The Raj at War
Page 44
7 Ibid. See also IOR/M/4/3064 Ledo Road.
8 Brendan Koerner, Now the Hell Will Start: One Soldier’s Flight from the Greatest Manhunt of World War II (New York: Penguin Press, 2008).
9 Romanus and Sunderland, Stilwell’s Mission to China (Washington DC: United States Military, 1953), p. 307.
10 Frank Moraes, Witness to an Era (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1973), p. 118.
11 Anonymous letter quoted in Eric R. Craine, Burma Roadsters (Tucson, AZ: Western Research Company, 1992), p. 75.
12 Romanus and Sunderland, Stilwell’s Mission to China, p. 308.
13 Ibid., p. 307.
14 Life, 14 Aug. 1944.
15 Stephen Reiss (ed.), From Burma with Love: Fifteen Months of Daily Letters between Irwin and Mary Reiss during World War II (Bloomington: AuthorHouse, 2011), p. 401. Letter from Burma, 20 Sept. 1944.
16 India Burma Theater Roundup, IV, no. 7, 25 Oct. 1945.
17 Stephen Reiss (ed.), From Burma with Love, p. 433. Letter from Burma, 14 Oct. 1944.
18 Ibid.
19 NARA Calcutta Consulate General Records 1944: 814.3–822B, Box 143. 16 Sept. 1944.
20 IBT Roundup, 5 April 1945.
20 Insults and Discriminations
1 NARA, Secretary of Defense, Research Divn, Box 1025. Attitude reports on overseas personnel, 1944.
2 See Brendan Koerner on Teddy Weatherford’s career in Asia, and death in Calcutta in 1945, Piano Demon: The Globetrotting, Gin-soaked, Too-Short Life of Teddy Weatherford, the Chicago Jazzman who Conquered Asia (New York: The Atavist, 2011).
3 On the dynamics between American issues of race and British imperialism, see in particular Gary Hess, America Encounters India, 1941–7 (Baltimore, MD: The John Hopkins Press, 1972), Gerald Horne, The End of Empires: African Americans and India (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2008), Nico Slate, Colored Cosmopolitanism: The Shared Struggle for Freedom in the United States and India (Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, 2012), and Gyanendra Pandey, A History of Prejudice: Race, Caste and Difference in India and the United States (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013).
4 Frank Moraes, Witness to an Era, p. 112. Moraes also noted the embarrassment of young British officers watching this spectacle with him from the deck.
5 Nico Slate, Colored Cosmopolitanism, p. 144.
6 NARA, Secretary of Defense, Research Divn, Box 1025. Attitude reports on overseas personnel, 1944.
7 Slate, Colored Cosmopolitanism, p. 152.
8 IOR L/WS/1/647 1944–1945. See also the work of David Killingray including Fighting for Britain: African Soldiers in the Second World War (London: James Currey, 2012).
9 Gian Singh, Memories of Friends and Foes, p. 8.
10 B. L. Raina, Official History of the Indian Armed Forces in the Second World War, (1939–45): Medical Services, Administration (New Delhi: Combined Inter-Services Historical Section, 1990 [1953]), Chapter 13, ‘Reception and distribution of casualties’.
11 NARA, Calcutta Consulate, 1943: 815.4–820.08, Box 127.
12 IOR L/PS/12/2320 Training of Chinese troops in India.
13 NARA, Adjutant-General, General Correspondence, 600.9–611 Box no. 80.
14 IOR/L/PS/12/2320.
15 National Archives, Kew, WO 32/10664 On the formation of the WAC (I).
16 Margaret Schmertz, Library of Congress Veterans History Project (No. AFC/2001/001/21628), Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
17 Joan Boss, Love and War in India: My War Years, 1942–1945, vol. 2 (Boss Bros, 2005), pp. 13–17.
18 Statesman, 2 April 1945.
19 NAI, Home – police, 7/84/44. Coroner and Jury’s Report, 13 Dec. 1944.
20 NAI, Home – police, 7/84/44. CID Report, 26 Nov. 1944.
21 NAI, Home – police, 7/84/44. Coroner and Jury’s Report, 13 Dec. 1944.
22 Ibid.
23 NAI, Home – police, 7/73/44.
24 Ibid.
25 See various incidents recorded in NAI, Home – police including 7/4/44 and 7/23/44. Also IOR FNR, L/PJ/5/151 Bengal.
26 NARA CBI Adjutant General, General Correspondence 250.1–251.2 Box 29. Note dated 27 Nov. 1943.
27 In Burma, this was even more common, and there were numerous rapes, or murders perpetrated by villagers in self-defence against rape.
