by Yasmin Khan
17 CSAS, Sucheta Kripalani, interviewed by Uma Shanker in 1974.
6 Bombed to Hell
1 The Tiger Strikes: India’s Fight in the Middle East (Calcutta: Government of India, 1943), p. 57.
2 National Archives, Kew, WO 169/2838, War Diaries British Troops, Sudan and Eritrea: Infantry, 4/6 Rajputana Rifles, 1 Feb. 1941.
3 Ibid., 7 Feb. 1941.
4 IOR MSS F274/15 Diaries, intelligence summaries and eighteen photographs concerning the capture of Keren (Italian East Africa); and the capture of Asmara in the Sudan, Feb.–March 1941. More generally on Keren, for military accounts see Compton Mackenzie, Eastern Epic (London: Chatto & Windus, 1951), and A. Brett-James, Ball of Fire: The Fifth Indian Division in the Second World War (London: Gale & Polden, 1951). A good personal account is Peter Cochrane, Charlie Company: In Service with C Company 2nd Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders, 1940–44 (Stroud: Spellmount, 2007).
5 National Archives, Kew, WO 169/2838, War Diaries British Troops, Sudan and Eritrea: Infantry, 4/6 Rajputana Rifles, 7 Feb. 1941; 8–9 Feb. 1941.
6 Cochrane, Charlie Company, p. 66.
7 National Archives, Kew, WO 169/2838, War Diaries British Troops, Sudan and Eritrea: Infantry, 4/6 Rajputana Rifles, 12–13 Feb. 1941.
8 Ibid.
9 Ibid.
10 Ibid.
11 National Archives, Kew, WO 373/28/69, Recommendation for Victoria Cross for Richpal Ram, 4/6 Rajputana Rifles.
12 Details of these graves can be found at the CWGC website, http://www.cwgc.org/
13 There are discrepancies between published casualty figures for Keren. The official British history of events published in 1954 describes 3,765 casualties in the entire six-week battle and this figure has been repeated elsewhere in later accounts. But the Official British Ministry of Information book on the East Africa Campaign published the year after the battle gave the figure 4,000–5,000. A more contemporary manuscript, lecture notes for senior military staff written in the immediate aftermath of events by Thomas Wynford Rees, a colonel in the Indian Army in command of a brigade of the 5th Indian Division, and held today in the India Office Library in London, cites potentially higher figures. He estimated in the second battle in early–mid-March that the 4th Division alone took 1,800 casualties and the 5th Division took another 1,800 including the wounded. See IOR MSS F274/15.
14 Mackenzie, Eastern Epic, p. 60.
15 Winston Churchill, The Grand Alliance, vol. 3 (London: Mariner Books, 1986), pp. 79–80.
16 The Tiger Strikes, p. 57.
17 National Archives, Kew, WO 373/28/69, Recommendation for Victoria Cross for Richpal Ram, 4/6 Rajputana Rifles. Medal citation, 4 July 1941.
18 Quoted in Varma, The Victoria Cross.
19 IOR MSS E360/14 I. H. Macdonald, letter to parents, 24 Jan. 1942.
20 The Times, London, 11 Nov. 1941. See also Indian newspapers including The Statesman.
21 The Tiger Strikes, p. xi.
22 Ibid., p. 13.
23 Interview conducted by Iqroop Sandhawalia with Major General Kartar Singh, 2011.
24 IOR L/PJ/12/654.
25 For an excellent and detailed analysis of this debate about courts martial and many other aspects of officer relationships see Marston, The Indian Army, p. 91.
26 Typescript copy of a report, 2 March 1943, from an anonymous officer of the 2nd Bn Cheshire Regiment, National Army Museum, enclosed in the papers of Lt-Col. J. A. C. Greenwood, Ref: 1992–08–36–57.
27 Cited in Tarak Barkawi, ‘Army, Ethnicity and Society’, in Kaushik Roy (ed.), War and Society in Colonial India (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 439. See also Tariq Rahman, ‘The British Learning of Hindustani’, Contemporary Perspectives 2.1 (2008), pp. 46–73.
