Churchill's Secret War

by Madhusree Mukerjee

  Colonel Inayat Kiani, who led an equally ill-provisioned INA battalion north toward Imphal, sent 300 soldiers across the Indo-Burmese border. A Japanese officer recalled the men “wild with enthusiasm as they walked on Indian soil, holding their rifles aloft and shouting, Jai Hind! Chalo Delhi!” (Hail to India! On to Delhi!—the second chant having been the cry of the sepoys during the 1857 uprising.) But they ran into an ambush, followed by enemy air strikes and more infantry attacks.15

  By this time in the world war’s eastern theater, Japan was desperately trying to hold the line in the Pacific, and Burma had become a backwater left largely to its own devices. The attackers had meager air cover and few tanks, and depended on a tenuous train of horses, mules, oxen, and elephants for such essentials as food. They trusted that once they reached India and acquired what they called “the Churchill supply,” all shortages would vanish.16

  In contrast, the British Empire’s forces in the region were bolstered by Lend Lease tanks and aircraft from the United States—paid for with Indian supplies and services. Integrated SEAC operations under the overall command of Lord Mountbatten allowed American resources to be freely used against the INA. With Churchill’s backing, Mountbatten diverted American Dakotas, planes that were ferrying supplies over the Hump to China, to instead reinforce the garrison in Imphal. “For a fortnight food, water and ammunition were delivered to them, like manna, from above,” Churchill would write. An extraordinary airlift operation brought into the besieged valley the entire 5th Indian Division, which had returned from the Middle East and been retrained for jungle warfare. Gliders dropped 30,000 guerrillas behind enemy lines—“the largest airborne operation in the war,” according to Field Marshal Slim—whose combat was to be supported by tens of thousands of parachute drops a month.17

  In the third week of June 1944, the empire’s forces broke the siege of Imphal. The Japanese retreated, with losses of more than 60,000 men. The INA battalions also fell back, their strength reduced to half, mostly by sickness. The monsoon had arrived, so that when Shah Nawaz Khan arrived at a flooded river and found no boats to cross, he had to leave behind 400 men who were too weak to ford it.18

  It was Indian resources—and, for the most part, Indian troops—that had restored the honor of the British Empire. Most of the native soldiers killed without hesitation the compatriots whose intention it had been to make India a free country.19

  MEANWHILE, THE VICEROY in New Delhi continued his uphill struggle to obtain food for Bengal. By March 1944, the Government of India had procured only a tenth of its target of a million tons of rice. Still, the foodgrains committee in London proposed an exchange: if India would send 25,000 tons of rice per month to Ceylon, it would get an equivalent amount of wheat, beginning some months later. “I really think they are crazy at Whitehall, or else they never trouble to read one’s telegrams,” Wavell vented in his diary.20

  A fresh crisis loomed: the wheat crop was turning out poorly. If soldiers from the Punjab thought their families back home were in trouble, they would desert to return and rescue them. Beset by such worries, Auchinlek and Mountbatten offered to forgo a tenth of the military equipment being shipped to India, or 20,000 tons per month, if the shipping space could be used to bring wheat. “I think the argument is now getting unrealistic once more,” the Prof grumbled, and reiterated his demand for a swap of rice for wheat.21

  At a War Cabinet meeting on March 20, 1944, Field Marshal Brooke urged that 200,000 tons of wheat be sent right away—because not enough equipment could be found to fill the ships allocated to the military. “Winston was obviously very annoyed,” according to Amery, and protested that the armed forces were overstepping their constitutional boundaries. “Brooke stood up very well over this. Winston then asked Leathers for his views, who made out as negative a case as he could.” Amery warned the members of the War Cabinet “of their responsibility if the result is going to be a worse famine than the last one.” After “a few monologues on the subject of the wholly worthless and possibly even dangerous Indian Army,” the prime minister agreed to Brooke’s proposal. He could also send a further 150,000 tons of wheat—but only in exchange for the same amount of rice for Ceylon. “This is better than nothing, but it will make Wavell very angry,” Amery sighed.22

