Place · Art Deco office tower · Singapore
Cathay Building, Singapore
Also known as The Cathay, Cathay tower
The Cathay Building on Handy Road, Singapore — a 16-storey Art Deco tower completed in 1941, the first high-rise and the first air-conditioned public building in Southeast Asia. Requisitioned by the Imperial Japanese Army after the fall of Singapore in February 1942 and used as their broadcasting and propaganda headquarters, it became the seat of the Provisional Government of Azad Hind (Āzād Hind Sarkār) that Subhas Chandra Bose proclaimed from its ground-floor theatre on 21 October 1943. Bose had assumed command of the Indian National Army at a rally on the Padang four months earlier; the Cathay was his working office, the Azad Hind cabinet room and the Azad Hind radio broadcasting station until the INA's march on Imphal in early 1944. Postwar restoration opened the tower as the Cathay Cineplex in 1949; the façade is now a conserved national monument.
- Date
- 1941–1945
- Periods
- Second World War
- Function
- Authority & administration
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 1.301, 103.847
Connections (2)
- Site withinSingapore
On 21 October 1943 Subhas Chandra Bose proclaimed the Provisional Government of Azad Hind (Āzād Hind Sarkār, Free India) from the ground-floor theatre of the Cathay Building at 2 Handy Road, Singapore — assuming the offices of Head of State, Prime Minister and Minister of War. The cabinet included nine ministers and eight representatives of the Indian diaspora; Japan, the Axis powers and six satellite states recognised it within a month, and it declared war on the United Kingdom and the United States that December.
- Proclaimed atSubhas Chandra Bose
At the Cathay Building on 21 October 1943 Subhas Chandra Bose read the proclamation of the Provisional Government of Azad Hind, taking the oath of office as Head of State, Prime Minister and Minister of War. The cabinet he announced included Captain Lakshmi Sahgal as Minister for Women's Organisations — the first time an Indian government anywhere included a woman at cabinet rank. He signed his first state papers that evening as 'Netaji' from the Cathay's third-floor office.
Sources
Standard reference; Wikipedia The Cathay / Azad Hind.
Open Cathay Building, Singapore in the repository →