I want to talk about it in a minute, but what were the things going with these memes and these, oh my God, I can't, I've got to say it, "jiffs," okay.
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INA troops were alleged to engage in or be complicit in torture of Allied and Indian prisoners of war. Fay in his 1993 history analyses war-time press releases and field counter-intelligence directed at Sepoys. He concludes that the Jiffs campaign promoted the view that INA recruits were weak-willed and traitorous Axis collaborators, motivated by selfish interests of greed and personal gain. He concludes that the allegations of torture were largely products of the Jiffs campaign.
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Nevertheless, Fay argues that these made up a few instances and by no means match up to the large scale torture alleged and concludes these to be war-time intelligence manoeuvres of the Jiffs campaign. Some have also made allegations of complicity in the Selarang Barracks Incident at Singapore in 1942, where INA guards are alleged to have shot four Australian PoWs who had attempted to escape from Changi Prison.
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The first of the measures taken was to emphasise a news blackout on the existence of the INA from newspapers, book or any publications. Not until after a few days after the fall of Rangoon two years later was this ban to be lifted. Among other policies adopted at the time were the decisions to only refer to the INA "Traitor Army", which was later superseded by the use of the term Jiffs.
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Teddie and Merrick are sent to the front in Manipur against the Japanese and their surrogates, the Indian National Army (known as "Jiffs" among the British). Teddie, against Merrick's warnings, falls victim to an INA ambush while trying to induce INA soldiers from his regiment to surrender. Merrick does his best to save Teddie, but is unsuccessful, and comes away horribly disfigured. Teddie goes forward, it is implied, because he is concerned about the methods Merrick might employ on the turncoats.
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Under Bose's leadership, the INA drew ex-prisoners and thousands of civilian volunteers from the Indian expatriate population in Malaya (present-day Malaysia) and Burma. This second INA fought along with the Imperial Japanese Army against the British and Commonwealth forces in the campaigns in Burma: at Imphal and Kohima, and later against the Allied retaking of Burma. After the INA's initial formation in 1942, there was concern in the British-Indian Army that further Indian troops would defect. This led to a reporting ban and a propaganda campaign called "Jiffs" to preserve the loyalty of the Sepoy.
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Jiffs was a pejorative term used by British Intelligence, and later the 14th Army, to denote soldiers of the Indian National Army after the failed First Arakan offensive of 1943. The term is derived from the acronym JIFC, short for Japanese-Indian (or -inspired) fifth column. It came to be employed in a propaganda offensive in June 1943 within the British Indian Army as a part of the efforts to preserve the loyalty of the Indian troops at Manipur after suffering desertion and losses at Burma during the First Arakan Offensive. After the end of the war, the term "HIFFs" (from Hitler-inspired-fifth- columnists) was also used for repatriated troops of the Indian Legion awaiting trial.
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The propaganda threat of the INA and lack of concrete intelligence on the unit early after the fall of Singapore made it a threat to Allied war plans in Southeast Asia, since it threatened to destroy the Sepoys' loyalty to a British-Indian Army that was demoralised from continuing defeats. There were reports of INA operatives successfully infiltrating Commonwealth lines during the Offensive. This caused British intelligence to begin the "Jiffs" propaganda campaign and to create "Josh" groups to improve the morale and preserve the loyalty of the sepoys as consolidation began to prepare for the defence of Manipur. These measures included imposing a complete news ban on Bose and the INA that was not lifted until four days after the fall of Rangoon two years later.
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In later decades works by authors like Amitav Ghosh, such as his book The Glass Palace, have used the backdrop of the Azad Hind and the Japanese occupation of Burma for the narrative of the story. The Day of the Scorpion and The Towers of Silence, the second and third books in Paul Scott's Raj Quartet, mention Jiffs in the political and social context in which the term found use in the Eastern Army during the war. The 1984 British TV series The Jewel in the Crown, based on Scott's quartet, also includes the role of the INA as part of the political backdrop of the story. In visual media, the INA has been the subject of a number of documentaries.
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The propaganda threat of the INA, coupled with the lack of concrete intelligence on the unit early after the fall of Singapore, led to considerable consternation among the political and military leadership of the Government of India when first reports started reaching it. In operational terms, the work of the Hindustan field force threatened to destroy the Sepoy's loyalty in the British Indian Army, This threat was perceived significant enough that the failure of the First Arakan Offensive was attributed by Commonwealth commanders to the "lack of martial skills of eastern races". British intelligence began the Jiffs propaganda campaign after this to preserve the sepoy's moral and loyalty. At this time also began efforts to improve morale the Sepoy in order to consolidate and prepare for defence of Manipur.
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The Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre (India), or CSDIC (I) for short, was the Indian branch of the CSDIC, established during World War II. Established along with the parent section at the start of hostilities in Europe, the branch developed as an important tool for interrogation of enemy troops and informant from November 1942, when the first information emerged of the nascent Indian National Army. The organisation formed a part of the Jiffs campaign, and was initially tasked with identifying Indian troops at risk of defecting to the INA. By the end of the war its task had evolved into interrogating INA soldiers captured in Burma, Malaya and Europe, interrogating them regardless of rank and identifying soldiers as white grey or black on the basis of their commitment to Subhas Chandra Bose and Azad Hind. The classifications were to be important in rehabilitating INA soldiers into the British-Indian Army. Col.
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