Within days, it became apparent that the Japanese did not intended to hold the Shwebo Plain but to pull back and fight the main battle behind the Irrawaddy River. The Irrawaddy was a formidable natural obstacle for the Fourteenth Army. An opposed river crossing was a costly operation at the best of times. With its logistical tail stretching all the way back to Dimapur, the Fourteenth Army could attempt a crossing only at its own peril. Forced by the Japanese to improvise, Slim came up with a striking and bold plan.
Operation Extended Capital had two principal components. In the first, the 33rd Corps would capture the Shwebo–Monywa area and then proceed to create a series of bridgeheads on the Irrawaddy near Mandalay. The idea was to get the Japanese to commit their reserves to repulse the attack by 33rd Corps. Second, the 4th Corps would move from the left front of the Fourteenth Army, behind the 33rd Corps, and head south towards the Kabaw and Myittha valleys, and eventually appear at Pakokku. Crossing the Irrawaddy, the 4th Corps would then attack Meiktila – the principal administrative, logistics and communications hub for the Japanese in central Burma. Once Meiktila was taken, the 33rd Corps would smash south from Mandalay and destroy the Japanese forces.44
Extended Capital was implemented like clockwork. The Fourteenth Army’s superiority in material and morale was evident throughout. The fact that the troops could switch so effectively from jungle warfare to fighting on the plains was testimony to their high standard of training and operational readiness. Logistical support for the troops operated at a high pitch of professionalism. The medical support available to the advancing forces would have been unimaginable even eighteen months earlier. Take the mobile neuro-surgical units that followed the fighting formations. Captain J. H. Hovell was with one such unit attached to a brigade – with Gurkha, Sikh and British battalions – that was moving towards the Irrawaddy.
We marched every day for thirteen days, we were supplied throughout by air drops & the food throughout was excellent. We were with an A.D.S. [Advanced Dressing Station] & altogether had over a hundred mules to carry our equipment and patients, for we had to bring our patients with us on account of roving Japs. In fact we moved with the brigade. We halted and set up theatre three times, twice under a Burmese Basha and once in Nulla … The unit has moved further forward so we now get our heads within a few hours of injury & we are working very hard too. All night sessions sometimes … Our theatre is a large tent lit by our own power plant … Our results so far have been good.45
The malaria discipline of the Fourteenth Army was excellent too. When the novelist and RAF officer H. E. Bates flew into Burma, his new room-mate struck up a conversation:
‘I hope you brought your mepacrine, old boy? Terribly important. You need the proper dosage every day. I never miss.’
‘Mepacrine? What’s it for?’
‘Good grief, old boy, you don’t know? Malaria, of course. You must take it. Absolutely essential.’46
On 22 January 1945, the 20th Indian Division, supported by an RAF group, took the town of Monywa and began moving towards the Irrawaddy. Further north, the 2nd British Division was engaging an important Japanese bridgehead on the river. The 19th Division was near the Irrawaddy some 60 miles north of Mandalay. The Japanese, for their part, were preparing to ‘crush the enemy driving towards the Irrawaddy River’.47 The attacks on the Japanese positions on the west bank of the river saw the latter at their tenacious best. An officer serving with the 11th Sikhs recalled the tempo of the battles:
First came four squadrons of [Allied] Mitchell bombers, uprooting whole trees with their 1000lb bombs. Three squadrons of Thunderbolt and one of Hurricanes followed, sending up showers of earth and dust lit by the lightning flashes of explosions – all bang on target … even they had failed to dislodge the deepest bunkered Japs, who had to be winkled out almost one by one in a final infantry assault.48
Although the 33rd Corps managed to surprise the Japanese by its choice of some landing points, the latter hit back at the bridgeheads with everything they had. By a seemingly unending sequence of counter-attacks, the Japanese managed to prevent the corps from breaking out of its bridgeheads until the end of February 1945 – but only at an enormous price.