28 NARA, Adjutant General Correspondence 250.1–251.2 Box 29.
29 See for instance, the Sunday Statesman, 29 March 1942.
21 Empires, Lost and Found
1 G. N. S. Raghavan (ed.), M. Asaf Ali’s Memoirs, p. 254. Diary extract dated 24 Oct. 1942.
2 Ibid., p. 301. Diary extracts June–July 1944.
3 K. A. Abbas and N. G. Jog Shankar, A Report to Gandhiji: A Survey of Indian and World Events During the 21 Months of Gandhiji’s Incarceration (Bombay: Hind Kitab, 1944), p. 45.
4 Ibid., p. 49.
5 IOR MSS E360/14 I. H. Macdonald, letter to parents, 23 May 1942.
6 Ian Hay Macdonald wrote home: ‘Most of my inside knowledge of what has happened in the war comes from stray conversations with people who seem to have come from all parts of the world, and seen and done everything, while we have been buried alive in India – rather a lost generation in fact.’
7 Angela Bolton, The Maturing Sun, p. 75.
8 For further discussion of the changes in the wartime state, see William Gould, Bureaucracy, Community and Influence in India.
9 IOR L/PJ/5/151 FNR Bengal for fortnight ending 14 July 1944.
10 Ibid.
11 In an interview in 2011 with Iqroop Sandhawalia, Colonel Prithipal Singh Gill, who was in Bombay that year, recalled, ‘when the ship full of ammunition exploded at the Bombay docks everyone thought that the Japanese had attacked India’ and that children had been sent away from the city for their safety.
12 IOR L/I/1/1152 Bombay docks explosions, Proceedings of committee of inquiry report and related papers and testimonies, 1944–1947.
13 Ibid.
14 Ibid.
15 Ibid.
16 Ibid.
17 Another fatal wartime industrial accident took place at the Kanchapura Ammunition Depot on 25 Nov. 1945.
18 Memory of Wiesia Klepacka in The Association of Poles in India, Poles in India 1942–1948 (London: Amolibros, 2013), p. 421.
19 Ibid., p. 424.
20 Ibid., p. 424.
21 NARA, CBI, Provost Marshal General Correspondence, 200385. 2, Box No. 773.
22 Although there were also at least occasional cases of self-mutilation in the early years of the war. See, for instance, the case of Abdul Wahad Md. Jaman, twenty-two years old, who was given seven years rigorous imprisonment, by summary court martial held in the field in Sudan on 28 Dec. 1940 for ‘voluntarily causing himself hurt’. NAI, Home Dept 46/2/39 Jails.
23 Ascertaining accurate numbers of desertions is difficult and official statistics mention a rate of 5 per cent. A number of documents suggest surprisingly high figures. L/WS/1/1433 (India Internal Intelligence Summary) suggests 2,161 desertions in Dec. 1941, mainly among men with little active service. IOR L/PJ/5/238 FNR Punjab for first half of June 1943 describes ‘28,188 deserters at large’ in Punjab alone and ‘stemming desertion’ is mentioned again in March 1944 as a reason for increasing soldiers’ pay. Large numbers of military prisoners (including deserters but also those punished for other misdemeanours) were arriving in Assam in 1944; ‘there are practically daily admissions of new arrivals into jails’. See NAI, Home Dept 46/2/39 Jails.
24 Quoted in Peter Ward Fay, The Forgotten Army: India’s Armed Struggle for Independence, 1942–45 (New Delhi: Rupa & Co., 1997), p. 412.
25 IOR/L/PJ/12/763 Indian prisoners of war in Europe.
26 This was also the case for some Quit India prisoners, most notably J. P. Narayan’s escape from Hazaribagh Central Jail in Nov. 1942.
27 Elios Toschi, Ninth Time Lucky, p. 86.
28 Ibid., p. 133.
29 Raina, Official History, p. 460–3.
30 Ibid.
31 John Baptist Crasta, Eaten by the Japanese: The Memoir of an Unknown Indian Prisoner of War, 3rd edn, (New York: Invisible Man Press, 2013) p. 23; B. L. Raina, Official History, pp. 460–3.
32 For some detailed analysis of the experience of Indian prisoners of war see G. J. Douds, ‘The Men Who Never Were: Indian POWs in the Second World War’, South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 27, no. 2 (2004): 183–216, and G. J. Douds, ‘Indian POWs in the Pacific, 1941–1945’, in Kevin Blackburn and Karl Hack eds., Forgotten Captives in Japanese Occupied Asia (Abingdon, New York: Routledge, 2008), pp. 73–93.
