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The independence movement led by Mahatma Ghandi and the Congress Party gained considerable strength during the 1920s and 30s. The British were having increasing difficulties governing India. The Congress Party while refusing to support the War efort, decided not to actively oppose it or to take advantage of British defeats in the early stages of the War. Some Indian POWs taken by the Japanese were recruited by anti-British nationalists and formed the Free Indian Army. Under Subhashchandra Bose, they fought alongside the Japanese in Burma. Overall, India played an important part in the Allied war effort. Indian units fought with other British Empire forces in both the Pacific and European theaters. About 2.5 million Indians (including modern Pakistan) were mobilized. Some Indian units played important roles in the early stages of the War before Britain had fully mobilized and American joined the War. The Fifth Indian Division ngaged the Italians in the Sudan ans subsequently the Germans in the western Desert. The Indians played a major role in quelling a pro-NAZI revolt in Iraq. A successful revolt would have cut the British off from the Iraqi oil fields whigh would have undermined the naval and land defenses of Egypt and the Suez Canal. the Division along with eight other Indian Divisions fought in Burma. India provided important bases for the reconquest of Burma and delivering supplied to the Chinese. India also was a source of food and other supplies for British and Commonwealth forces as well as the British homefront. After the Japanese surrender, the Indian forces then disarmed the Japanese forces in Malayia and Java.
When Britain declared war on Germany in World War I, the entire British Empire automatically was at war with Germany (1914). There was lottle discussiion ofthis at the time. As a result, of the terrible casualties, cvonsiderable discussion occurred in the Dominions safter the War. After Ger,any invaded Poland, Britain decclared war once again (September 3, 1939). The Dominions now had had the right to decide in their respecive legislatures whether to enter the conflict. Ireland in the process of becoming independent decided to declsare neutrality. The Dominions joined Britain. Canada waited a few days, perhsaps to show their independence. Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa all joined the fight. India was mnot a dominion, but rather a colony., It thus had no choice and as a result, joined Briain in the fight with Germany snd subsequently Italy.
The independence movement led by Mohandas K. Gandhi and Jawarhal Nehru through the Congress Party gained considerable strength during the 1920s and 30s. The British were having increasing difficulties governing India.
Congress controlled the provincial legislatures. The Congress Party while refusing to support the War efort, decided not to actively oppose it or to take advantage of British defeats in the early stages of the War.
So as not to give the impression that they supported the War, Congress instructed their deputies to boycott the legislatures.
India also was a source of food and other supplies for British and Commonwealth forces as well as the British homefront.
The Italian declaration of war and the fall of France (June 1940) changed the ballance of power in the Mediterranean and left the Brtish terribly exposed. The British thankfully had Indiuan Army units thry could callk upon. Indian units helped blunt the Italian invasion of Egypt (September 1940). The Fifth Indian Division engaged the Italians in the Sudan and subsequently the Germans in the Western Desert. The Indians played a major role in quelling a pro-NAZI revolt in Iraq. A successful revolt would have cut the British off from the Iraqi oil fields which would have undermined the naval and land defenses of Egypt and the Suez Canal. The Indians thus played a critical role at a time when British units were not yet available and the British were hard pressed to even defend the British Isles themselves. Without the Indians at this critical stage, the pro-NAZI Iraqi revolt would probably have suceeded and the Italians may well have broken through to Suez. The cosequences would have been disasterous.
The seemingly impregnable British bastion in Asia was Singapore. Singapore was the keystone of Britain's military position in the Pacific. Japan took the large well supplied British garison at Singapore with surprising ease. British General Percival has been sharplycriticized. The defense of Singaport was bady planned. The Japanese offensive down the Malay Peninsula briliantly executed. The key factors were that the Japanese were able to achieve aerial and naval mastery that was never anticipated in defense plans. Pearl Harbor left the American fleet unable to respond. Two of Britain's most powerful battleships Prince of Wales anf Repulse were sent without air cover and sunk by Japanese bombers. [Gilbert] Churchill was outraged and Percival's surender. It was Percival's seming willingness to so quickly surrender that enraged Churchill. The British Division 8th Division had been rushed to Singapore after it was already too late. The fall of Singapore was a military catastrophy of emense proportions. Japanese forced within 6 months moved through Burma to the border of India in the West and New Guinea in the South. Australian trrops had garisoned Singapore, after previosly sending forces to North Africa, left the country virtually undefended. The Japanese conquest of Malay also presented the Allies with a critical problem. The world's rubber production was centered on the Malay Peninsula. And rubber was a vital war material. Singapore's fall even had consequences after the War. The prestige of the British Empire has been irreperably damaged. Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita mastermined a brilliant campaign to attack Singapore by moving south through Malaya, a contigency the British had not anticipated. Percival's surrender was the greatest mass surrender in British military history. [Bayly and Harper] Large numbers of Indian troops as part of the British garison were taken as POWs.
