30. Shah Nawaz Khan (general)

Shahnawaz Khan (1914 – 1983) was an Indian soldier who is remembered as an officer who served in the Second Indian National Army during World War II and later came to be one of the three defendants in the first of the INA trials in 1946. Born in the village of Matore, Kahuta, Rawalpindi District, British India, (now Pakistan) Khan initially volunteered to join the British Indian Army in 1940, in the opening stages of the war in Asia. He saw action in the Battle of Singapore before being taken prisoner after the surrender of the city. Although initially reluctant to join the INA under Mohan Singh, Shah Nawaz Khan joined the second INA after the arrival of Subhash Chandra Bose in South-East Asia. He later led the INA forces that participated in the Japanese offensive at Imphal and Kohima, and subsequently rose to be the commander of the second division. Khan also saw action against allied forces in the latter's second Burma Campaign, and surrendered to British troops in Burma. In November 1946, Khan, along with G.B.S. Dhillon and P.K. Sehgal faced trial and was convicted for charges of treason at the Red Fort in Delhi, but intense public support and overwhelming nationalist sympathies forced General Auchinleck to discharge Khan and his co-defendants with forfeiture of pay. In Independent India, Khan joined the Indian National Congress and came to be a minister for state in Nehru's First Cabinet. Hailing from the Janjua Rajput clan of Matore. He has an adopted daughter who happens to be Shah Rukh Khan's mother.

 Indian National Army

Lt. Colonel Shahnawaz Khan, son of Capt Sardar Tikka Khan of Matore, studied at the Prince of Wales Royal Indian Military College, Dehradun and was commissioned as an officer in the British Indian Army. He was captured during the Second World War by the Japanese and interned in Singapore. Subhash Chandra Bose encouraged him to join the Indian National Army, to fight the British Empire.

 I.N.A. Trial

At the conclusion of the war, the government of British India brought some of the captured INA soldiers to trial on treason charges. The prisoners would potentially face the death penalty, life imprisonment or a fine as punishment if found guilty. After the war, Lt. Col. Shahnawaz Khan, Colonel Habib ur Rahman ,Colonel Prem Sehgl and Colonel Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon were put to trial at the Red Fort in Delhi for "waging war against the King Emperor", i.e. the British sovereign. The three defendants were defended by Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru, Jawaharlal Nehru, Bhulabhai Desai and others based on the defence that they should be treated as prisoners of war as they were not paid mercenaries but bona fide soldiers of a legal government, the Provisional Government of Free India, or the Arzi Hukumate Azad Hind, "however misinformed or otherwise they had been in their notion of patriotic duty towards their country" and as such they recognized the free Indian state as their sovereign and not the British sovereign.

Ministerial career

Shahnawaz Khan joined the Congress party after dissolution of the I.N.A. and was invited by Jawaharlal Nehru to join his cabinet for minister Railways and transport(1952-1956)(1957-1964),minister of food and agriculture(1965),minister of labour and employment and rehabilitation(1966),minister of steel and mines and minister of petroleum and chemical(1971-1973),minister of petroleum and chemical and minister of agriculture and irrigation(1974-1975,minister of Agriculture and irrigation(1975-1977),chairman of National Seeds Corporation Ltd ,concurrently was the Chairman, Food Corporation of India . He was elected four times Lok Sabha from Meerut.

 Shahnawaz Committee

Main article: Shah Nawaz Committee

In 1956, the government constituted a committee to look into the circumstances around Subhash Chandra Bose's death. Major General, Shah Nawaz Khan, headed the committee, whose members included Suresh Chandra Bose. The Committee began its work in April 1956 and concluded four months later when all three members of the Committee signed a paper that stated that Netaji indeed died in the aeroplane crash at Taihoku (Japanese for Taipei) in Formosa (now Taiwan), on August 18, 1945.
They stated that his ashes were kept in Japan's Renkoji Temple and should be reinstated to India.





Cabinet members of the Provisional Government of Azad Hind, 1943:
1st Row (L to R): Lt Col Chatterjee, Lt Col J K Bhonsle, Dr Lakshmi Swaminadhan, Subhas Chandra Bose, A. M. Sahay and S A Ayer 2nd Row (L to R): Lt Col Gulzara Singh, Lt Col Shah Nawaz Khan, Lt Col Aziz Ahmed, Lt Col M Z Kiani, Lt Col N S Bhagat, Lt Col Ehsan Qadir, Lt Col Loganathan.

