India's War

by Srinath Raghavan

  Indeed, in focusing on the training and health of troops, the India Command aimed as much at improving morale as operational efficacy. An intangible yet indispensable element of fighting power, morale was affected by several factors: training and equipment, health and welfare, leadership and command. And with the Indian army in 1943, yet another issue was seen as crucial in shaping morale: susceptibility to the propaganda of the INA.

  The India Command’s concern on this score was accentuated during the Arakan campaign. An Indian platoon was reported to have walked over to the Japanese positions, holding aloft propaganda leaflets dropped on them. Delhi had already been worried by the scale of recruitment for the INA and the strength of Japanese propaganda. Using information from Indian officers who had escaped from Malaya, GHQ India groped its way towards discerning the links between the changing size and composition of the army and enrolment in the INA.43

  Equally concerning was the apparently sophisticated network being used by the Japanese to suborn the loyalties of the Indian soldier. An espionage school had been set up in Penang for training Indian nationals as agents, who would then be inserted into India.44 Products of this school were active in Arakan. Among their Japanese handlers was Maruyama Daisaburo, who had lived in India through the 1930s. In 1937, Maruyama had joined Gandhi’s ashram in Wardha for a couple of years, engaging himself in various pursuits, including the study of English and Hindi with the Mahatma’s private secretary, Mahadev Desai. In 1940, he was expelled from India on suspicion of espionage for the Japanese. On returning to Tokyo, Maruyama had grown close to Rash Behari Bose and thence to the Indian Independence League as well as the INA. His activities north of Akyab were closely shadowed by the Indian intelligence service.45

  The India Command remained oblivious, though, to the importance of the operational context in which the defections to the INA occurred – a point that was underlined again by the incident in Arakan. In consequence, the army leadership felt that the Indian soldier must be inoculated against enemy propaganda. Doctrine had to be fortified by indoctrination.

  London regarded the problem with rather more alarm. In early May 1943, Amery circulated a note to his colleagues drawing their attention to these attempts at subverting the loyalty of the Indian army. The expansion of the army and its increasing political awareness; the sky-rocketing inflation; continuing political uncertainty; ‘excellent propaganda’ by the Japanese exploiting these concerns – all contributed to the problem. Amery was careful to point out that Japanese attempts had so far met with ‘limited success’, but he feared the ‘possible dangers’. In particular, Amery insisted that ‘It would be dangerous to contemplate any further expansion of the Indian Army, and wise to concentrate on keeping establishments up to standard and, so far as possible, weeding out unstable elements and replacing them by more reliable.’46

  Churchill pounced on Amery’s note. The prime minister was displeased both with the morale of the Indian army – including the defections to the INA – and its operational performance in the Arakan. He argued that not only should further expansion of the army be curbed, but its current size should be substantially reduced to improve quality.47 Amery was more responsive to military realities. The chiefs of staff in London also felt that any discussion on trimming the Indian army should take place only after full consideration of the matter. At Churchill’s insistence, the note was taken up by the war cabinet. At a meeting chaired by Attlee, Amery pointed out that the target of expansion had already been scaled down, from seventeen to fifteen infantry divisions and three to two armoured divisions. The war cabinet agreed that the new target of fifteen infantry and two armoured divisions should be completed – but not exceeded. To improve the troops’ morale, the possibility of an increase in pay should also be explored.48

  Wavell went along with this decision; so did Auchinleck. Churchill, however, deemed it inadequate. He wanted to reduce the Indian army by a quarter and use the money saved to hike the salary of the troops.49 Churchill held that the British could stay on in India only if the army were ‘healthy’. And the health of the army depended on the martial classes. Amery wrote to Linlithgow that Churchill ‘has got into one of his fits of panic and talks about a drastic reduction of any army that might shoot us in the back’.50 Unaware of the fact that his beloved martial classes had joined the INA in droves, Churchill insisted that both economy and efficiency demanded a steep reduction in the Indian army. In the event, Auchinleck wrote a long letter highlighting the impossibility of a large reduction in size or of replacing non-martial classes with the martial ones. If anything, a change in the composition of the army at this stage would do more harm – both economically and politically.51

