It was a bitter struggle for Indians seeking freedom from bondage under the British rule. Those who were more passionate about freedom took to the path of guns and bombs while the passive ones opted to disobey the imperialist forces.

Rash Behari Bose and Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose belonged to that genre who believed in force to defeat force and lived dangerously. The World Wars gave Indian revolutionaries a break away from Mahatma Gandhi's soft struggle.

Travelling from Madras Port to Penang in Malaya in search of a job in November 1939, V N K Pillai never thought he would be joining the revolutionaries in the freedom struggle in another land. But, when World War II erupted, and British lost Malaya and Singapore to the Japanese, things changed for the Indians in East and Southeast Asia. The choice for Indians there was to either go with the Japanese or face persecution.

General Mohan Singh and Rash Behari Bose led the path by organising the Indian National Army from among British Indian soldiers and created history.