 Descendants

General Shahnawaz Khan left behind three sons and three daughters including adopted one. Mehmood Nawaz, Akbar Nawaz, Ajmal Nawaz, Mumtaz, Fehmida and Lateef Fatima (adopted). Mehmood Nawaz has three sons (Mehboob, Asad and Ali), Akbar Nawaz has two (Adil Shah Nawaz Khan and Azam Nawaz Khan) and Ajmal Nawaz has three (Aayan, Aafan and Adnan). Mehboob is married and has two sons (Saad and Ibrahim), Asad has a son Ahmed, while Ali Nawaz is also married and has a son named after his grandfather (ShahNawaz Khan).





Netaji reviewing his troops


Source : Wikipedia


Major General Shahnawaz Khan of village Matore, Kahuta, Rawalpindi District, British India, (now Pakistan; 1914 – 1983) was a Indian freedom fighter during British colonial rule of India, politician and an army officer, hailing from theJanjua Rajput clan of Matore. He has an adopted daughter who happens to be Shah Rukh Khan's mother

Lt. Colonel Shahnawaz Khan, son of Capt Sardar Tikka Khan of Matore, studied at the Prince of Wales Royal Indian Military College, Dehradun and was commissioned as an officer in the British Indian Army. He was captured during theSecond World War by the Japanese and interned in Singapore. Subhash Chandra Bose encouraged him to join theIndian National Army, to fight the British Empire.

At the conclusion of the war, the government of British India brought some of the captured INA soldiers to trial on treason charges. The prisoners would potentially face the death penalty, life imprisonment or a fine as punishment if found guilty. After the war, Lt. Col. Shahnawaz Khan, Colonel Habib ur Rahman ,Colonel Prem Sehgal and Colonel Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon were put to trial at the Red Fort in Delhi for "waging war against the King Emperor", i.e. the British sovereign. The three defendants were defended by Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru, Jawaharlal Nehru, Bhulabhai Desai and others based on the defence that they should be treated as prisoners of war as they were not paid mercenaries but bona fide soldiers of a legal government, the Provisional Government of Free India, or the Arzi Hukumate Azad Hind, "however misinformed or otherwise they had been in their notion of patriotic duty towards their country" and as such they recognized the free Indian state as their sovereign and not the British sovereign.

Shahnawaz Khan joined the Congress party after dissolution of the I.N.A. and was invited by Jawaharlal Nehru to join his cabinet as Minister of State for Railways. He was elected thrice to the Lok Sabha from Meerut.

Startling disclosures pour out of overseas archives

After Shah Nawaz Khan confirmed the official Japanese account of Subhas Chandra Bose's death on August 18, 1945, G D Khosla in 1974 berated and mocked all who had wanted the Japanese account to be re-investigated. But Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had to heed the insistent demands for a new inquiry. G D Khosla did not have to cope with the very difficult Parliament Indira Gandhi faced after the 1967 general elections which on the whole were bad for the Congress. Unlike Khosla, Mrs Gandhi could not be dismissive of the doubts being expressed in and out of Parliament.   Loopholes galore in Netaji probe reports It is clear that Shah Nawaz Khan and G D Khosla had not looked hard at the testimonies of Col. Habibur Rahman and the Japanese doctor, T Youshini, who supposedly saw Netaji die. The fact, however, is that Col Rahman, Netaji's adjutant, had made three depositions and thrice he had contradicted himself on specific details. (He was twice interrogated by the Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre (CSDIC) of the Allied Intelligence and he had also appeared before the Shah Nawaz Committee). Dr Youshini's version of events also varied between three depositions he made on the subject. Furthermore, there was no documentary evidence of a plane crash having taken place at Taihoku on August 18, 1945. Neither was the flight plan and take off chart found nor was any record of the supposed air crash. Besides, the cremation certificate said to be of Netaji, is strangely in the name of Ichiro Okura, a "non-staff member of the Japanese Armed Forces". The birthday of the deceased in the certificate is given as April 9, 1900. Netaji was born on January 23, 1897.