  Tom Wilson of the S branch urged an appeal to the Americans. Even a refusal would be useful, he wrote, because “if another famine should occur it would be a good thing on political grounds to be able to say that we had asked the United States for help and that they had been obliged to turn down our request.” But Leathers advised against asking the Americans—for they might actually agree. Then “they would certainly take anything away from us which they gave to India” in terms of ships.23

  ON APRIL 6, 1944, an emissary from the viceroy pleaded with the foodgrains committee for imports. Grigg, who was present, declared that the food problem had been “largely brought about by Bengali merchants for political purposes.” He insisted that it was the prerogative of His Majesty’s Government, not of the viceroy, to decide whether “the available supplies in India should be applied to supply the Defence Forces or the civil population.” He and Cherwell suggested hanging some wealthy natives, presumably hoarders, in order to deter speculation in grain.24

  It was a “packed” committee, Wavell complained to Amery, “with that old menace the Professor who knows nothing of India (or very much about anything else really useful, I should say); and Leathers, an interested party, intent on holding on to all shipping he can; and Grigg, who is always inclined to be mischievous about India.” As Wavell described it in his diary, the committee had pointed to three options—“(a) to supply the shipping; (b) to ask the Americans for it; (c) to tell the Viceroy to supply the Army’s needs and let the Indian people starve if necessary”—and had left the choice up to the War Cabinet. “I think they would adopt course (c), if they had any real hope that the Viceroy would consent to carry it out,” commented the viceroy.25

  During these negotiations, the weather and bad luck intervened to make the situation more dire: hail wreaked havoc on the wheat ripening in the fields of the Punjab, and an ammunition-laden vessel exploded at the Bombay docks, killing 500 people, injuring 2,000, and destroying ten other ships and 40,000 tons of food. “I submit that the position is too serious to be left where it is,” Amery warned the War Cabinet. This time the Prof conceded an “impasse.” He eliminated what the foodgrains committee had identified as the first option—taking the required shipping out of the British import program. That left two possibilities, neither appealing. One was to ask the Americans, a choice Cherwell was not alone in resisting: “Leathers is strongly against this because he thinks any concession they might make would be taken out of us.” Alternatively, should Wavell “be ordered to feed the Army even at the risk of civilian shortage?” he asked Churchill. “Amery seemed to suggest that the Viceroy might react violently to this even to the extent of resignation.”26

  The viceroy had fenced the king’s first minister into a corner. Wavell’s resignation would have wrought enormous damage to Churchill’s standing, especially among his own armed forces: the tongue-tied warrior was a surprisingly popular man. Wavell may have known it would not come to that, having guessed that the overall shipping situation was less desperate than the War Cabinet was wont to claim. “I have never believed that the tonnage required to enable me to deal properly with our food problem would make any real difference to operations in the West or here,” he explained to Amery. “A dozen ships would do the trick.” Without waiting for Churchill’s consent, he informed Auchinlek and Mountbatten that they could get only a limited quantity of grain from India for their troops, and that they would have to procure the rest themselves.27

  At a subsequent meeting that was attended by Sir Firoz Khan Noon, recently appointed India’s representative to the War Cabinet, Churchill “had great difficulty in holding himself in and came very near to suggesting that we really could not let Indian starvation or multiplying t
oo fast interfere with operations” required to fight the war, Amery wrote in his diary. Still, the prime minister decided to appeal to the president for grain. A committee drafted a telegram explaining the food problem and its likely repercussions on SEAC operations, and stated that 350,000 tons of wheat were already being shipped to India. (This amount was a pleasant surprise for Wavell—until he realized that the figure included the consignments ordered in the last months of 1943.) Even more grain was needed, the telegram continued: “I am impelled to ask you to consider a special allocation of ships to carry wheat to India from Australia without reducing assistance you are now providing for us, who are at a positive minimum if war efficiency is to be maintained.”28

  In early June, the president sent a refusal: his military advisers had declined to divert American ships from current military operations. D-Day was at hand. On the 6th of that month, the Allied invasion of France began with the long-anticipated and bloody invasion of the beaches of Normandy.29

