Singapore, 1942: The Army of Prisoners

Captain Mohan Singh, British Indian Army officer captured by the Japanese

Captain finds himself among the 45,000 Indian soldiers captured in the fall of on 15 February 1942, the largest surrender in British military history. In the days that follow, Japanese officers put a remarkable proposition to him: raise, among these demoralised men whose legal status is uncertain, an army that would fight alongside Japan to drive the British out of the Indian subcontinent.

The dilemma cuts in several directions at once. has sworn an oath to the British Crown, and breaking that oath could expose his men to being treated not as prisoners of war but as traitors. Yet tens of thousands of Indian soldiers are at the mercy of Japanese guards whose treatment of prisoners elsewhere has proved brutal. At the same time, the movement for Indian independence has galvanised public opinion for decades, and some Indian officers see in Britain's defeat a historic opportunity.

must weigh 3 irreconcilable imperatives: forming a volunteer to fight British colonial rule alongside Japan, at the risk of becoming an instrument of Japanese imperial policy; refusing the offer and remaining a prisoner of war loyal to his oath, trusting the Geneva Conventions to protect his men; or limiting his role to the protection of Indian prisoners without committing troops to combat, seeking a position between resistance and collaboration.