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