Meanwhile, the 4th Corps was conducting its looping advance towards the Irrawaddy. In order to fully exploit the opportunities offered by the terrain of central Burma, the 4th Corps’ main striking formation, the 17th Indian Division, was hastily reorganized and re-equipped with completely mechanical transport. This was yet another indication of the growing confidence and flexibility of the Fourteenth Army. The drive towards Meiktila succeeded beyond the expectations of anyone in the chain of command. By 3 March, the town had fallen with heavy losses for the Japanese. When the latter regrouped for a ferocious counter-attack on the town, Slim finally had the chance to bring to bear his superiority in armour and air power. When the Japanese eventually pulled out of the Meiktila area, their fighting power was seriously sapped. Around the same time, three Japanese divisions fell back from Mandalay after a desperate but failed bid to block the advance of the 33rd Corps.
The race for Rangoon began immediately. As Slim reorganized his forces for the 300-mile advance to Rangoon, he realized that ‘this dash to Rangoon by a mechanized force, confined to one road, thrusting against time through superior numbers, was a most hazardous and possibly rather un-British operation … Whatever the risks, we were winning. We had kicked over the ant-hill; the ants were running about in confusion. Now was the time to stamp on them.’49 The Fourteenth Army met with some serious resistance at the mouth of the Sittang Valley, yet the Japanese were unable to curb its momentum. As the 17th Division stood ready to take the town of Pegu just north of Rangoon, weather came to the assistance of the defenders.
The early onset of the monsoon slowed the advance of the Allied formations. But it was only a short reprieve for the Japanese. For one thing, the Allied high command decided to launch Operation Dracula – the amphibious assault towards Rangoon. For another, the Japanese decided to use the rain-induced lull in fighting to reorganize their defences in southern Burma. On 3 May 1945, the 26th Indian Division entered Rangoon.
The advancing Indian formations also rolled up the INA units all the way to Rangoon. In early March, Subhas Bose was dismayed to learn that five officers of the INA’s 2nd Division had deserted to the Fourteenth Army. In mid-April, an INA battalion was decimated a few miles south of Taungdwingyi. By the end of the month, Bose read the writing on the wall: the battle for Burma was almost at an end. He decided to pull out his best units to Thailand and Malaya, leaving behind a small garrison force to maintain order in Rangoon. It was these units that handed control of the city to the 26th Indian Division. Having organized a dignified retreat Bose relocated to Malaya. He was in Penang on the night of 11 August when he learnt of the Japanese decision to surrender. A week later a Japanese plane carrying Bose crashed in Formosa.50
Rangoon resounded with roars and cheers on 14 August 1945. The British and Indian soldiers went
wild with joy on hearing the news of the unconditional surrender of the Japanese. Supported by the same black-bereted Indian tankmen who fought alongside them on the drive to Rangoon, Indian and British troops … went round the streets of the city shouting and waving with joy … Army clerks, cooks, sweepers and barbers – all those who never are in the limelight and who rarely get honours and awards – were equally enthusiastic.