  At All Souls, his former college at Oxford, Amery dined with Sir Arthur Salter, who had served as the United Kingdom’s shipping representative in Washington. “Salter thinks it is all nonsense to say that we cannot find some ships for India,” Amery recorded. The United Kingdom could always feed India out of its own quota of ships, Salter said, and if necessary “insist on the Americans giving us more to feed this country.” Salter also opined that telegrams were futile. Presumably a face-to-face request was needed before the president, who was ailing, would interfere with the military’s programs.30

  The wheat situation in India deteriorated further, such that by late June the colony faced an overall shortage of 2 million tons. The War Cabinet continued to insist that the viceroy muddle through by sacrificing military imports, reducing defense requirements of food, and risking “reduced provision for the civil population with consequent possible ill effects on military performance.” A second famine in India was preferable to any diminution of the British Empire’s stockpile.31

  “Without India’s help the Allies would not now be in a position to invade the Continent of Europe or to threaten Japan,” the viceroy wrote to the prime minister. “It would be a poor reward to condemn many hundreds of thousands of Indians to starvation.” Moreover, a second famine would destroy all remnant hopes of retaining India as a dominion. The Government of India informed the secretary of state for India that, like it or not, it would announce that 400,000 tons of wheat were being shipped to the colony by September 1944. This time the War Cabinet agreed to send 200,000 tons, at the expense of military shipments.32

  A POLITICAL CRISIS now added to the viceroy’s troubles—and once again it arose from Gandhi’s extraordinary ability to embody his people’s torment. On February 22, 1944, his wife had died in his arms. Her death affected Gandhi profoundly, and his health gave way. “Such things we went through,” one of his followers, Mira Slade, wrote to a friend. “Things that are branded on one’s memory with burning fire.” (Among those incarcerated with Gandhi was the daughter of a British admiral, formerly known as Miriam Slade.) Sometime that spring, the old man contracted malaria.33

  Wavell had been commander-in-chief during the Quit India uprising; he regarded Gandhi as a “very shrewd and rather malignant politician” who had hampered him in defending India from Axis attack. Still, when early on May 4, 1944, the viceroy was woken with the news that the prisoner was at grave risk of a coronary or cerebral thrombosis, Wavell ordered his release. The acknowledged soul of the Indian nation had best not die in custody. “It is quite a different position to that of illness induced by fasting,” for which Gandhi himself could be held responsible, Amery advised Churchill. Given the odds against Gandhi’s survival, the War Cabinet consented to his release. Under no circumstances should the viceroy negotiate with him, the prime minister instructed: “He is a thoroughly evil force, hostile to us in every fiber, largely in the hands of native vested interests.”34

  The seventy-four-year-old Gandhi emerged from custody, broken-hearted and sick, to an India stunned by starvation, choked with inarticulate rage, and bereft of hope—except for what little could be gleaned from the fact that their leader himself was still alive, and might yet show the way. After spending a month in silence and rest, Gandhi wrote to Wavell, asking to meet with him and to consult with Congress leaders such as Nehru, who remained in jail. Gandhi was facing a serious problem: the ascendancy of the Muslim League, and the implications for Indian unity. “Jinnah has seized the opportunity of the Congress eclipse to strengthen the position of the League, with great success,” Wavell observed.35

  An independent politician, unaffiliated with the Muslim League, chose this juncture to publish a bombshell: a proposal for the division of India to which Gandhi had agreed a year earlier, while recovering from his fast. It envisaged a Pakistan carved out of Muslim-majority areas of western and eastern India, including Bengal, provided that the people of these regions conveyed by plebiscite their wish to secede. Gandhi had espoused the principle of self-determination his entire life, and his adherence to it even in this case should not have surprised anyone. But his concession to the very idea of Pakistan shocked supporters and provoked a blast of outrage from Hindu chauvinists who feared the partition of their homeland.