28 This idea about the reliance on intermediaries is also developed in some of the interviews with Indian Army officers by Barkawi, ‘Army, Ethnicity and Society’, in Kaushik Roy (ed.), War and Society in Colonial India, pp. 439–41.
29 Transcript of interview conducted with Rajinder Singh Dhatt by Dr Kanwaljit in Hounslow, 2008. See also, National Army Museum, Ref: 2008–05–26, oral history of Rajinder Singh Dhatt, interview conducted by Justin Saddington in Hounslow, London, April 2008.
30 IOR W/S/1/1358 DCGS India, to India Office, 26 Jan. 1943.
31 IOR L/WS/1/1433.
32 There was also another brothel set up for more senior military officers, as noted in IOR MSS F274/15.
33 Satyen Basu, A Doctor in the Army (Calcutta: Sri Bajendranath Bose, 1960), pp. 96–100.
34 IOR L/WS/1/1363 Subversive activities against the Indian Army by Germany and Italy.
35 By November 1941 at least 46,000 Italian POWs had arrived in India.
36 Elios Toschi, Ninth Time Lucky (London: William Kimber, 1955), p. 90.
7 Money Coming, Money Coming
1 IOR MSS F309/1 Ralli Diary.
2 For a discussion of this see Taylor Sherman, ‘From Hell to Paradise? Voluntary Transfer of Convicts to the Andaman Islands, 1921–1940’, Modern Asian Studies 43, no. 2 (2009). Strategically, the Andamans were believed to be barely significant, shielded by the might of British power vested in South-East Asia’s arc and the fortress of Singapore.
3 IOR L/PJ/8/485 Waterfall to Linlithgow, 5 July 1941.
4 Foundation stone laying ceremony of the Scindia Co.’s shipyard at ‘Gandhigram’, Vizagapatam, by Babu Rajendra Prasad on Saturday the 21st June 1941 (Bombay: Scindia Company, 1941). See also G. D. Khanolkar, Walchand Hirachand (Bombay: Walchand, 1969), pp. 392–7.
5 Walchand was a shipowner and entrepreneur. Born into a Gujarati trading family in 1882 he had started building his fortune as a railway contractor and had soon diversified into sugar refining, insurance and newspapers but his real interest was in shipping and transport companies. See G. D. Khanolkar, Walchand Hirachand.
6 CWMG, vol. 79, p. 51. Gandhi to Linlithgow, 26 July 1940.
7 See Ashley Jackson, The British Empire and the Second World War (London and New York: Hambledon Continuum, 2006), p. 358.
8 Medha Kudaisya, The Life and Times of G. D. Birla (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 214.
9 India at War, Rising Flood of Vast Resources (London: Ministry of Information, 1941).
10 Quoted in Georgie Wemyss, ‘Litoral Struggles, Liminal Lives: Indian Merchant Seafarers’ Resistances’, in Rehana Ahmed and Sumita Mukherjee (eds), South Asian Resistances in Britain, 1858–1947 (London and New York: Continuum, 2012), p. 46.
11 For discussion of wartime labour and industrial conditions see in particular, Rajnarayan Chandavarkar, Imperial Power and Popular Politics: Class, Resistance and the State in India c.1850–1950 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
12 Bhore Report, p. 68.
13 Daniel Thorner, ‘Problems of Economic Development in India’, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 268 (March 1950), pp. 96–7.
14 IOR L/PJ/7/4704 Air Raid Precautions in India, Mar. 1939–Dec. 1943.
15 The India Office Records contain many files about propaganda and information efforts during the war, for instance IOR/L/I/1/847, MSS Eur E360/23, IOR L/I/1/1084. For a detailed account of propaganda and information efforts, see Sanjoy Bhattacharya, Propaganda and Information in Eastern India 1939–45: A Necessary Weapon of War (Kolkata: Routledge, 2000).
