India

In 1941, Britain’s empire in southern Asia included present-day India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, all collectively known to the British as India. This was a vast and ethnically diverse region with a huge population, about 300 million persons. Britain had gained control of this region from the 17th century on through a policy of divide-and-conquer. Some of India was under direct British control, while other regions were under the control of native princes who owed allegiance to the British crown. Because of the huge area and population, the British relied heavily on native civil servants in their administration. The British also relied on the tacit acceptance by most Indians of the British Raj (rule).

Britain was a relatively enlightened imperial power, and did much that improved the quality of life of many Indians. British policy in India during the 19th century had been shaped by the idealism of the Evangelical movement, which sought to elevate the Indian people (and not incidentally convert them to Christianity.) The British built some 40,000 miles of railroads and a system of irrigation canals and founded numerous colleges. Many of the most promising Indian students rounded out their educations at the great British universities of Oxford and Cambridge. However, the concept of empire is fundamentally at odds with liberal democracy, and British rule was not completely free of atrocities. The worst of these was the brutal suppression of rioters in Amritsar in April 1919, which left some 379 dead and another 1500 wounded. Educated Indians were increasingly dissatisfied by the curious mixture of British racism and patronism, and most Indian peasants remained untouched by the British attempt at enlightened rule: The average life expectancy was less than 20 years as late as 1900, and infant mortality remained around 50%.

By the 1920s the Indian nationalist movement had crystallized around the Indian National Congress, which was dominated by Mohandas Gandhi. Ghandi pioneered the use of nonviolent protest and succeeded in transforming the Indian independence movement into a mass movement. However, his rejection of violence and pleas for the equal status of women and lower castes contrasted with his devotion to a form of Hindu religious mysticism that rejected smallpox vaccinations and other modern innovations and distanced him from the large Muslim minority. Ghandi's movement succeeded in creating considerable sympathy for Indian independence among the British public.

On the outbreak of the war in Europe in 1939, the British Viceroy, Linlithgow, declared war on the Axis without consulting any Indian leaders. Indian nationalist leaders responded by resigning en masse from the government.  On 8 August 1942, Congress called for the British to "Quit India" and prepared to launch a massive campaign of civil disobedience. However, Congress was thoroughly infiltrated by government agents, who gave ample warning of Congress' plans. Ghandi and other INC leaders were interned and the protests which followed, while widespread and damaging, were successfully suppressed. Thereafter India was, in the words of one British general, "an occupied and hostile country."

The Axis, and particularly the Japanese, carefully fanned the flames of Indian nationalism with their propaganda, but few of the leaders of the Indian National Congress were willing to embrace Japan. Instead, the Congress sought immediate independence as the price for supporting the war against Japan. Gandhi himself took the position that the British must leave India immediately, after which the Indians should employ the same methods of nonviolent resistance against the Japanese that had been employed against the British. This frankly ludicrous proposal diminished his standing with foreign sympathizers, particularly in the United States, and even among his own people. Gandhi once stated that he could never have achieved what he achieved against the British if the British had not been so civilized. While his use of the word “civilized” was probably intended to be ironic, the statement is valid at face value, and points to the flaw in his approach to the prospect of Japanese invasion.

One Indian nationalist who did embrace the Axis was Chandra Subhas Bose, who adopted the title Netaji ("Leader") and a Fascist-style uniform. Bose attempted to organize an Indian National Army to assist the Japanese in expelling the British from India, but the INA consisted of former prisoners of war, many of whom had joined only to escape the appalling conditions in Japanese POW camps. It never became an effective fighting force, and many of its members deserted back to the British at the first opportunity. A few others were summarily executed when they attempted to surrender -- by loyal Indian troops who were inflamed by reports of Japanese atrocities in Burma.

Indian Armed Forces

The Indian Army was thoroughly professional and quite modern, but also very small. Many of the best British generals of World War II had served with the Indian Army. At the outbreak of the European war, the Army consisted of some 200,000 men in six divisions. By the end of 1941, it had grown to five fully trained divisions deployed in the Middle East and North Africa and nine partially trained divisions scattered across India, Burma, and Malaya.

The Indian Army used the regimental system, and most battalions were composed of men from the same region of India, usually under white officers. There was typically one white battalion and two native battalions in each brigade. However, as the war progressed and the Army ballooned in size (it would reach two million men, all volunteers) an increasing number of native Indians received the King's Commission, and the proportion of white battalions went down. The number of native Indian officers increased from 400 in 1939 to 8,000 by the end of the war. Such fantastic growth was possible because India remained quite poor, with high unemployment, and the army was perceived as the best prospect by many Indian men. This incidentally allowed the Army to be quite selective in who was inducted.

Indian troops fought well when properly trained and equipped. At the start of the Pacific War, however, the massive expansion meant that many divisions had large numbers of as-yet-untrained troops and lacked equipment. This helps explain the poor performance of Indian divisions in Malaya and Burma. Poor British leadership in Malaya was probably even more important: The loyalty of Indian troops was based on the willingness of their British officers to lead from the front and set a splendid example of courage.  By 1944 the problems were largely resolved and Indian divisions fought very well in the return to Burma. At the end of the war, the Indian Army had 18 divisions on active duty.

Churchill considered the Indian Army wasteful of its manpower because of its inability to field more divisions: "It is indeed a disgrace, that so feeble an army is the most that can be produced from the enormous expense entailed" (Hastings 2007). Eighteen divisions out of an army of two million corresponded to a divisional wedge of over 100,000 men, higher even than that of the technology-heavy U.S. Army. Much of the Indian Army was committed to internal security, which required 52 battalions by 1944. This was the equivalent of about five more divisions. Even with security requirements taken into account, the Indian Army ought to have been able to field at least 25 divisions.

The Royal Indian Air Force had a single general-purpose squadron at the start of the war. By its end there were ten squadrons including fighters and light bombers. The Royal Indian Navy became a professional force, albeit of light forces and landing craft.

Order of battle, 7 December 1941

References

Costello (1981)

James (1997)

Slim (1956)

The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia (c) 2007-2008 by Kent G. Budge. Index

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