Subedar Major Ganpat Singh captured the emotions of the Indian soldiers: ‘we rejoice at news because our people at home will get more of the necessities of life. It would also mean that we could return to our homes and rest which we need badly.’ Subedar Latif Khan echoed this view: ‘it will mean better days at home’.51
The more perceptive British officers realized that much had changed on the battlefields of Burma. As Colonel John Masters, now a staff officer in the 19th Indian Division, observed:
As the tanks burst away down the road to Rangoon … [they] took possession of the empire we
had built … Twenty races, a dozen religions, a score of languages passed in those trucks and tanks. When my great-great-grandfather first went to India there had been as many nations: now there was one – India … It was all summed up in the voice of an Indian colonel of artillery. The Indian Army had not been allowed to possess any field artillery from the time of the Mutiny until just before the Second World War. Now the Indian, bending close to an English colonel over the map, straightened and said with a smile, ‘O.K., George. Thanks. I’ve got it. We’ll take over all tasks at 1800. What about a beer?’52
18
Post-war
India’s war may have begun without any serious planning. By the time it ended, however, there was a host of plans for post-war India. Economists and businessmen, intellectuals and bureaucrats, politicians and ideologues – all were taken up with the idea of planning. And the Indian soldier too. Even before the war had ended, men in uniform were looking ahead to promises of peace. A Marathi storeman in the Middle East wrote home asking who, if anyone, was planning in India. ‘Through daily newspapers I came to know that every country is thinking and planning for the soldiers’ future.’ He had heard of the Beveridge Report, but
for our Indian soldiers’ future, what is going on and what will be done or who is planning? … if there is anything of such kind in India, please let me know, I think something might be done and something might be going on there, if not something will be done, but who is going to say so?1
Planning for post-war reconstruction was undertaken in several quarters. The blueprints varied considerably in approach and content, but they all bore the watermark of war-time experiences. The best known of these was the ‘Bombay Plan’ – the first part of which was published in 1944. The plan was the product of the collective deliberations of a group of leading Indian businessmen: Purshottamdas Thakurdas, J. R. D. Tata, G. D. Birla, Lala Shri Ram and Kasturbhai Lalbhai. The details of the plan owed much to three senior executives of the Tata group: John Mathai, Ardeshir Dalal and Ardeshir Shroff, who in turn were assisted by a socialist intellectual, Minoo Masani.
The impetus for the plan came from two wartime developments. First, despite the friction between business and the Indian government, the war had effectively led to a form of import-substituting industrialization. The Indian capitalists not only looked forward to continued support from the government, but felt that they could do a lot better under a national government that would treat them as partners in the development of the country.2 Second, they were concerned about the burgeoning sterling balances accumulated by India in London – IOUs given by the British government to India in exchange for wartime supplies. By the end of the war, India’s sterling balances stood at an eye-watering £1.3 billion. Indian businessmen feared that Britain might unilaterally write these off or reduce its obligations by depreciating sterling. Whatever remained might be used by the government and by British businesses in India to place orders on firms in Britain. In short, India and Indian business would gain nothing out of the enormous economic sacrifices made during the war. By proposing a plan, the industrialists hoped both to position themselves vis-à-vis a post-war government and to forestall any adverse attempt at drawing down the sterling balances.
The Bombay Plan advanced a fifteen-year scheme for economic development that would unfold over three stages. The objective of the plan was to raise the per capita income of India to such a level that ‘after meeting minimum requirements, every individual will be left with enough resources for enjoyment of life’. More specifically, per capita income would be doubled in fifteen years from $22 to $45. This in turn would require a tripling of the national income over the same period. The minimum standard of living was defined as a daily diet of 2,800 calories, 30 yards of cloth for clothing and 20–40 square feet of shelter for every person. These objectives would be attained by increasing industrial output by 500 per cent, services by 200 per cent and agriculture by 130 per cent. In the light of wartime experience, it is not surprising that the Bombay Plan laid maximum emphasis on the development of capital goods industry and infrastructure. The total capital outlay envisaged by the plan was to the tune of $27.6 billion. The single largest source of this would be the sterling balances, worth $3 billion.3
The plan drew criticism from all corners. The liberal economist B. R. Shenoy questioned the financial assumptions of the plan and warned of the dangers of inflation latent within it. The Marxist Left denounced it as a plan for Indian fascism. The British establishment was mostly disdainful of the pretensions of the Indian industrialists. For all the scorn heaped upon it, however, the Bombay Plan would be influential in the early years of independent India. At the time, though, it mainly goaded others to come out with their own plans.