16 NAI Home F. 161/41 Police (1941).
17 IOR MSS E360/14 I. H. Macdonald, letter to parents, 19 May 1941.
18 For details of inflation and money supply see J. M. Brown, ‘India’, in I. C. D. Dear and M. R. D. Foot (eds), The Oxford Companion to World War II (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 557.
19 Hitler was making direct comparisons in 1941 between Britain’s control of India and Germany’s future control of Russia, reportedly saying, ‘What India was for England, the territories of Russia will be for us.’ See Romain Hayes, Bose in Nazi Germany (London: Hurst, 2011), n. 5.
20 This letter is reproduced in full in Krishna Dutta and
Andrew Robinson, Rabindranath Tagore: The Myriad-minded Man (London: Bloomsbury, 1995), p. 371. Letter to Leonard Woolf, 9 March 1941.
21 For a longer discussion see Sumit Sarkar, Modern India, 1885–1947 (Basingstoke, Hants: Macmillan, 1989), pp. 384–5.
22 CSAS, B. P. Jain, interviewed by Uma Shanker in 1987. On the career of M. N. Roy, Kris Manjapra, M. N. Roy: Marxism and Colonial Cosmopolitanism (Delhi: Routledge 2010).
8 An Empire Exposed
1 George Orwell, Orwell: The Observer Years (London: Atlantic Books, 2003), pp. 2–3. Article in The Observer, 22 Feb. 1942.
2 National Archives, Kew, WO 106/3684, Plan for the Defence of North East India 12 Feb. 1942; Famine Inquiry Commission, Report on Bengal (Delhi: Government of India, 1945), p. 27.
3 National Archives, Kew, War Office 106/3684.
4 It is perhaps not incidental that Indian industrialists lobbied hard against the scorched earth policy being used against their own factories. See, for example, NARA, New Delhi General Mission records, 1942: 832–851.5, Box 14.
5 CWMG, vol. 82, p. 240. Harijan, 3 May 1942.
6 Quoted in Francis Hutchins, India’s Revolution: Gandhi and the Quit India Movement (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973), p. 191.
7 IOR L/PJ/5/149 Herbert to Linlithgow, 19 June 1943.
8 Famine Inquiry Commission, Report on Bengal, p. 27.
9 Ibid., p. 27. Asok Mitra, Towards Independence: Memoirs of an Indian Civil Servant (Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1991), p. 105. See also Asok Mitra, ‘Famine of 1943 in Vikrampur Dacca’, Economic and Political Weekly 24, no. 5 (4 Feb. 1989), pp. 253–64.
10 Ashley Jackson, ‘Defend Lanka Your Home’, War in History 16, no. 2 (2009), p. 217.
11 W. J. Slim, Defeat into Victory (London: Pan, 2009), p. 150.
12 A. K. Azad, India Wins Freedom (New Delhi: Longman, 1988), p. 40.
13 IOR FNR 19/01/42.
14 Philip Mason, A Matter of Honour: An Account of the Indian Army, Its Officers and Men (London: Jonathan Cape, 1974), p. 493.
15 Slim, Defeat into Victory, p. 125.
16 Ramesh Benegal, Burma to Japan with Azad Hind (Olympia Fields, IL: Lancer, 2009), p. 7.
17 Benegal Dinker Rao, ‘Barefoot from Burma to India, 1942’, http://www.dadinani.com, accessed June 2013.
18 IOR MSS Eur C394 Veronica Downing memoir.
19 IOR MSS Eur F174/1309 Indian Tea Association report on the evacuation of troops and civilians from Burma by the Pangsau route, May to July 1942.
20 Benegal, Burma to Japan with Azad Hind, p. 6.
21 Angela Bolton, The Maturing Sun: An Army Nurse in India, 1942–45 (London: Imperial War Museum, 1986), p. 77.
22 Ibid., pp. 77–8. Diary entry, May 1942.
23 Dr Krishnan Gurumurthy, ‘Exodus from Burma, 1941: A Personal Account’, http:/amitavghosh.com/blog, accessed 2011.
24 IOR MSS Eur F174/1309, Indian Tea Association report on the evacuation of troops and civilians from Burma by the Pangsau route, May to July 1942.