  Other colonies were also trying to figure out what the postwar order held for them—adding to the prime minister’s distress. When the necessity of granting self-government to Ceylon came up, “Winston muttered and growled and mumbled for a quarter of an hour or more in order to ventilate his emotions of disgust at anything that could extend self-government to brown people, but in the end subsided and gave way.” All such matters, Amery observed, raised in Churchill “a wholly uncontrollable complex.”36

  In July 1944, “Winston sent me a peevish telegram to ask why Gandhi hadn’t died yet!” Wavell recorded in his diary. “He has never answered my telegram about food.” Gandhi also wrote to the viceroy, offering to suspend the Quit India movement and to collaborate with the war effort in exchange for an immediate declaration of independence. Military operations could continue, he wrote, but “without involving any financial burden on India.” The viceroy drafted a polite reply turning Gandhi down, but offering an olive branch: if Hindus, Muslims, and the main Indian minorities agreed on a constitution, they could form a transitional government, under the tutelage of the existing one, until the war was over. In the proposed missive, Wavell also gave his blessings to private discussions scheduled between Gandhi and Jinnah.37

  When Wavell’s draft came before the War Cabinet, “the real storm broke,” wrote Amery. The viceroy should not be interacting with “a traitor who ought to be put back in prison,” raged the prime minister. “As for Wavell he ought never to have been appointed.” The tirade lasted for a full hour: Churchill was prepared “to resign rather than betray our ancient trust, etc.” A committee had rewritten Wavell’s response so that it bristled with hostile legalese, but the War Cabinet sent it back for further revision.38

  Amery’s diary entry for August 4, 1944, is worth quoting at length. At the War Cabinet meeting that day, Churchill inserted into the new draft a statement of British responsibilities toward Untouchables in a land ruled by Caste Hindus. Amery pointed out that this was irrelevant to the issues that Gandhi had raised. “However, this let loose Winston in a state of great exultation describing how after the war he was going to go back on all the shameful story of the last twenty years of surrender, how once we had won the war there was no obligation to honour promises made at a time of difficulty, and not taken up by the Indians, and carry out a great regeneration of India based on extinguishing landlords and oppressive industrialists and uplift the peasant and untouchable, probably by collectivisation on Russian lines. It might be necessary to get rid of wretched sentimentalists like Wavell and most of the present English officials in India, who were more Indian than the Indians, and send out new men. What was all my professed patriotism worth if I did not stand up for my own countrymen against Indian money
-lenders? Naturally I lost patience and couldn’t help telling him that I didn’t see much difference between his outlook and Hitler’s which annoyed him no little. I am by no means sure whether on this subject of India he is really quite sane.”

  A Churchillian explosion followed Amery’s outburst, after which a report on the sterling debt came up for discussion. The report advised that revising the financial agreement with India would be difficult, in part because of the “deprivation and starvation” that the colony had undergone—and it set the prime minister off again. “A long tirade on the worthlessness of the Indian Army was too much for me and I went for him hammer and tongs pointing out what India had done ever since it had saved the Middle East,” wrote Amery. Then Churchill segued into “a long description of how he was going to present his counterclaim to India for all we have done for her defence. . . . To try and put any of the economic side of the case into his head was hopeless, but I do think I finally got him to realise the futility of raising the issue with India now when we must have what India can supply.”39

  THE CONTRETEMPS OCCURRED a year to the day since the War Cabinet had made its first, and most crucial, decision to deny meaningful relief to Bengal. It was also a year to the day since the committee on Indian inflation had been set up—the same body whose report was on the table. Perhaps the anniversary was on Amery’s mind, particularly if he was apprehending another famine. Amery made the Hitler remark in the heat of argument, but clearly he stood by it. For he left much out of his diaries—notably, any hint of his Jewish heritage—and the retention of this explosive comment can be no accident. Given that Chaim Weizmann, the future premier of Israel, had recently told Amery about “the monstrous German blackmailing offer to release a million Jews in return for ten thousand lorries and other equipment, failing which bargain they proposed to exterminate them,” he understood as well as anyone could in those times the implications of his remark.40