  Nevertheless, the new commander-in-chief was concerned about his troops’ vulnerability to Japanese propaganda. Under Wavell, GHQ India had taken some steps to counter the INA’s influence. Forward Interrogation Centres had been set up in Assam and Bengal for preliminary interrogation and classification of personnel returning from Japanese-occupied territories. Those suspected of being Japanese agents were sent on to a combined civilian and military interrogation centre in Delhi. Within the GHQ, another civilian-military unit – known as GSI(b)(i) – was created to sift intelligence reports and initiate measures against the Japanese intelligence unit overseeing the INA. To head this most secret of units, Wavell had chosen an Indian officer from the most reliable of the Raj’s allies: princely India. Lieutenant Colonel Himmatsinhji hailed from the royal family of Nawanagar in western India. A nephew of the great Ranji and brother of Duleepsinhji, he had played first-class cricket, had fought in the Great War, and had a brief diplomatic career too. In March 1943, Himmatsinhji was also appointed as the GHQ’s liaison officer to visit formations and units in connection with the INA and related matters.52

  Soon after Auchinleck took over as commander-in-chief, Subhas Bose landed in Singapore. The Raj had been closely monitoring Bose’s broadcasts from Germany and realized that his presence in Japanese-occupied territory would give a fillip to the INA’s propaganda and recruitment. So, Auchinleck decided to expand the counter-propaganda efforts within the Indian army. A small group of hand-picked British officers was summoned to the cantonment town of Sabathu near Simla and briefed by the director of military intelligence. The plan was to form counter-propaganda cells within each combat unit, consisting of a few British officers, VCOs and NCOs. These cells would act as a conduit for the flow of information and propaganda against the Japanese and the INA (designated as Japanese-Inspired Fifth Columnists or JIFs) aimed at the ICOs as well as Indian soldiers. The assembled officers would serve as ‘patrol officers’, moving around units and formations, supporting the cells and providing them with materials for their own propaganda.

  Among those chosen was Major John Heard – an Emergency Commissioned Officer with a Royal Engineers regiment in India. A civilian engineer trained at King’s College London, Heard had been living in India since the early 1930s. As an air-conditioning salesman for an American firm, he had travelled extensively across the country. Before signing up as an ECO, Heard had indulged his amateur interest in military matters by joining the Delhi Light Horse – a British-only auxiliary force – and later the Bombay ARP.53

  Heard was initially puzzled at being picked for the counter-propaganda outfit. But his meeting with the commander-in-chief made it clear that GHQ knew its job. Was it true, asked Auchinleck, that he had lived in India for thirteen years and visited a large number of Native States? ‘I had been promoting Air Conditioning’, replied Heard, ‘and Princes were the only people in India who could afford it.’ After a few questions on his experience in India, Auchinleck asked Heard to ‘try this job for a month’ and then decide if he wanted to stay on. Other British officers, too, were uneasy about the assignment. Some felt that their job was soldiering and were ‘damned if they were going to act as moral spies’. Others thought that the enterprise smacked of a communist cell. Eventually, they reconciled themselves to the job on the ass
umption that it might actually benefit the ordinary Indian soldier.54

  The officers were then given extensive briefings by Himmatsinhji and his team about Japanese recruitment tactics and training outfits, the organization and leadership of the IIL and the INA, the mistreatment of prisoners of war and brutality against those who refused to join them, and the resistance of many Indian officers and other ranks. The Indian soldier had to be informed about the ‘traitors’ and warned that he should ‘expect to be the object of severe propaganda directed against him perhaps by a member of his own caste, even his own village’.55 But this would have to be done artfully. To begin with, the counter-propaganda cell in the units would be called the ‘Josh’ – spirit, enthusiasm or pep – group. They would use a host of informal techniques to disseminate propaganda, including casual chats, entertainment programmes and visits to specially designed ‘information rooms’. The content of the propaganda would range from conveniently potted histories of Japanese expansionism and Indian nationalism – Bose being held up as a renegade – to stories about Japanese atrocities and heroism of Indian prisoners.

  The apostles of Josh quickly fanned out to spread the gospel in various formations – especially those on the front lines. Cells sprang up in units; battalions buzzed with talk of ‘Japs’ and ‘JIFs’. Local talent was pressed into service for propaganda decked up as entertainment. Units staged skits with such titles as ‘The Capture of an Indian Village by Japanese Troops’. Around a hundred recruits took to the parade-ground stage with ‘a vivid representation of mass murder of civilians, robbery, violation of women and temples, and other examples of Japanese atrocities’. The finale was the liberation of the village by Indian troops.

