation of France, was not aware of the presence of the Indian unit, something it would be expected to pick up far before the information being passed by defecting German officers.  This may therefore require more authentication. The allegations that the Free India Legion was nothing more than a collaborationist  Herr unit is therefore a very simplistic view of a formation of men who possibly imagined themselves as patriots and pioneers and not as Nazis or collaborators. However, the effects of the limited actions the unit undertook in anti-partisan role in Italy also ought to be considered while making a definitive conclusion.

A Liberation Army

The Free India Legion did not engage in its original conceived role in the western front of British India, so it is not possible to hold any arguments as to whether they did- or could have- fulfilled the destiny that the men of the Legion had dreamt of. Moreover, the Legion was, and still remains, far removed from public perception in India because it did not engage its enemy, the British Raj as did the Indian National Army in Burma, which was much closer to the home of the common Indian. Even the 9th Company's engagements in Italy with British forces are hardly known outside those circles with an interest in World War II history. Was, then, Bose's plans for Azad Hind Legion too grandiose for its own capability? In terms of military capability, that answer is a definitive yes, for the fate of Free India Legion was tied like a corpse to that of the Axis. But in political terms, to consider the Azad Hind Legion a paper tiger can be debated, for it ignores a number of events that occurred within India and more specifically the British Indian Armed Forces in the post-war demobillisation scenarion . To consider the effects that the legion had, it is necessary however, to consider the effects that the entire Azad Hind movement (for they were a part of the same strategy and movement) had on the culmination of British Raj in India.

After the war ended, the stories of the INA and the Free India Legion were seen as so inflammatory that, fearing mass revolts and uprisings—not just in India, but across its empire—the British Government forbid the BBC from broadcasting their story. The Raj also brought to trial soldiers and officers of the INA (as well as the Free India Legion, of which not much is known). However, the stories of the trials at the Red Fort filtered through. The Raj observed with alarm the turnaround in the perception of Azad Hind and its army as traitors and collaborators to the greatest among the patriots.

During the trial, inspired to a large extent by the stories of the INA soldiers that were going around the country at the time mutiny broke out in the Royal Indian Navy(the mutiny had other underlying social and political causes as well; see article), incorporating ships and shore establishments of the RIN throughout India, from Karachi to Bombay and from Vizag to Calcutta. The most significant, if disconcerting factor for the Raj, was the significant militant public support that it received. A wave of nationalist sentiments swept through the Indian troops who had fought with the allies and were in the process of being de-mobilized. The navy mutiny was followed up by another among the ground crew in the Royal Indian Air Force. Another Army mutiny took place at Jabalpur during the last week of February 1946, soon after the Navy mutiny at Bombay. This was suppressed by force, including the use of the bayonet by British troops. It lasted about two weeks. After the mutiny, about 45 persons were tried by court martial. 41 were sentenced to varying terms of imprisonment or dismissal. In addition, a large number were discharged on administrative grounds.

In the after-effect of the mutiny, Weekly intelligence summary issued on the 25th of March, 1946 admitted that the Indian army, navy and air force units were no longer trust worthy, and, for the army, "only day to day estimates of steadiness could be made". It was decided that; if wide-scale public unrest took shape, the armed forces (including the airforce- for Quit India had shown how it could turn violent) could not be relied upon to support counter-insurgency operations as they had been during the Quit India Movement of 1942, and drawing from experiences of the Tiger Legion and the INA, their actions could not be predicted from their oath to the King emperor.

Reflecting on the factors that guided the British decision to relinquish the Raj in India, Clement Attlee, the then British Prime Minsiter, cited several reasons, the most important of which were: which were the INA activities of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, which weakened the Indian Army - the foundation of the British Empire in India- and the RIN Mutiny that made the British realize that the Indian armed forces could no longer be trusted to prop up the Raj.

Although Britain had made, at the time of the Cripps mission in 1942, a commitment  to grant dominion status to India after the war; these events and views held in 1946 by the administrations of the Raj would suggest to the reader that, contrary to the usual narrative of India's independence struggle, (which generally focuses on Congress and Mahatma Gandhi), the INA and the revolts, mutinies, and public resentment it germinated were an important factor in the complete withdrawal of the Raj from India.

In the same breath, whether awarded any credit for India's independence or not, the events at the time show that the strategy of Azad Hind (derived from the embryo of the Free India Legion) of achieving independence from Britain by fermenting revolts and public unrests- although a militarily a failure- remains, politically, a magnanimous success.