WW2 From India's Perspective | Animated History

Special thanks to India Shastra and Historia Maxima for helping out with this video. Hi, I'm Griffin Johnson, the armchair historian. When one thinks of British participation in the Second World War, images of Tommies in their Brodie helmets slogging through the dust of Egypt Others may picture the maroon-bereted boys of the Airborne descending on Pegasus Bridge, or gentleman spies like the late Sir Christopher Lee slinking through the shadows of occupied Europe. These images all have one thing in common, however. Their protagonists are universally Anglo-Saxon. In reality, the Second World War was a clash of empires, empires who called upon all of their people to take up arms and fight for the survival of their dominion. For the British Empire, this included over 370 million people of India, their largest colony, and the much-touted jewel in the imperial crown. In today's episode, we'll take a look at the Second World War from the perspective of the jewel rather than the head that wore it, and how this conflict realized Indian independence. The India of 1939 was a vastly different place than we know today. The British colonial government, or Raj, was a racially segregated and socially stratified body, with a white ruling class held above the native Indians. The caste system assisted in maintaining social control. Whites-only businesses were common, and Indian people were even prohibited from entering certain districts of cities in their own country. Despite these prohibitions, a kind of Indian middle class developed. Professionals who managed to work within the system to find some measure of security and prosperity. A young Gandhi belonged to this class as an up-and-coming lawyer. However, the vast majority of Indians were, to put it mildly, dissatisfied with the system. Perhaps sensing the rising tide of anti-colonial sentiment, the Raj began a policy of Indianization in the 1920s and 30s, which saw more and more native Indians placed in government and military positions. Of particular note was the introduction of Indian officers to the local military forces, which until this point had been under exclusively white command. These native officers were often placed in charge of all Indian units. While on their face, these reforms were billed as steps toward self-rule and Indian success, the reality was that they were token concessions to silence nationalist rumblings, a way for the to simultaneously mollify their critics and maintain control. Britannia rules the Indians as they rule the waves. This was, to the Raj's mind, a fact. The Second World War would put this fact to the test. The fall of Poland in 1939 brought the infamous Sitzkrieg and eight months of little change to the subcontinent. This gave the people of India time to reflect, time to begin seeing the war in Europe as a far-off matter, a news item that wouldn't touch their homeland. Like the United States, India was thousands of miles from Europe, protected by sea and desert, mountain and plain. Being in India was like being in a grandstand watching some game or other, according to British civil service officer Hay MacDonald. MacDonald's attitude was not a popular one, however. Many of his compatriots were firmly fixed on joining the coming fight. Thus, the British ordered the Indian army mobilized at the start of the war in 1939, with Viceroy of India, Lord Linlithgow, believing wholeheartedly that the Indian people would sign on in droves to fight for democracy and freedom, king and country. Indeed, one group of native Indians came flocking to the Union Jack, the wealthy Maharajahs of the princely states. Within the structure of the Raj, roughly one-third of the native population was ruled over by Indian princes who administered fiefdoms in the empire's name. When Linlithgow called, the Maharajahs saw an opportunity to shore up their power in the face of the rising Indian independence movement. The princes viewed Indian nationalism as an existential threat and hoped that by eagerly and vigorously supporting the British crown, their survival would be guaranteed in an independent India. Revolutions, even peaceful ones, are often unkind to the crowned heads. The princes raised battalions of infantry and artillery or funneled their wealth into the British war chest, scores of princes writing six-figure checks to the British air ministry and other departments. With their men and their money, these old royals hoped to preserve their preeminence in Indian society, be it under British rule or in a free Indian state. Average Indians were equally interested in the conflict and public opinion was surprisingly varied over who was in the right. India at this time included a variety of ethnic and religious groups, groups that did not always coexist peacefully. The cause of Indian independence sometimes ran along these religious and ethnic lines and Hitler's idea of racial purity found willing adoptees in the militant wings of the Indian independence movement. Such Hitlerians included the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Hindu nationalist group, who openly celebrated Adolf Hitler and his desire for racial purity, as well as his methods in obtaining it. Meanwhile, those Indians who favored the allies found themselves increasingly frustrated with the British, who should have been their compatriots. While Indian politicians were anxious to defend their homes and promote their people's prosperity, the British showed interest in India solely as a well of manpower from which to draw Hopes of a new cooperation came in 1940 when the British and Indian governments reached an astonishing agreement. London would pay for the entirety of India's war expenses and flood the colony with investment. The British would foot the bill for recruitment and transport of Indian soldiers and