December 1942: Calcutta is\n bombed by the Japanese air force. In the ensuing panic, one and a half\n million flee the almost defenseless city. The Japanese, having stormed\n through Malaya, Singapore and Burma, appear unstoppable—and on their way to\n India. David Lockwood investigates the reactions and plans of the Congress,\n the British and the Indian National Army (INA), concluding that the episode\n revealed a good deal about plans for India after the war, the impossibility\n of the INA’s military solution, and that it was a part of the transition of\n the Indian State from the British to the Congress.