India's War

by Srinath Raghavan

  Oblivious of these feelings, Bose began a series of broadcasts to India over the ‘Azad Hind Radio’ (Free India Radio). His very first broadcast, on 19 February 1942, sent a frisson through India and created an international sensation. The announcement of the Cripps Mission spurred Bose’s propaganda efforts. His message was clear and consistent. The tripartite pact spelled the end of the British Empire. Japan, Germany and Italy were well disposed towards India; those who claimed otherwise were either dupes or propagandists of the Allies. As for the Congress, its half-hearted measures had only encouraged Britain to persist with its old policy.

  Bose had nothing but contempt for the Cripps Mission. ‘No sane Indian’, he declared even before Cripps reached India, ‘can be pleased with this latest British offer.’ So concerned was Cripps about the impact of Bose that he specifically asked the BBC to counter the German propaganda – a request that led to Orwell’s broadcasts.56 After the announcement of the Cripps offer, Bose sent out another blast of propaganda. Sir Stafford, he observed, was servicing the old imperial agenda of divide-and-rule. His proposals made it clear that ‘the real intention of the British Government is to split India into a number of states’. In his next broadcast, Bose read out an open letter to Cripps, accusing him of abandoning his principles and convictions, and of advancing the cause of the most reactionary and imperialist government in Britain.57

  In substantive terms Bose’s rejection of the Cripps offer was entirely consonant with the views of Gandhi and the Indian socialists. Where he stood apart from everyone else was in his espousal of the Axis ‘New Order’ as the vehicle for Indian freedom. Bose also called on Indians to differentiate between internal and external policies: ‘it would be a grievous mistake to be carried away by ideological considerations alone. The internal politics of Germany or Italy or Japan do not concern us – they are the concern of the people of those countries.’58 Bose’s amoral approach opened a cavern between him and his former colleagues. After several weeks of Bose’s broadcasts, Nehru bluntly declared: ‘Hitler and Japan must go to hell. I shall fight them to the end and this is my policy. I shall also fight Mr. Subhas Chandra Bose and his party along with Japan if he comes to India.’59

  Bose’s propaganda from Berlin, however, slotted in perfectly with that of Japan. On 6 April 1942, as Japanese aircraft bombed the east coast of India, Premier Tojo announced that ‘The Japanese Empire has no wish to do anything to harm the four hundred million people of India.’ Indeed, this was ‘an excellent opportunity for the Indian people to do their utmost to establish an Indian’s India’. To avoid being engulfed in war, Indians should ‘break off your ties with Britain’.60 Bose responded with a broadcast the same day, assuring Tojo that ‘India will not miss this golden opportunity’: ‘it will be an honour and privilege for India to co-operate intimately with Japan in the noble task of creating a great Asia’.61

  Yet the Japanese did not make any move towards issuing a formal declaration until after the failure of the Cripps Mission. At the liaison conference on 11 April, the Japanese circulated a draft tripartite declaration for India and the Arab countries. It did not contain an explicit guarantee of independence, but simply stated that the tripartite powers ‘do not have the ulterior motive to replace Great Britain in India and the Arab countries’. The German Foreign Office opined that the draft was ‘too journalistic and little concrete’. While the Germans were editing the text, Mussolini welcomed the initiative and urged Berlin to promptly support the declaration despite its shortcomings.62

  The challenge, of course, was to convince Hitler. On 16 April, Ribbentrop sent a long note to the Führer addressing his reservations. The Japanese declaration would not ‘ultimately rule out an understanding [with Britain] at the price of India’. On the contrary, Japan’s refusal to step into British shoes ‘could even be of advantage for an agreement with England’. ‘I am of the opinion’, Ribbentrop insisted, ‘that it can only have a favourable effect on the preparedness of English circles for peace, if now in these circles we point out once more the danger threatening India.’63 Hitler was unimpressed. He saw ‘no point in adhering to such a declaration just when the Japanese want it’. He only agreed to discuss the matter with Mussolini at the end of the month. Hitler, however, readily accepted Bose’s request to be sent to Tokyo. Clearly, the Führer had little use for India and even less for the Indian.