33 John Baptist Crasta, Eaten by the Japanese, p. 66.
34 Narinder Singh Parmar, ‘The Story of Major Chint Singh, POW’, Hill Post, 29 July 2007.
22 Celebrations and Recriminations
1 Rationing was put in place slowly in India and mainly as a result of the famine. In July 1943 only 13 cities and areas were fully rationed, but by Feb. 1944 this had increased to 103 towns and cities in response to the insistence of the Foodgrains Policy Committee of 1943. Still, by the end of the war, rationing schemes covered less than a fifth of the total population and the conditions of rationing varied greatly, and depended on local conditions, availability of foodstuffs and provincial decision-making.
2 IOR L/PJ/12/576 Censorship Control Department Fortnightly Reports on India, June–Aug. 1945.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
5 ‘Nandita Sen’s Story’, Jan. 2005, http:timewitnesses.org/english/~nandita.html, accessed 2013.
6 See The Statesman, 3–10 May 1945. Wavell had noted in his diary on 10 Nov. 1943 that it would be ‘disastrous to have any enquiry now’.
7 IOR L/PJ/12/576, Censorship Control Department Fortnightly Reports on India, June–Aug. 1945.
8 Ibid.
9 Ibid.
10 Wavell: The Viceroy’s Journal, p. 125. 7 Aug. 1945.
11 CWMG, vol. 91, p. 221. Harijan, 7 July 1946. See also discussion in Faisal Devji, The Impossible Indian: Gandhi and the Temptations of Violence (London: Hurst, 2012), p. 147.
12 India tested its first nuclear weapon in 1974.
13 Interview conducted by Iqroop Sandhawalia with Major General Kartar Singh, 2011.
14 Gul Hassan Khan, Memoirs of Lt. Gen. Gul Hassan Khan (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 54.
15 Interview conducted by Iqroop Sandhawalia with Brigadier Parampal Gill, 2011.
16 Interviews conducted with Sardar Ali, Khadam Hussain, Haji Mohammed Sadiq and Ali Akbar Khan by Youth Action, Blackburn and Darwen, 2012.
17 Frank Moraes, Witness to an Era, p. 136.
18 SWJN, vol. 14, p. 2.
19 For a fuller discussion see the work of William Kuracina and Daniel Marston.
20 Cited in G. N. S. Raghavan (ed.), M. Asaf Ali’s Memoirs: the Emergence of Modern India (Delhi: Ajanta, 1994), undated, c. Dec. 1945, p. 327.
21 INA soldiers were granted military pensions in 1972 but had been denied them before that date.
22 John Baptist Crasta, Eaten by the Japanese, p. 72.
23 Aruna Asaf Ali, Fragments From the Past: Selected Writings and Speeches of Aruna Asaf Ali (New Delhi: Patriot Publishers, 1989), p. 140.
24 G. N. S. Raghavan (ed.), M. Asaf Ali’s Memoirs, p. 342–3. Dec. 1946.
25 CWMG, vol. 93, p. 159. Gandhi to Aruna Asaf Ali, Dec. 18, 1946.
26 Aruna Asaf Ali: A Life Sketch (Lahore: New India Publications, 1947), p. 105.
27 Raghavan (ed.), M. Asaf Ali’s Memoirs, p. 352. Undated.
28 Ibid. See also G. N. S. Raghavan, Aruna Asaf Ali: A Compassionate Radical, pp. 93–7.
29 IOR L/E/8/2602. Oct. 1945.
30 Compton Mackenzie, All Over the Place, p. 64.
31 NARA, Provost Marshal Activity Reports, Box 779. Report dated 4 Feb. 1946.
32 Records of the Hajj: A Documentary History of the Pilgrimage to Mecca, vol. 7 (1993), p. 411. From Foreign Office to India Office, 9 May 1940. In 1940 this proposal was rejected by the Government of India for fear of ‘subversive influences’ but was considered a possibility for consideration at the end of the war.
33 Penderel Moon, The Future of India (London: Pilot Press, 1945).
23 The Sepoy’s Return
1 Ramesh Benegal, Burma to Japan with Azad Hind, p. 140.
2 Ibid., p. 142.
3 H. M. Close, A Pathan Company, p. 302.
4 Ashali Varma, The Victoria Cross.
5 Gian Singh, Memories of Friends and Foes, p. 18.
6 National Army Museum, J. H. Voice, draft of unpublished memoirs, Ref: 2009–06–11. Written in 1974.
7 National Army Museum, ‘Memoirs of an old Koi Hai’ (John Ffrench, unpublished manuscript, National Army Museum) 9507–79. Written in 1989.
8 Ibid.
9 National Army Museum, Ref: 1993–04–13, Capt R. A. Newman Papers. Letter from Kartar Singh in Waziristan to Newman Nov. 1946.
