In “Women At War”, Vera Hildebrand retraces the tumultuous journey of the first all-female infantry fighting unit in military history

Seven decades after The Rani of Jhansi Regiment (RJR) was formed in Singapore by Subhas Chandra Bose, the tales of young recruits from traditional Indian families have all but forgotten. Now, noted historian Vera Hilderbrand has uncovered new evidence through in-depth interviews with surviving Ranis and archival research. The result is “Women At War: Subhas Chandra Bose and the Rani of Jhansi Regiment” (HarperCollins), which opens a new window to these courageous soldiers who spent two years in the jungles of Burma to realise their commander’s vision. With a doctorate in Indian history and culture from Georgetown University, Washington, DC, Hildebrand has managed to separate facts from myth. She admits as an outsider she had to learn a lot that native Indians learn in school and from just growing up in India. “As an outsider it is important and not entirely easy to learn to chose from the various political or cultural perspective your informant may come, newspapers, history books, political pamphlets and veteran women soldiers.” For women’s history, she says, trustworthy information about most aspects of life as a woman in India was not available before the 1970s. “Bose, Nehru and Gandhi all deplored the way women had been treated but did not report from a woman's point of view. I have tried to learn about Indian culture, history and literature since I came to India first in 2001, and I will probably continue to be surprised and delighted with new information for many years to come.”

Vera Hildebrand

Edited excerpts:

What was your motivation to delve into this subject?

I came to India and saw that Indian women were not as emboldened in their relationships with their husbands as are Danish women. When I began to read a little of the history of Indian women I saw Rani of Jhansi Regiment mentioned and found it astounding that the first regiment of combat trained women in the world would be Indian. I wanted to know more and that led me to interview the surviving Ranis. Then writing the book followed because only few people even in India had heard of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment and I thought that every Indian girl ought to know about these brave women who came before her.

You have tried to separate history from myth. How many Ranis did you meet and did the conversations form a cogent story?

I met more Ranis than the 22 RJR veterans who agreed to extensive interviews. But the ones I did not get permission to quote with name also gave very interesting information, especially because their view of the experience was so different from the others who all thought the two years as a Rani had been the greatest time of their lives.

The Ranis did not begin at one end and delivered a story. They talked about what interested them most and answered what I asked them. There are only few gaps, because after many hours I learned a lot and was able to combine all the information given by each Rani to know who the young woman was before she joined, who her family was, how she saw her time in the RJR and what she did after the war and what she thought about the impact that her service had had on Indian society. I did not hear exaggerated stories or myths. Some stories of the same events differed a bit, but that is what happens when people remember what happened 65 or 70 years ago. Actually it was amazing how little difference there was.

Tell us about the challenges in research and what new ground that this book breaks

This work reveals newly discovered archival research to which no one else has had access, that is the British Intelligence reports on everything that occurred in the INA and I focus on the Ranis. Also, I am the first historian to spend many hours with all of the surviving veterans and ask about their lives, not just the two years they spent as soldiers.

Was it is a progressive step which was not well thought out? In the history of women's role in warfare, where does RJR stand?

There is very little history of women in warfare and the RJR has a special place, because these women were included in a regular army, as infantry soldiers and they were trained and deployed for combat. Such unit still does not exist elsewhere. Women in combat is a recent thing and then the females are in the same battalion as the men not in a separate women’s regiment.

Except for a couple of the women who did not want to be known, the Ranis all their lives thought that it had been a great experience and wished that the timing of their deployment had been more favourable so they could have fought shoulder to shoulder with their brothers, as they said. They were still idealists in their late eighties and nineties.

Vera presenting the book to Mommata Mehta one of the Ranis

What kind of families allowed their women to be part of combat duties? What were their motivations?

The families of the Ranis came from two very different groups: Most Ranis came from Tamil families who worked at the rubber estates or in the tin mines of Malaya. These families and their daughters were not educated and most said that they joined because they had heard the would get food as a Rani. Some of them were also happy to escape the role as a women working in those very hard jobs, with estate managers who were sexual predators. They welcomed the respect and freedom they got when they joined the RJR. The other major group was Indian nationalist families living in the diasporas in Malaya, Singapore and Burma. These parents had taught their daughters that they were Indian and that India should be liberated; the girls either heard Bose's speeches and were inspired or their parents urged them to join.

The book jacket

Do you think the role of Rani of Jhansi Regiment is sometimes overstated? Can we hold Captain Lakshmi Swaminathan Sahgal responsible for it?

Until I found the documents in British Library, London, accurate numbers have not been available. At one point Bose himself wrote to the camp commander in Singapore and asked how many Ranis there were in that camp. And as is the nature of people telling stories anywhere in the world, the fish get bigger and so do the numbers of soldiers and instances of their brave behaviour. Because Captain Lakshmi was the spokesperson for the Ranis, the whole INA, actually, she did mention numbers that were bigger than the actual number of Ranis.

But I do not think that the role of the RJR has been praised nearly enough. Their courage deserve our admiration and respect.

You have critically examined Subhas Chandra Bose's role in putting women on the war front and his own struggles with relationships. Are the two interlinked?

Only so far that Bose like most if not all great men or women was complicated, and he had conflicting ideas and purposes. I think he was right in creating the RJR, he showed women the respect and equality that women all over the world are demanding. Equal rights and equal responsibility.

You have compared Bose's and Gandhi's perspective on women's role in freedom struggle. Whose point of view do you find more pragmatic and progressive?

Gandhi wanted girls to be educated to be mothers and wives, Bose wanted girls and women to be responsible and equal citizens in free India, a modern India. Bose was definitely both respectful of women, more pragmatic and way more progressive. Bose did not want Indians to stay in the villages and weave, he wanted a modern society.

How do you see his tilt towards the Japanese forces which were as imperialist and inhuman as the British rulers?

I believe that Bose was unhappy in many different ways about the concessions he was forced to make to Japan, but if he wanted to take advantage of the window of opportunity he was granted by the WWII, (my enemy’s enemy is my friend) that was his only chance.

Does RJR have a contemporary relevance in Indian society where women are still struggling to find their space under the sun?

Yes, there are important lessons to be learned for both boy and girls. It is my hope that Indian children will see that women are strong, women can participate, women should/must take action to shape the world the way we want it to be. Perhaps it will take more time, but it will come. .