The unorthodox Marxist M. N. Roy published a ‘People’s Plan’ that aimed to satisfy the pressing basic needs of the Indian people within ten years. The plan emphasized agricultural reform, arguing that the people’s needs could not be met unless agriculture became a paying proposition in India. Nationalization of land and writing down of agricultural debts were the first steps to be taken. Roy’s also differed from the Bombay Plan in his emphasis on the production of consumer goods – as opposed to capital goods. ‘It is indeed a little pathetic, and may even prove to be considerably harmful,’ he claimed, ‘to start with half-filled bellies and half-clad bodies thinking in terms of automobiles and aeroplanes.’ Better to focus on textiles and leather, sugar and paper, drugs and chemicals, tobacco and furniture. While private enterprise would not be entirely banned, it would have to work under the close stewardship of the state.4
The economist and follower of Gandhi S. N. Agarwal published The Gandhian Plan for Economic Development of India towards the end of 1944. The aims of the plan in raising living standards were broadly in line with the Bombay and People’s plans. But Agarwal rejected these plans as imitative of Western thought. India needed an indigenous plan firmly rooted in its realities. In line with Gandhi’s own thinking, Agarwal underlined the need to revive village community life. ‘The attainment of increased productivity with the help of efficient and labour-saving machines is not and should not be our goal.’ The emphasis was as much on moral economy as the real economy. All land would be nationalized and a system of village tenure introduced. Large industries would be gradually brought under government control, and ‘decentralized to the maximum possible extent’.5
Not to be outdone, the Raj produced its own plan documents. In fact, the government had appointed a Reconstruction Committee as far back as 1941 – even as William Beveridge was getting down to work in Britain. The committee, however, was somnolent throughout the years of Linlithgow’s viceroyalty. Part of the problem was the absence of statistical data for serious planning. More importantly, Linlithgow did not deem the exercise of much significance. Things began to change after Wavell took over in October 1943. Among his foremost concerns was to improve ties between the government and business. Wavell had no qualms in reaching out to Indian industrialists. In fact, it was Birla who proposed to him the idea of appointing a special member for reconstruction. Four months after the publication of the Bombay Plan, Wavell created a new Planning and Development Department and appointed Ardeshir Dalal as planning member of his Executive Council. A few months later the viceroy asked the authors of the Bombay Plan, along with other industrialists, to visit Britain and the United States to study their plans for post-war industrialization.6 Unsurprisingly, the documents put out by the planning department echoed many of the ideas voiced by Indian industrialists.7
In the closing stages of the war, India also participated in planning for the post-war international order. India’s involvement in these initiatives at once underlined its wartime contribution and its perceived post-war importance. The country was not a party to the preliminary discussions on the successor to the League of Nations – especially those at Dumbarton Oaks in late 1944 between the United States, Britain, the Soviet Union and China.8 Yet it was among the Allied countries i
nvited to the conference at San Francisco that convened from April to June 1945. As with its pre-war membership of the League of Nations, India’s presence at the founding of the United Nations was anomalous: it was the only colonial entity in a group of sovereign states that were shaping the international order.
The government of India nominated a trio of knighted non-nationalists – led by Sir Ramaswamy Mudaliar, supply member of the Executive Council – to represent India at San Francisco. The Congress was predictably outraged. Gandhi, having been released from prison some months previously, led the charge. Speaking to the press prior to the conference, Gandhi harked back to the view that he had taken when Churchill had denied the Atlantic Charter to India. Thus he insisted that the ‘Exploitation and domination of one nation over another can have no place in a world striving to put an end to all wars.’ Complete independence for India was an essential first step towards peace. This would demonstrate to all colonized peoples that their ‘freedom is very near and that in no case will they henceforth be exploited’. Gandhi demanded that ‘the camouflage of Indian representation through Indians nominated by British imperialism should be dropped. Such representation will be worse than no representation. Either India at San Francisco is represented by an elected representative or represented not at all.’9
The government went ahead regardless. The Indian delegation was active in the discussions on the various articles of the United Nations Charter, especially those dealing with the composition of the Security Council and the voting procedures used by it. Mudaliar questioned the wisdom of handing the permanent members a veto, but agreed that an imperfect Security Council was better than none at all. The delegation also sought to advance India’s claims for non-permanent membership of the Security Council. They argued that countries should be nominated – not elected – by the General Assembly based on a set of criteria, including size of population and armed forces, and industrial and economic capabilities. The Indians also suggested that in addition to six non-permanent members, the Security Council should have six observers that would partake of its deliberations but not vote. Neither of these suggestions was taken up, however. Be that as it may, India was one of the founding signatories to the United Nations Charter.
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