India's War, by Srinath Raghavan
India's War: World War II and the Making of Modern South Asia
India’s war is a great work that took too long to come out – an account of the Indian army’s effort during World War II, from North Africa to Myanmar, written by a former officer of the Indian Army. This is a work that mostly does justice to the very impressive blurbs from Ramchandra Guha, John Keay and Sunil Khilnani.
Its span, depth and detail make this an outstanding book. Raghavan goes into the strategy, economics and politics of the context, before describing the military aspects in some detail. He does all this keeping the reading very easy. That is a great achievement.
It helps that the author zooms in and out very fluently. The very first line has an interesting detail – the Viceroy of India announced India’s entry into WWII without consulting a single governing body. As a result, the Indian Army would increase in strength from 200,000 to 2.5 million. Many such details follow – including that India was a member of the League of Nations, reflecting its importance even as a colony, and that there was a run on the Post Office savings bank in India following the German Blitzkrieg.
As I expected, the accounts of military action are very detailed. For the first time, I got a sense of the huge spread of theatres that the Indian Army saw action in, from Italy to Hong Kong. There are a few places where the maps don’t really support the detailed narrative, though.
On the other hand, there are aspects that I liked a bit less about the work. First, the sense that the “Indian” armed forces were the foundation of the British Raj, and that the Raj crumbled mainly because of mutinies in it – the Royal Indian Navy in particular – is not quite strong enough. The book does describe the naval mutiny briefly. It is interesting that the great leaders of Indian independence were super-quick to supress disorder in the Indian Navy, but not that effective in keeping murder and mayhem in check outside.
I did like it that Raghavan quickly dismisses Mountbatten, who has been subjected to an incredible amount of hero-worship elsewhere, as a “train-wreck of a general” and implies that his main achievement was to leave the fighting to Slim. However, that brings up what I see as a second shortcoming: the lost opportunity to re-examine General Slim and the glow of his Caesar-like conquest of Burma, versus the “military losers” reputation of the Indian National Army.
The investment in re-training, logistics, fighting spirit, medical infrastructure etc. and the turnaround of the 14th Army to a winning force make a very interesting case study. However, I am inclined to believe Pater Ward Fay came closer to the truth when remarked that some British Generals were better at winning battles in the bookshops than in the battlefield. As Bayly and Harper put it, right on the first page of the preface to Forgotten Armies , “the ultimate victors forged heroic legends around the later successes of British Arms in the Eastern War.”
I am no historian, but it is clear to me that Slim lied in print in Defeat to Victory when he wrote that the main contribution of the Indian National Army was to smilingly lay down arms at the point of crossing of the Irawady River. Equally, one doesn’t have to be a genius or historian to figure that the Japanese were preparing for an assault on Iwo Jima when the British Indian Army launched its offensive in Burma (Fay points this out). I would have liked more detail in Raghavan’s work on what happened when the British Indian Army and the Indian National Army came face to face. Too often, Bose and the INA are still treated with either crazy veneration or Raj-initiated contempt.
Yashpal, in his classic Jhhootha Sach, notes that the Indian Army did not overturn the “British” Indian Army’s attitude towards the INA after indepence. As a result, the INA “found itself to be the ghost at the feast in Prime Minister Nehru’s independent and non-aligned India” (Bayly and Harper).
A revised edition of India’s War with a more in-depth and balanced treatment of this sub-plot will be a great addition to the telling of Indian WWII history. The author is quite dismissive in this work – “ the Indian National Army was no match for the Indian Army” – which, of course, is the common narrative. It would not hurt to dwell more on the establishment of the Indian National Army, its dismantling of religious divisions and its few credible military actions. There are authors like Fay, Toye and Lebra who seem to suggest that the INA was a military disaster on the whole, but did have some moments of success and did demonstrate courage.
I was shocked to read in Hajari’s Midnight’s Furies that Mohan Singh, who led the INA before becoming disillusioned with the Japanese, was leading a Sikh militia unit and in the thick of the genocide of partition a few years later. Raghavan clearly notes that the demobilization of trained soldiers was a factor in the large-scale butchery that prevailed during the partition. The 2.5 million strong army could have been demobilized at a slower rate, and could have been used as a peace-keeping force, if Indian independence was not also badly botched up by the Great Leaders who ruled over it.
An even wider coverage of India’s war would include the Indian Legion that served in trained in Konigsbruck and served in Normandy under the Germans, and the POWs sent to Rabaul.
All of this doesn’t mean that I didn’t enjoy India’s War. It’s one of those books I set aside for a second cover-to-cover reading later, and I will also look forward to Raghavan’s next book.