  These staples of propaganda were circulated by a weekly Josh newsletter aimed at the leaders of cells. Apart from tales of atrocities, the newsletter also gave information on ostensible Japanese ‘reverses’ and their impending defeat. Another standard theme was the apparently growing camaraderie between Indian and British soldiers: ‘British troops are eating Indian food and liking it’; RAF soldiers have ‘adopted orphans’ in Bengal; and so on. Each edition of the newsletter also carried a specially designed cartoon depicting a Japanese-looking rat – the rodent being deeply disliked in the Indian countryside for damaging crops and food. Josh leaders were told to cut out these cartoons and put them up in the information rooms. Six months into production, the newsletter also carried pieces in Roman Urdu, which could be read out to the troops.56

  India Command supplemented these efforts by producing a thirty-seven-page pamphlet Against Japan. This widely circulated pamphlet detailed Japan’s ‘planned aggression from 1830 to present’. It emphasized the debasing effect of the Japanese religion: Shintoism – ‘not Buddhism’ as believed by the Hindus. And it gave graphic examples of Japanese atrocities in occupied areas.57 From the outset, counter-propaganda was dovetailed with the director of military training’s efforts to cultivate an ‘offensive spirit against the Japs’.58 Training divisions and other formations sought to cultivate a deep hatred of the Japanese among the Indian troops. The object of fighting, they were told, was not to seize ground or capture the enemy, but to kill him like vermin. For instance, a training instruction of the 5th Indian Division stated: ‘The JAP is a fanatic and therefore a menace until he is dead! … It will be our fanatical aim to KILL JAPS. Hunt him and kill him like any other wild beast! He is NOT a superman.’59

  How successful were these efforts at counter-propaganda and indoctrination? By mid-1944, the India Command felt that the Josh groups were ‘generally satisfactory’.60 To be sure, there were no further defections to the INA either in Arakan or elsewhere in the Burma theatre. But this was mainly because of the improved battle performance of the Indian army against the Japanese. Even at the end of the war the Indian soldiers’ attitudes towards the INA would be considerably removed from the ideas peddled by the Josh groups. More difficult to judge is the success of the efforts to instil hatred for the Japanese soldier. The Burma campaign in 1944–45 was marked by considerable levels of brutality. As an Indian officer, Gian Singh, put it in his poem ‘Kohima’:

  No prisoners we took, no mercy we gave

  Their crimes against comrades we never forgave.

  This suggests that indoctrination did work to some extent. Yet the fierceness of the battles also stemmed from an interactive escalation at the tactical level. In particular, Japanese soldiers’ unwillingness to surrender even in the direst of situations left the Indians with little option but to take out every man standing.61

  Alongside the attempts to improve the quality of men and their morale ran a mammoth logistical effort. At the end of September 1943, the British chiefs of staff directed that India be prepared as a base by October 1944 for 20 divisions (Indian, British and African), 154 squadrons of RAF and some naval forces, as well as American and Chinese troops in the India–Burma–China theatre. Towards this end, the India Command organized a massive military and civilian labour force of over 1 million workers. These men and women were employed in constructing various installations required by the India Base and for a range of other activities, such as unloading, stacking and sorting supplies, and cleaning, repairing and maintaining military installations.62

  Labour was recruited through both civilian and military channels. Civilian contractors engaged by the India Command brought in their own workers. The Indian army had its Pioneer and Auxiliary Pioneer companies, which were expanded. In addition, India Command was allowed – from early 1942 – to raise a Civil Pioneer Force.63 The unskilled component of this force was largely raised from the margins of Indian society, especially the depressed classes and the tribal groups. The eponymous Munda Labour Battalion, for instance, was drawn from a single tribe, the Mundas, in central India. In raising this battalion, the authorities relied heavily on the services of the most prominent Munda leader, Jaipal Singh.64 Born in 1903 to a family of Christian converts, Jaipal Singh had been educated in a missionary school in Ranchi before going up to Oxford. A gifted sportsman as well as student, he took a Blue in hockey and captained the Indian hockey team that went on to win Olympic gold in 1928. A year before the war broke out, Jaipal Singh had formed the Adivasi Mahasabha – a political outfit aimed at advancing the interests of the tribes. The demands of the war offered an unprecedented opportunity that he was quick to seize. Jaipal Singh soon emerged as an articulate spokesman of tribal rights. After the war, he would go on to secure special provisions for the tribes in the Constituent Assembly of India.