10 H. M. Close, A Pathan Company, p. 316.
11 IOR MSS Eur F152/70 Papers of Frank Lugard Brayne. Lectures to demobilising troops and pamphlets published by Punjab ministry, 1945.
12 Ibid.
13 CSAS, B. C. Dutt, interviewed by Arun Gandhi in 1970. There was also a feeling among some of their relatives that the men had been hardened by their experiences. Distances between families and men after long separations could not be easily breached. The novel Aadha Gaon gave voice to this common assumption about returning sepoys, evoking the sense of unknoweable experiences and their alienation from home: ‘Tannu returned as Major Hasan. The softness natural to a Saiyid had disappeared from his face and he looked as stiff and hard as a shoe which had dried in the monsoon rain … Now he carried the pictures of several girls in his case. He had forgotten their names. He just remembered their bodies.’ Rahi Masoom Reeza, The Feuding Families of Village Gangauli: Aadha Gaon, trans. Gillian Wright (Delhi: Penguin, 1994).
14 B. L. Joshi and Leo Rose, Democratic Innovations in Nepal (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966), p. 59.
15 B. L. Raina, Official History of the Indian Armed Forces in the Second World War (1939–45): Medical Services, Administration (New Delhi: Combined Inter-Services Historical Section, 1990 [1953]), p. 495.
16 Ibid.
17 The Times, London, 16 Aug. 1947.
18 National Archives, Kew, KV 2/2510, Security Service files on Menon.
19 Transcript of interview conducted with Rajinder Singh Dhatt by Dr Kanwaljit in Hounslow, c. 2008. Also, author’s communication with Rajinder Singh Dhatt, 2011.
20 Raina, Official History, p. 460. Indian restaurants in fact date back to at least 1809 in the UK, and there had long been a presence of Indian cooks in Britain although their popularity and presence of Indian restaurants spread after 1945. See Liz Buettner, ‘Going for an Indian: South Asian Restaurants and the Limits of Multiculturalisation in Britain’, Journal of Modern History 80: 4 (2008), pp. 865–901.
21 IOR L/WS/1/962. Proposed Memorial to soldiers of the Indian Army, Auchinleck to Secretary of State, 26 June 1949.
22 Ibid.
23 Commonwealth War Graves Commission Archives, A171 part 2, 20 Sept. 1955. Memorials for India and Pakistan.
24 Aruna Asaf Ali, ‘Memories of 1942’ (undated, c. 1960) in Fragments From the Past: Selected Writings and Speeches of Aruna Asaf Ali (New Delhi: Patriot Publishers, 1989), p. 148.
25 Compton Mackenzie, All Over the Place (London: Chatto & Windus, 1948), p. 19.
Glossary
adivasi member of ‘tribal’ or ‘indigenous’ community of India
ahimsa non-violence
anna small unit of Indian money
ayah nanny
azad, azadi free, freedom
basha Assamese hut made of bamboo
bhang cannabis
bhisties someone who carries water
bidi Indian hand-rolled cigarette
bigha a measurement of land
bustee slum or shanty town
charas cannabis
>
charpoy low bed
Chettiar a merchant caste
chowkidar nightwatchman, guard
coolie labourer, manual worker
crore ten million
dal lentils
dalit literally: oppressed, members of the lowest caste, ‘untouchables’
dastur custom
dhobi washerman
dhoti male clothing, wrapped round waist
dukha sadness
durbar ceremonial gathering of princes
ganja cannabis
gharry horse-drawn carriage
godown warehouse
gurdwara Sikh place of worship
haj Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina
hakim local doctor
hartal strike or protest, specifically shutting shops in protest
haveli old house around a courtyard
havildar non-commissioned officer in the Indian Army (equivalent to sergeant)
hilsa fish
izzat honour or pride
jawan literally: youth, used to describe soldiers
jemadar an officer rank in the Indian Army
josh cheering; morale-boosting
kala pani literally: black water; oceans
khadi homespun cloth
khalasi dock-worker or seaman
kisan peasant
kismet fate
kukri Gurkha knife
laddu celebratory sweets
lakh 100,000
langoti loin-cloth
Lascar seaman
lathi(s) long cane(s)
lungi male clothing, worn around waist
maidan park or open field
Marwari a trader or merchant caste; businessmen
maund unit of mass, equivalent to 37.3 kg
mela religious fair or festival
memsahib a white woman, usually associated with the Raj
mohalla quarter of a town; ward
munshis Islamic religious leader
naik non-commissioned officer in the Indian Army (equivalent to corporal)
pagal mad or crazy
pandit Hindu priest
patwari local land registrar
pie small unit of Indian money
pir descendant and trustee of a Sufi shrine
pukka solid, built of fired bricks