India’s war is a great work that took too long to come out – an account of the Indian army’s effort during World War II, from North Africa to Myanmar, written by a former officer of the Indian Army. This is a work that mostly does justice to the very impressive blurbs from Ramchandra Guha, John Keay and Sunil Khilnani.
Its span, depth and detail make this an outstanding book. Raghavan goes into the strategy, economics and politics of the context, before describing the military aspects in some detail. He does all this keeping the reading very easy. That is a great achievement.
It helps that the author zooms in and out very fluently. The very first line has an interesting detail – the Viceroy of India announced India’s entry into WWII without consulting a single governing body. As a result, the Indian Army would increase in strength from 200,000 to 2.5 million. Many such details follow – including that India was a member of the League of Nations, reflecting its importance even as a colony, and that there was a run on the Post Office savings bank in India following the German Blitzkrieg.
As I expected, the accounts of military action are very detailed. For the first time, I got a sense of the huge spread of theatres that the Indian Army saw action in, from Italy to Hong Kong. There are a few places where the maps don’t really support the detailed narrative, though.
On the other hand, there are aspects that I liked a bit less about the work. First, the sense that the “Indian” armed forces were the foundation of the British Raj, and that the Raj crumbled mainly because of mutinies in it – the Royal Indian Navy in particular – is not quite strong enough. The book does describe the naval mutiny briefly. It is interesting that the great leaders of Indian independence were super-quick to supress disorder in the Indian Navy, but not that effective in keeping murder and mayhem in check outside.
I did like it that Raghavan quickly dismisses Mountbatten, who has been subjected to an incredible amount of hero-worship elsewhere, as a “train-wreck of a general” and implies that his main achievement was to leave the fighting to Slim. However, that brings up what I see as a second shortcoming: the lost opportunity to re-examine General Slim and the glow of his Caesar-like conquest of Burma, versus the “military losers” reputation of the Indian National Army.
The investment in re-training, logistics, fighting spirit, medical infrastructure etc. and the turnaround of the 14th Army to a winning force make a very interesting case study. However, I am inclined to believe Pater Ward Fay came closer to the truth when remarked that some British Generals were better at winning battles in the bookshops than in the battlefield. As Bayly and Harper put it, right on the first page of the preface to Forgotten Armies , “the ultimate victors forged heroic legends around the later successes of British Arms in the Eastern War.”
I am no historian, but it is clear to me that Slim lied in print in Defeat to Victory when he wrote that the main contribution of the Indian National Army was to smilingly lay down arms at the point of crossing of the Irawady River. Equally, one doesn’t have to be a genius or historian to figure that the Japanese were preparing for an assault on Iwo Jima when the British Indian Army launched its offensive in Burma (Fay points this out). I would have liked more detail in Raghavan’s work on what happened when the British Indian Army and the Indian National Army came face to face. Too often, Bose and the INA are still treated with either crazy veneration or Raj-initiated contempt.
Yashpal, in his classic Jhhootha Sach, notes that the Indian Army did not overturn the “British” Indian Army’s attitude towards the INA after indepence. As a result, the INA “found itself to be the ghost at the feast in Prime Minister Nehru’s independent and non-aligned India” (Bayly and Harper).
A revised edition of India’s War with a more in-depth and balanced treatment of this sub-plot will be a great addition to the telling of Indian WWII history. The author is quite dismissive in this work – “ the Indian National Army was no match for the Indian Army” – which, of course, is the common narrative. It would not hurt to dwell more on the establishment of the Indian National Army, its dismantling of religious divisions and its few credible military actions. There are authors like Fay, Toye and Lebra who seem to suggest that the INA was a military disaster on the whole, but did have some moments of success and did demonstrate courage.
I was shocked to read in Hajari’s Midnight’s Furies that Mohan Singh, who led the INA before becoming disillusioned with the Japanese, was leading a Sikh militia unit and in the thick of the genocide of partition a few years later. Raghavan clearly notes that the demobilization of trained soldiers was a factor in the large-scale butchery that prevailed during the partition. The 2.5 million strong army could have been demobilized at a slower rate, and could have been used as a peace-keeping force, if Indian independence was not also badly botched up by the Great Leaders who ruled over it.
An even wider coverage of India’s war would include the Indian Legion that served in trained in Konigsbruck and served in Normandy under the Germans, and the POWs sent to Rabaul.
All of this doesn’t mean that I didn’t enjoy India’s War. It’s one of those books I set aside for a second cover-to-cover reading later, and I will also look forward to Raghavan’s next book.
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