bankroll-sweeping infrastructure improvements. But London's generosity proved hollow. The British paid their debts with sterling credits, essentially government IOUs that forced India to front the actual money, devastating the Indian economy. When the British government enacted the Defense of India Act, granting government officials unlimited power to crack down on any sentiment, speech, or action they considered disloyal, the imperial government's priorities were spelled out. Focus on the war and keep India under political and economic control. While the British worked to consolidate control on the home front, Indian soldiers found their life in the field surprisingly varied. The social dynamics of some units were perfect mirrors of the Raj, with white officers enforcing a kind of de facto segregation. Disputes broke out over pay discrepancies between white and Indian officers of equal rank, the content of ration tins, and even whether radios should be tuned to Western or Indian musical stations. While this form of petty racially driven office politics was the rule in some units, others turned out to be surprisingly progressive for the era. A common rule for these units was the prohibition of speaking in derogatory terms in the presence of Indian officers about their political leaders, customs, traditions, or music, while others accepted their Indian peers of their own accord once they'd proven their mettle and competence in the field. This attitude began to work its way up to the lines, with the infantry committee penning a report midway through the war identifying segregation within units as a critical issue. The most strenuous efforts must be made to ensure that no discrimination of any nature is permitted. By the end of the war, 2.5 million Indians would fight for the British Empire, providing a critical component of the allied forces that defeated the Axis powers. Powers that succeeded in bringing the war to India's doorstep. Imperial Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor was like a bucket of icy water dumped onto India's head. Up till now, the people of India thought the Second World War would play out much like the First, with Indian troops sent to far-off lands and the subcontinent spared of actual fighting. The Japanese were all too happy to disabuse India of this notion, and Pearl Harbor was followed by an East Asian blitzkrieg that toppled colonial government after colonial government. The Japanese carved a beachhead into India's neighbor, Burma, and seized Hong Kong, Singapore, and British Malaya. India, therefore, became a crucial staging ground for the Allies in the Pacific, and refugees fled the Japanese advance for the perceived safety of the Raj, a flow which only intensified after the Japanese captured the Burmese capital in March. By the end of the month, the Japanese had captured all of Burma and cut the critical overland supply route from India to China. Burma's fall opened India up to a direct Japanese invasion, with Bengal first on the block. Panic swept through this province. In this desperate hour, as their imperial subjects were wracked with fear, the British Raj stepped in to restore calm by enacting a scorched earth policy that devastated the civilian population. Food stockpiles were seized by government forces, bridges were destroyed, civilian watercraft confiscated or sunk, waterways sabotaged. If the Japanese invaded Bengal, they would inherit a ruin. However, the Japanese had reached the end of their supply lines in Burma and were unable to advance in India, so they bombed it. As British soldiers sacked what they should have been defending and Japanese ordnance fell from the sky, the people of Bengal found themselves straddling a tightrope over the bottomless chasm of starvation. Fishermen had no craft with which to ply their trade. Farmers had no crops nor way to get them to market if they did. In 1942, the ravening claws of hunger would snare India in their clutches. The Bengal famine had begun. The famine was a tragedy within a epidemic of hunger and disease that saw between 2 to 3 million people die. While the dominant narrative for some time has been that extreme weather was a leading cause of the tragedy, more modern research seems to indicate British policies in India as the chief cause of the famine. Indian-American scientist and journalist Madhusri Mukherjee posits that over-exploitation of Indian resources by British leadership directly caused the famine, with London continuing to pull tons of rice from India even as leaders of the Raj begged for emergency food aid. Hordes of refugees from Burma poured into India, increasing demand for what food was available. Fungus devastated rice crops, severely limiting edible produce. British industrialists and landowners intervened, engaging in profiteering during the crisis. Freak weather devastated farmland and wiped out villages. And lastly, though not exhaustively, the Raj made great efforts to keep the famine out of the press, which prevented the possibility of international aid that could have saved lives. What is beyond debate is the devastating impact the famine had on the people of Bengal. The British inquiry into the famine noted a breakdown of family units as husbands deserted wives and wives husbands. Elderly dependents were left behind in villages. Babies and young children were sometimes abandoned. Historian Dr. Janam Mukherjee describes the hellscape that Bengal became. Corpses lay scattered over several thousand square miles of devastated land. 7,400 villages were partly or wholly destroyed by the storm. Cholera, dysentery, and other waterborne diseases flourished. As the Japanese postured and people starved in the streets, social pressures began to mount. Politics in India did not stop with the declaration of war, and Indian nationalism only intensified as British administrators