25 Dr Krishnan Gurumurthy, ‘Exodus from Burma, 1941: A Personal Account’, http:/amitavghosh.com/blog, accessed 2011.
26 M. M. Kudaisya, The Life and Times of G. D. Birla (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 221.
27 IOR FNR L/PJ/5/204 second half June 1942; IOR FNR L/PJ/5/205, second half of May 1942.
28 NARA US Consulate Calcutta, Classified General Records 1943: 030–1943: 711.5 Box 8, Report on Civil Evacuation from Burma by Martin Hillenbrand, 6 Feb. 1943.
29 The Statesman, 3 March 1942.
30 Quoted in Rana Mitter, China’s War with Japan, 1937–1945: The Struggle for Survival (London: Allen Lane, 2013), p. 248.
31 CWMG, vol. 82, p. 377. Harijan, 14 June 1942.
9 Urban Panic
1 Richard Symonds, In the Margins of Independence: A Relief Worker in India and Pakistan, 1942–1949 (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 12–13.
2 IOR L/PJ/7/4704 ARP Bombay, Governor’s Report, 23 Feb. 1942.
3 Ibid. Press statement by Gandhi at Bardoli, 19 Dec. 1941.
4 G. Allana (ed.), Pakistan Movement: Historic Documents (Lahore: Islamic Book Service, 1988), p. 301, 21 March 1942, Jinnah speech.
5 Author’s communication with Sulochana Simhadri Pillarisetti, 2011.
6 IOR L/PJ/7/4704 Amery in House of Commons, 18 Dec. 1941.
7 Ibid. For a detailed assessment of air raid protection and the distribution of gas masks in Indian cities see the forthcoming work of Susan Grayzel.
8 IOR L/PJ/7/4704 Air Raid Precautions in India, Mar. 1939–Dec. 1943.
9 Ibid., ARP Problems of Recruitment, Dec. 1941.
10 IOR L/PJ/4/4731 Shelter Discipline, published c. Jan. 1942.
11 Harijan, 8 Feb. 1942.
12 C. A. Bayly and T. N. Harper, Forgotten Armies (London: Penguin, 2005) pp. 337–8. Purana Qila would also be used as a refugee camp during Partition in 1947.
13 G. D. Khanolkar, Walchand Hirachand, p. 427.
14 S. K. Bose and S. Bose (eds), Azad Hind: Subhas Chandra Bose Writings and Speeches 1941–3 (London: Anthem Press, 2004), pp. 63–4. This first radio broadcast speech on 19 Feb. 1942 also referred to ‘Anglo-American Imperialism’.
15 Ibid., p. 74. Speech broadcast over Berlin Radio, 19 March 1942. Bose was wrong about this of course and privately had begun to doubt the intentions and policies of the Japanese and Germans. But he did not criticise the internal politics of the Third Reich or Japan, and regarded these policies as their own domestic issues. For details of this, see Leonard Gordon, Brothers against the Raj (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), p. 462.
16 IOR L/PJ/4/4731 Shelter Discipline.
17 IOR L/PJ/4/4704 29 Dec. 1942.
18 IOR MSS E360/14 I. H. Macdonald, letter to parents, 9 June 1943.
19 IOR, FNR, L/PJ/5/204, Feb. 1942.
20 IOR, FNR, L/PJ/ 5/204. Hope to Linlithgow, 18 April 1942.
21 TOP, vol. 2, p. 4. Congress Working Committee Resolution, 28 April 1942; A. Srivasthan, ‘When 5 lakh fled the city in 2 weeks’, The Hindu, 3 Oct. 2012,and other articles by Srivasthan on related subjects in The Hindu.
22 W. J. Slim, Defeat into Victory, p. 181.
23 Sunil Amrith, Crossing the Bay of Bengal: the Furies of Nature and the Fortunes of Migrants (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013), p. 103.
