The impact of the conquering Japanese upon the Indian communities of Southeast Asia and upon the Indian soldiers captured there led, within a few months, to the formation of an Indian National Army intended to fight for the Independence of India alongside the Japanese, and to the establishment of an Indian Independence League embracing the civilian population of the whole area. The Japanese impact was harsh; the requirement from the conquered populations was total quiescence; military operations must not be hampered, Japanese needs for supplies and labour must be met without hesitation. Where this could be secured through an existing colonial administration as in Indochina, by enforcing the collaboration of a national government as in Thailand, or by playing on latent nationalism as in Burma, so much the better. Otherwise the method was terror: massacre, random execution, torture. It is the method of invading armies; it was the German method, the Russian method, the method of Genghiz Khan. That it wasemployed by the Japanese in the countries of Southeast Asia is basic to the history of the period.