  The recruitment of the depressed classes was similarly facilitated by their stalwart leader, B. R. Ambedkar. In July 1942, Ambedkar was appointed labour member of the viceroy’s Executive Council. Although his main responsibility was to address the problems of organized labour and ensure its continued support for the war effort,65 Ambedkar sensed an opportunity to promote the interests of the s0-called ‘untouchables’. At his urging, the army raised six regiments from these castes and inducted them in larger numbers to the labour units as well. Ambedkar also petitioned the government to expand affirmative action for these castes. On 29 October 1942, he submitted a memorandum demanding a fixed percentage of employment in government services for them and financial aid for promoting their education. The government accepted these recommendations. In August 1943, the depressed classes were granted an 8.3 per cent reservation of government jobs – the figure was later raised to 12.5 per cent.66 These measures would subsequently be enshrined in the constitution of independent India – a document that would be drafted by a team led by Ambedkar.

  The southern princely states of Travancore, Cochin and Pudukottai also provided labour battalions. These units typically had thirty-two ‘gangs’ of twenty-five men under the command of a British officer. The governor of Assam raised a Civil Porter Corps from his province and the hill town of Darjeeling to service the Fourteenth Army. The India Tea Association raised and supplied labour for use in north-east Assam and in rear installations close to the te
a gardens.67 All in all, upwards of 1.5 million Indians were drawn as labour into the vortex of the war effort.

  The top priority for India Command was the construction of airfields. This had begun soon after the fall of Rangoon in March 1942. At the time, India had just sixteen all-weather airfields – only one of which was in Assam. By October 1942, a programme was underway for the construction of 215 new airfields. Each of these would require an all-weather runway at least 1,600 yards long and 200 yards wide. Constructing a concrete runway of these dimensions called for 4,000 tons of cement and 40,000 tons of crushed stone. Materials were also required for taxiways and parking aprons, rail and road access, workshops and hangars, fuel storage and accommodation. In many places, even basic facilities such as water and electricity were unavailable. The logistics of the programme were further complicated by the fact that the location of the airfields frequently involved a trade-off between operational requirements and availability of rail and road connectivity.68

  Airfield construction was the largest and costliest works programme in the Indian war economy. It was also the most successful. By the end of 1944, the target of 215 was well within sight. The statistics of work completed in the airfields by then was impressive: 310 miles of runways, 960 miles of all-weather taxi tracks, 2,200 miles of roads, 72 million square feet of aprons and hardstandings, 20 million square feet of technical accommodation, 3 million square feet of hangars, almost 4.5 million gallons of fuel storage, and electricity generation of 64,100 kW.69

  Apart from airfields, India Command also began building reserve base depots to hold and supply ordnance, rations, fuel and other stores. Until early 1942 there was only one such base – in Lahore, to support troops deployed on the north-west frontier. In the wake of the Japanese attacks, a second reserve base depot began to be set up in Benares and a reserve ordnance depot at Jamalpur. Both locations were sufficiently removed from air threats while also being linked by rail to the rest of India, including to the Bengal & Assam Railway (B&AR) that served east Bengal and Assam. Although lower in priority to airfields, the construction of the bases proceeded apace. By January 1943, depot accommodation in India increased from a mere 2.5 million square feet to 13 million – with another 11 million square feet under construction. Following the Casablanca Conference, the network of reserve bases was further expanded to support (the eventually shelved) Operation Anakim. Two new reserve bases were built, in Panagarh near Calcutta and Avadi near Madras. The Panagarh base had 570,000 square feet of covered storage, serviced by an 85-mile internal railway. And Avadi had 450,000 square feet of covered storage with internal railway of 107 miles. Both bases were initially designed to hold thirty days’ worth of stocks. This was quickly scaled up to forty-five days and eventually doubled to ninety days’ stocks – a quantity considerably higher than that held in the other theatres. Five smaller bases were also created in other parts of India, including two near the port of Vizag on the eastern seaboard.70