The Japanese forced Thsailand to join the Axis. This allowed them to launch an attack from Indichina into Burma. The British in Burma were unprepared and poorly equipped. They and Chinese troops were unable to stop the Japanese. The small American Flying Tiger force offered some suppport, but were unavle to blunt the much larger Japanese air forces. They thus had to execute a very difficult retreat to keepo from being capotured by the Japanese. India thus went from colonial combatant in distant war to a potential battlefield when Japanese armies reached the borders of easter India (modern Bangladesh). .
The British attempted to convince Congress to support the war effort. Gandhi and Nehru demanded independence in exchange for Indian participation. Churchill refused. India thus disolved into political upheaval, including rioting and strikes. The Governmrent srrested the major Congress leaders and banned the Party (August 1942).
Nazi propaganda tried to portray Gandhi as an Axis. Gandhi made not effort to reach Germany or made any effort to support Britain's enemies.
Severe food shortages developed after te fall of Burma (1942). About 3 million Indians died in the Bengal famine (1943-44). [Bayly and Haeper] Estimates of the victims vary, but even lower estimates are as high as 1.5 million. e British as part of their justification for colonisl rule claimed that they had eliminated the plague of famine in India. The war boom in Calcutta drove up food prices (1942). The poor increasingly found it difficult to buy even their minimal requirements. Then the harvests failed. Local officials appealed to colonial administrators in London for aid. Some food was sent, but the British Government was primsarily focvused on the war in Europe. The failure of the Raj to respond futher strengthened the call for independence. The Bengal Famine was the largest single disaster within the British Empire during World War II.
The British, Indian, Chinese, and a small American contingent finally mansaged to stop the Japanese. At Kohima-Imphal, the British and Indian units waged a series of fierce battles with the Japanese and Indian Nationalists. The defeat ofthe Japanese carrier foirce at Midway (June 1942) and subsequentnaval engagements shifted the naval balance. This meant that the Japanese army advancing on India could not be supplied by sea. Burma's trandportation infrastructure was primitive. Thus suppying troops on the Indian border was a serious challernge. This was why the Japanese built a rail line through Burma using Allied POEs and locals who were forced to work under horrendous conditions. The Allies repeeled a new Japanese offensive (August 1944).
The inability to supply their troops was a major factor in the Allied victory. In contrast. with American Lend Lease aupport, major infrastructure pojects were built to support both the Indian Army and the Allied Armies.
Gandhi's major political rival was Chandra Bose who advocated a more violent opposdition to the British. He escsaped India and reasched Berlin. He made propaganda broadcasts. He married a German woman while in Berlin, wjhich the German press ignored. He managed to create an "Indian Legion" with about 4,500 Indian soldiers who had been fighting for the British and were in POW Camps in Germany. They were attached to the Wehrmacht and later to the Waffen SS. After the British and Soviets stopped the Germans, he has no way of affecting Indian developments. Japan's entry in the War changed this. After taking Sinaportand driving the British out of Burma, the Japanese were on the border of India. And he Japanese had large numbers of Indian POWs that had been serving weith the British. Bose was trandprted east to Tokyo and with Japsanese assistance raised the Indian National Army from exiles and POWs captured in Singapore. Many POWs after the War claimed that they were coerced into joining. Bose raised 7,000 and joined the Japanese when they mountred a renewed invasion of India (March 1944). Bose and the Japanese assumed that there was widespread opposition to the British and that the Indian people would treat them as liberators. This did not occur. After the British with Indian and Chinese units invaded Burma, Bose attempted to escspe to Japan. He was killed when his plane crashed. Bose is a figure that is undergoing reevaluation in India. With the rise of the BJP, some Indians now seem to want a founding father wih a more martial ethic than Gandi. Bose's escape from under the British nose in India and his training by the Germans makes for an interesting story. What is difficult to understand about Bose is his ability and that of his modern admirers to dismiss NAZI racism or their inability to understand what a Japanese-controlled India would have meant for the Indian people. His dislike of The British seems to have blined him to what an Axis victory would have meant for India. Neither Germany or Japan were commiited to Asian independence. And both cmmitted terrible rerisals against civilians.