fumbled and fumbled again. The discussion was dominated by Mahatma Gandhi's Indian National Congress, drawn from the Hindu majority of Indians, and Muhammad Ali Jinnah's Muslim League, who feared becoming second-class citizens in an independent India. As time wore on, the INC began to emphasize Hinduism as a critical component to Indian society, leading to the Muslim League's Lahore Resolution, calling for separate Muslim and Hindu states. This marked the effective end of cooperation between the two, and Indian nationalists were driven into the arms of militant extremist leaders. These included pro-Axis forces such as the Indian National Army, led by Subhas Chandra Bose. Bose grew the INA to 43,000 members at its peak, rallying the disaffected Indians with his promise, The INA would go on to fight in Burma against the British, collaborating with the Japanese until the war's end. Other Indians chose less drastic methods of expressing their displeasure with the British. As numbers of British and American troops in India swelled, cultural clashes and outright crime ensued. American troops began slaughtering cattle held sacred in Hinduism, while allegations of sexual assault scandalized the Indian population. Gandhi and the INC responded by issuing the Quit India Resolution in August of 1942, a largely symbolic call for India to cease cooperation with the British until they guaranteed independence. The British responded by arresting Gandhi and many INC leaders, who they would hold for three years. Gandhi, even from prison, exhorted his followers to peaceful protest. Instead, the Indian independence movement chose violence. Protests in Bombay saw 33 people killed by police in the four days following the INC leadership's arrest, and a wave of attacks on government buildings ensued. The British cracked down hard, and 2,500 Indians were killed. The Raj ultimately succeeded in putting down the insurrection, and Indian independence would have to wait until the war was won. While the British fought the Indian people, the Japanese fought the Indian army. Indian troops managed to reclaim some of Burma in December of 1942, and the Japanese responded by bombing Calcutta for several days. Most of 1943 in India would be dedicated to reorganization and rearming of the Indian army, as the Japanese had taught the Raj a bloody lesson. They were not ready to face the Japanese in open battle. While troops in the subcontinent readied to defend their home, Indians abroad helped liberate North Africa before participating in Operation Husky, seeing action throughout Sicily. As 1943 drew to a close, the reinvigorated Indian army prepared to march against the Japanese. The Japanese watched the revitalization with concern, and decided they needed to once again launch a surprise attack to keep the initiative. In March of 1944, they enacted their plan, dubbed Operation Hugo, which saw intense fighting on the Burmese border. The Indians stood against the Japanese at the border towns of Imphal and Kohima. The determined Indians stood their ground against the Japanese invasion, and come July, their foe had no choice but to break off the attack. The Indian National Army, under Bose, fought in the Japanese attack, and along with civilian collaborators, rendered aid and comfort to the retreating Japanese. As the Allies gave chase to the Japanese and encountered these collaborators, they chose honey over vinegar, sending doctors and food supplies to the isolated villages that had helped the Japanese. In this way, they hoped to win the locals back to the Allied side, rather than punish them for collaborating. August brought an Allied drive deep into Burma, and the bloody and brutal campaign to liberate the country merits its own video. Regardless, May of 1945 saw the Indian army successfully capture the Burmese capital. For India, the war was over. And the end could not have come soon enough. Food shortages were rampant even after the official end of the Bengal famine in 1944, and basic necessities like cloth were in equally short supply. Demobilization meant an epidemic of unemployment, as war workers were unceremoniously laid off. Members of the INA were arrested and interrogated, but public outcry saw many of them spared prosecution. Some Indians saw the INA as a legitimate member of the independence movement, rather than Japanese quislings. Speaking of independence, the British agreed to discussions with Indian leaders regarding the possibility of Indian statehood, and released political prisoners as an opening gesture, including Gandhi. Independence soon became an inevitability, and Indian statehood talks opened. Tensions between Hindus and Muslims were a key issue of the negotiations, leading to an agreement to partition the colonial territory into the Hindu state of India and the Muslim states of Pakistan and East Pakistan, now known as Bangladesh. The results of these negotiations are outside the scope of our discussion today, but suffice to say the liberated colony would experience some growing pains. India would go into the Second World War as a colony, and emerge a pair of nations. In terms of military dead, India lost 87,000 soldiers in the fight against the Axis. But accounting for civilian dead in the Bengal famine and other incidents, the death toll rises to a staggering 2.2 million at a minimum. The Indian economy was devastated by the war, despite being on the winning side, and the country remains economically troubled into the modern day. Nevertheless, India was able to throw off the shackles of colonialism, kicking off a wave of decolonization in the aftermath of the Second World War. It is no hyperbole to say that Indian troops and materiel were a substantial contribution to the total Allied war effort. A contribution paid for in the spilled blood and empty stomachs of those living on the subcontinent.