  The Japanese were impatient. On 23 April, Tokyo urged the German ambassador to secure a quick decision from his government on the declaration. This served to further annoy Hitler. The Führer and the Duce met on 29 April in the Klessheim Castle near Salzburg. The diary kept by the Italian foreign minister, Count Ciano, captured the atmosphere of the meeting: ‘Hitler talks, talks, talks. Mussolini suffers.’ Hitler said that he was opposed to a declaration because it would strengthen Britain’s resistance. During the Great War, he claimed, Germany could have had a special peace agreement with Tsarist Russia had she not declared Poland to be a separate kingdom. Further, he was averse to a ‘platonic declaration to grant freedom to peoples as long as the military situation does not allow the enforcement of this guarantee’. In these circumstances, if they went ahead with a declaration, India would either fail to respond or if there was an uprising, the British would destroy all opposition.

  While Mussolini and Ciano sat passively, Ribbentrop argued that if they abstained from the declaration Japan might construe it as part of an attempt to seek a separate peace with Britain. Mussolini mumbled that Japan should be allowed to issue a declaration on its own. Hitler maintained that the Japanese ought to be patient. In the event, the Japanese were told that the Führer and the Duce were agreeable in principle but did not consider the time suitable for a declaration.64

  This decision was conveyed to Bose in Rome by Ciano. Bose was dismayed but not deterred, and he sought a meeting with Mussolini. The Duce had always been impressed by the Indian. On this occasion, Bose marshalled all his persuasive powers. Ciano noted that ‘Mussolini allowed himself to be persuaded by the arguments produced by Bose to obtain a tripartite declaration in favor of Indian independence.’ Mussolini cabled Hitler that they should, contrary to their earlier decision, proceed at once with the declaration. ‘I feel that Hitler will not agree to it very willingly’, wrote Ciano in his diary.65

  In fact, it was Ribbentrop who nixed the idea. He was keen not to give Japan an impression of vacillating German policy. On the morning of 27 May 1942, Ribbentrop met Bose and explained why Germany could not issue a declaration for the time being. The foreign minister also told Bose that he could meet the Führer that afternoon.

  Bose had waited many months for an audience with Hitler. When he finally met him, he greeted the Führer as an ‘old revolutionary’ and sought his advice. Hitler promptly obliged with a lengthy monologue. Describing himself as a soldier rather than a propagandist, Hitler observed that the military situation was not yet conducive to the issuing of a declaration. The road to India would have to run over the ‘corpse of Russia’. And this could take up to two years. The Japanese already stood closer to India. Hitler conceded that he was unaware of Japanese plans, but advised Bose to ‘bank on the Japanese to project the revolutionary war’. He even offered a German submarine to take Bose safely to Japan.

  When Bose raised the issue of clarifying Hitler’s remarks on India in Mein Kampf, the Führer said that they were rooted in the past. To Bose’s request for continued German assistance to India after the war, he responded by promising economic aid. ‘Bose should not forget that the power of a country could only be exercised within the range of its sword.’ In closing, Hitler presented Bose with a fancy cigar case and wished him luck in his efforts to liberate India.66

  The tripartite declaration had reached a dead end. Bose realized that the action was no longer in Europe but in South-East Asia. The political situation in India also took an unexpected turn. ‘In view of the internal developments in India’, he wrote to Ribbentrop on 23 July 1942, ‘I would like to be in the Far E
ast in the first week of August, if possible.’67 The timing was just right. The revolt against the Raj was ready to begin.

  11

  Rumour and Revolt

  The ‘Quit India’ revolt of 1942 was the final convulsion in India’s year of upheaval. Indeed, it is difficult to understand the outbreak of the revolt without relating it to the waves of anxiety, fear and hope that washed through India in the preceding period. Then again, it is tempting to assume that the ‘shiver of 1942’ was a sudden reaction to Japan’s stunning military advance through South-East Asia to the ramparts of India.1 Contrary to appearances, however, subterranean eddies of anxiety and discontent were swirling earlier still. The Japanese victories cracked the edifice of the Raj and left large parts of India cowering at the prospect of war.