The Japanese in only a few stunning months after Pearl Harbor carved out a huge empire in the Pacufic and Southeast Asia. And it looked for a time that it might not only be a permanent situation, but perhaps be expanded to include Australia and India. In fact, the Japanest conquests lasted only 2-3 years. While the Japanese East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere lasted only a few years, the impact for Asia was nothing short of monentous. The Japanese conquests has a stunning impct on Asian nationalism. Asia at the time of World War II was largely colonized or strongly influenced by European countries (Britain, France, the etherlands, and Portugal). Nationalist movements within the European empires were, except for India, weak anf poorly organized. There were no Europeam plans to grant independence. Only in the Phillipines was the United States moving toward independence. Britain was moving Ceylon and India toward domestic self rule, but not indepencence. Thus the Japanese conquests were seen in Asia in a very different light than the NAZI conquests in Europe. It also explains why resistance movements (except in Indochina and the Philippines) were weak and of little impact on the War. And the Japanese were able to orgnize local military formations (Burma, India, and Indonesia) to fight the Allies. The outcome was a notable impetus to nationalist movements throughout Asia. The realtively easy Japabese defeat of the colonial powers undoubtedly inspired local nationalists. The Japabnese establish compliant puppet states which however powerless and subservient created a precendent for independence. And within a few years after the War, the European colonial powers had granted independence to their former colonies.
The Pacific War was largely a consequence of the Japanese invasion of China (1937). What the Japanese thought would be a relatively quick campaign proved to be a quagmire. The Japanese won every major battle, but the Chinese refused to surrender. They withdrew inland into remote areas that ther Japanese could bomb, but not reach wih ground campigns. Gradually the Unted Sates, Bitain, and France began to increased aid to China. And the United States began to escalate diplmatic sanctions. Finally the American oil enbargo forced Jsapan's hand (1941). Japan was left with a choice, end the war with China and withdraw or make war with the United States and Britain. Incredibly, Japan cjose war. The Japanese sought to stop American aid from reaching China. First they moved into French Indochina and cut the rail lines. The United States deoloyed the Flying Tigers to China and Burma to stop Japanese nombing of China. After launching the Pacific War, the invaded Burma and cut the Burma Road (1942). This left a tenous air link from India over the Himalayas--the Hump. This was devoted primarily for aviation fuel and other supplies for the American air forces opersating in China. The Alloed CBI campaign was designed to both drive the Japanese out of Burma and reopen the Burma Road (1944). This was finally accomplished when the Ledo Road hooked up with the old Burma Road.
The Japanese forced thousands of women into slavery, serving as "comfort women".
The 5th Indian Division along with eight other Indian Divisions fought in the CBI theater, Indian troops played a major role in the last important Japanese offensive of the War. They helped repulse the Japanese invasion of India (1944). Indian troops fought at both Imphal and Kohima. India provided important bases for the reconquest of Burma and delivering supplied tor the Chinese. An estmated 2 million Indians served in the Army during the War. When the War began, most of the officers in the Indian Army were British. Bythe end of the War,
the officer corps was largely Indian.
After the Japanese surrender, the Indian forces then disarmed the Japanese forces in Malayia and Java.
The War stirred nationalist sentiment throughout Europe. [Bayly and Harper] The Japanese victories showed the weakness of the European colonial regimes. India had the most avanced independence movement. Churchill's defeat in the in the British election brought the Labour Party to power, vurtually guaranteeing Indian independence. Lord Mountbatten who directed the CBI Theater became India's last Viceroy.
Bayly, Christopher and Tim Harper. Forgotten Armies: The Fall of British Asia, 1941-1945 (Belknap/Harvard, 2005).
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