When the mighty British fortress of Singapore fell in February 1942, over forty-five thousand Indian soldiers were surrendered, disarmed, and abandoned to their fate. Imperial history expected them to rot quietly behind barbed wire as defeated prisoners of war.

Instead, a young, visionary captain from the Punjab stepped into the blazing heat of Farrer Park and changed the destiny of a nation forever.

His name was General Mohan Singh Deb.

Rising from an orphaned childhood in the agrarian heartland of Sialkot and fighting his way from an enlisted sepoy to the historic Pioneer Batch of the Indian Military Academy, Mohan Singh was a soldier of extraordinary courage and strategic vision. Cut off behind enemy lines in the dense, shell-torn jungles of Malaya, he seized an unprecedented geopolitical moment to forge the First Indian National Army (INA / Azad Hind Fauj).

With electrifying oratory and unyielding moral clarity, Mohan Singh shattered decades of colonial conditioning:

The Awakening of an Army: He inspired over 40,000 captive soldiers to cast aside their oaths to the British Crown and take up arms for their own motherland under the battle cry “Jai Hind”.

A Revolution in the Ranks: He dismantled the Raj’s divisive “Martial Races” segregation, creating an unbroken secular brotherhood where Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, and Christians ate from the same mess and fought under a single National Tricolour.

The Defiance for Sovereignty: When the Imperial Japanese High Command attempted to treat the INA as a subordinate tool of Tokyo’s empire, Mohan Singh refused to be a puppet. In a daring act of supreme patriotism, he dissolved his own beloved army and faced solitary confinement and exile rather than compromise India’s dignity.

By drawing the red line of absolute sovereignty, Mohan Singh preserved the moral soul of the movement and built the combat divisions, weapon arsenals, and military bedrock that Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose would inherit and lead to the Indian frontier.

Why You Must Read This Book
Vividly written, packed with authentic military facts, and pulsating with intense patriotic fervor, The First General brings to light the thrilling, forgotten saga of the founding father of the Azad Hind Fauj.

From the frontier outposts of Waziristan and the desperate rearguard battles of Malaya, to high-stakes diplomatic clashes in Tokyo and decades of selfless service in the Parliament of free India, this is the definitive, inspiring chronicle of a warrior who risked the gallows to prove that India’s freedom would be won by the sword of her own sons.

Step into the crucible of East Asia’s battlegrounds. Discover the courage, defiance, and immortal legacy of General Mohan Singh Deb.