  This was the cumulative effect of several factors. In the first place, the progress of the war was carefully followed in India. English and vernacular broadsheets and magazines were packed with news of the conflict. Regular radio broadcasts further ensured an unremitting diet of war news. The government of India encouraged the propagation of news and information on the war as this was believed to be important in securing India’s own contribution. At the same time, the government could not – despite a tight regime of censorship – entirely mould the public understanding of the course of the war. A difficult task in the best of times, this proved impossible when faced with the chain of disasters that were steadily undermining the British Empire.

  The fall of France in June 1940 had rattled India. ‘The people have become afraid of the consequences of the failure of the British’, wrote one correspondent to Gandhi. ‘They apprehend civil war, communal riots, looting, arson, plunder and goondaism [thuggery].’ ‘You sitting lonely in Sevagram can have no notion’, wrote another with a hint of reproach, ‘of the talks and whispers going on in the busy cities. Panic has seized them.’2 Such concerns ebbed and flowed with the shifting tides of war.

  The British withdrawal from Libya in April 1941, for instance, told on nerves in India. The governor of Bihar observed in his province a ‘feeling that danger is coming nearer and nearer home every day’. A British officer in charge of a district in the eastern United Provinces wrote: ‘the brutal efficiency of the Germans is regarded with a kind of masochistic horror which promotes no desire to oppose’. An Indian officer from a western district of the same province added, ‘the educated sections are inclined to an attitude of resignation, to prepare themselves for the worst eventuality of the fate confronting the smaller states of the Middle East overtaking them as well’. The Allied withdrawal from Greece triggered another bout of anxiety. As a district officer in Bihar put it, ‘the apprehension that the War Demon will soon be moving towards Asia is spreading’.3 Vendors in the streets of Calcutta warned their customers: ‘Take what is available now, in a couple of months’ time we shall all have stopped bringing supplies to Calcutta on account of the impending air-raid.’4

  Japanese moves later in the year lent credibility to these concerns. More alarming to the authorities was the sullen attitude of parts of the population. A survey of public opinion conducted in Assam in August 1941 showed that ‘a majority of the younger generation are only favourable to the British cause for the sake of Russia’. Worse still, there was ‘a considerable body of opinion in various social spheres that it would be in the fitness of things for Britain to lose the war’.5

  The government naturally sought to counter such opinions. A number of innovations were attempted. ‘Reading circles’ were formed in villages. These groups were led by a suitably identified, educated individual who would read and convey ‘accurate’ news of the war to his fellow villagers. The reading circles were periodically supplied with ‘lantern slides’ to enlighten rural India about the state of the war. The membership of some of these groups was as large as three hundred. ‘Propaganda vans’ were also supplied to provincial and local governments. These vans toured deep into the countryside, carrying pictures and news of British and Indian exploits in arms. Another innovation was the use of aircraft to drop propaganda leaflets on urban population concentrations. This was first tried in the city of Madras in the spring of 1941 and subsequently extended to several other places.6

  Although the government was satisfied at the progress of these efforts, they eventually proved counter-productive. News of crumbling British defences in South-East Asia came as a thunder-clap to India. And it swiftly showed up the government’s propaganda for what it was.

  Bad news from the war front was amplified by the influx of Indian refugees from South-East Asia who were fleeing ahead of the Japanese forces. This too was not unprecedented. The arrival in May 1941 of evacuees from Iraq had ‘created considerable interest’ among the people of Sind and Bombay.7 But the scale of the inflow from South-East Asia was incomparably higher. The eastern Indian provinces of Bengal and Assam were faced with a cascade of refugees. In the first fifteen days of March 1942, over 9,000 refugees from Burma and Malaya landed in Calcutta, while a considerable number also reached the port city of Chittagong.8 By May, an estimated 300,000 had arrived in Bengal, from where they headed back to their homes in other parts of India. By this time, Madras was housing well over 15,000 returnees. Bombay too had a sizeable number of Bohra and Muslim emigrants who had returned home. Eastern United Provinces and Bihar also saw the return of migrant workers from the paddy fields of Burma. By the end of 1942, the Gorakhpur district of the United Provinces counted no fewer than 30,000 returnees.9