24 Ibid. Also Sunil Amrith, ‘Reconstructing the “Plural Society”: Asian Migration Between Empire and Nation, 1940–1948,’ Past and Present 210, no. suppl. 6 (2011): p. 237.
25 T. R. Sareen (ed.), Select Documents on the Indian National Army (Delhi: Agam Prakashan, n.d.), p. 173. 3 May 1943.
26 Kevin Blackburn, ‘Recalling War Trauma of the Pacific War and the Japanese Occupation in the Oral History of Malaysia and Singapore’, Oral History Review 36.2 (2009), p. 246.
27 The INA Heroes: Autobiographies (Lahore: Hero Publications, 1946), p. 74. This story is recalled by Shah Nawaz Khan in his autobiography.
28 Interview conducted by Iqroop Sandhawalia with Major General Kartar Singh, 2011.
29 G. Allana, (ed.), Pakistan Movement: Historic Documents, p. 304. Resolution of AIML, 6 April 1942.
30 Dr Krishnan Gurumurthy, ‘Exodus from Burma, 1941: A Personal Account’, http:/amitavghosh.com/blog, accessed 2011.
31 NARA US Consulate Calcutta, Classified General Records 1943: 030–1943: 711.5 Box 8, Report on Civil Evacuation from Burma by Martin Hillenbrand, 6 Feb. 1943. See also Hillenbrand’s memoir, Fragments of Our Time: Memoirs of a Diplomat (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1998). He later became an important cold war ambassador to Germany.
32 Hugh Tinker, ‘A Forgotten Long March: The Indian Exodus from Burma, 1942’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies (1975): 1–15. Tinker, later an academic, was present at the time as an eyewitness in Burma.
33 Indivar Kamtekar, ‘The Shiver of 1942’, Studies in History 18, no. 1 (2002).
10 The World at the Door
1 The Telegraph, India, 28 Dec. 1942.
2 G. Allana (ed.), Pakistan Movement: Historic Documents, p. 299. Muslim League Council Resolution, 23 Feb. 1942.
3 Documents reproduced in Association of Poles in India, Poles in India, 1942–1948 (London: Amolibros, 2013), p. 74. See also IOR/L/PJ/8/412.
4 This was partly because of an old friendship between his own father and a Polish pianist which dated back to the First World War.
5 Times of India cited in Association of Poles in India, Poles in India 1942–1948 (London: Amolibros, 2013), p. 91.
6 IOR L/PJ/8/412 Linlithgow to Amery, June 1942.
7 NAI, f. 93/41 – Jails (Home, 1941). Secret telegram, Home Department to Chief Commissioner, Andamans, 21 Dec. 1941.
8 Ibid.
9 NAI, f. 93/41 – Jails (Home, 1941). Secret letter from Port Blair – C. F. Waterfall in Andamans to E. Conran-Smith in Delhi, 23–24 Dec. 1941.
10 Ibid.
11 NAI f. 93/41 – Jails (Home, 1941). Evacuation of ex-military prisoners and other dangerous convicts from the Andamans and convicted and detained fifth columnists from Burma.
12 The Statesman, 12 April 1942. Waterfall was later awarded a knighthood for his services in the Andamans and lived until 1952.
13 NAI f. 93/41 – Jails (Home, 1941). Mercy petition of ex-military prisoner Bhajan Singh, forwarded by the Government of Central Provinces and Berar, 14 May 1942.
14 Ibid.
15 Ibid.
16 NAI, Home Dept 46/2/39 – Jails. Letter from Bombay’s Home Department to Home Dept Government of India, 18 Dec. 1942.
17 NAI, Home Dept 46/2/39 – Jails. Secretary Home Dept. Bombay to Home Dept. Government of India, 12 Jan. 1943.
18 NAI, Home Dept 46/2/39 – Jails. Letter from Government of India to all provincial governments, 14 May 1943.
19 Jayant Dasgupta, Japanese in Andaman and Nicobar Islands: Red Sun over Black Water (New Delhi: Manas, 2002), p. 45.