  The refugees carried with them harrowing accounts of their experiences. In consequence, there was much consternation in the areas to which they returned. By mid-February 1942, there was ‘a feeling bordering on panic’ in Bombay. The evacuees from Rangoon, the authorities held, were ‘principally responsible for this feeling by spreading tragic tales of their sufferings’. What was more, there were ‘exaggerated reports of Japanese prowess put into circulation by refugees from Burma and Malaya.’10 A few weeks later, the governor of the United Provinces was rather worried about the deterioration of public morale. This was not so much due to such developments as the fall of the Andaman Islands to the Japanese as to the ‘arrival of large number of refugees from Burma’. There were now ‘very few people in the towns who believe that the Allied forces can win the war’. Moreover, the idea had taken hold that ‘the only hope of doing so [winning] is to take help from the Congress on any terms’. Similar feelings were abroad in Bihar, where general levels of apprehension had been ‘increased by the influx of refugees from Burma and elsewhere who are spreading alarming stories of the mutilation caused by Japanese bombs’.11

  Such concerns were heightened by the sight of injured Indian and British soldiers being evacuated from Burma to district hospitals in eastern India. The passage of troops through Assam led the people to fear ‘an imminent attack on the Province’. In Bengal, the anxiety caused by the refugees was ‘further accentuated by casualties from Rangoon passing through Calcutta and Howrah’. The passage through the United Provinces and Bihar of trainloads of injured soldiers left another dent in public morale. Military intelligence reported from hospitals that the soldiers ‘though battered about … were all very cheerful’. Heading home on sick leave, though, some of them seem to have painted a different picture. By the end of July 1942, the government knew that there was an ‘undercurrent of uneasiness and discontent’ in the country – not least because of the ‘exaggerated and alarmist accounts given by both civilian and military evacuees from Burma’.12

  Alongside news and stories of the war front circulated a variety of rumours. Even before the striking advances of the Japanese forces, parts of India were abuzz with rumours about the war. Following the Allied withdrawal from Greece, for instance, Bihar reported that ‘fantastic rumours are afloat’. In particular, there was much hubbub over an ‘astrological prediction that the 26th April [1941] was a time of great calamity for humanity in general’. In May 1941, it was rumoured in Bengal that Indians were already being evacuate
d from Burma. The next month, the military situation in the Middle East led to rumours in Bihar about an impending attack on India, especially the bombing of coastal towns. This ‘created panic and led to an exodus’ from Jamshedpur and other cities of Bihar. In the event, the intervention of the local police helped stanch the fear.13

  Nevertheless, from January 1942 onwards the number and variety of rumours rose enormously. The intelligence summaries prepared for the government began to include a separate section on rumours. At one level, this spurt can be explained by the fact that the intensity of a rumour is directly proportional to the importance of the news. With the war knocking on India’s doors, rumours were bound to increase. As an Air Raid Precautions (ARP) ditty went: ‘R is for rumour, someone told me at noon / that a Japanese army has invaded the moon.’14 At another level, though, rumours were not merely mistaken distortions of ‘real’ news. As the historian Marc Bloch noted, through rumours people unconsciously give expression to their fears, their hatreds and all their strong emotional desires. The spread of rumours is possible only because minds are already tending in certain directions, because imaginations are already brewing and because emotions are already being distilled.15

  Despite their booming, buzzing profusion, the rumours in early 1942 fell into certain discernible categories. First, there were rumours about the shifting of government offices owing to the fear of Japanese attacks. In early January, following Japanese air raids on Rangoon, Bombay was humming with rumours that the government had plans to shift its offices and the law courts to Surat in the event of air raids on Bombay. Around the same time, there was commotion in parts of northern Bihar owing to rumours about the move of the sub-divisional headquarters to a safer location. The senior civil servant had to address a crowd of 5,000 people to allay their fears. Yet there were strong rumours in the Ranchi district that ‘His Excellency the Governor would soon go back to Patna, that Eastern Command headquarters would move westwards from Ranchi to a safer place’. In Madras, it was rumoured that aircraft were standing by to evacuate European officials and their families from the city. This had currency in Calcutta too – with the added twist that the government had ‘done nothing for Indians’.16