India's War

by Srinath Raghavan

  As Lomax struggled to cope, Slim was belatedly brought into the fray. After examining the situation, he wrote a perceptive letter to Irwin:

  The British troops are tired and they are ‘browned off’ with operations in Arakan as a whole. Their health is deteriorating … The Indian troops … are tired too, but with them the fault is in the inferior quality in physique, training and spirit of the men, especially the drafts that have joined in Arakan.41

  Indeed, when the Japanese attacked the defences covering Maungdaw and Buthidaung on 24 April, a well-prepared plan to trap the Japanese spearhead collapsed like a house of cards, owing to failures by two tired and demoralized battalions. By 15 May, the Indian army evacuated the port of Maungdaw and beat a hasty and confused retreat from Buthidaung. The Japanese decision to halt at that line let off the British and Indian units without further casualties. The first attempt to take the fight to the Japanese had ended in a humiliating defeat.

  Even as the Arakan offensive was in meltdown, Wavell was pedalling back from Operation Anakim. By early April 1943, he was complaining to the chiefs that the actual allotment of shipping to India fell far short of the monthly requirements agreed for Anakim. The target date of 15 November, he declared, was already impossible to meet. Wavell was right: the decision at Casablanca to press ahead with Anakim had been taken on a misconception of the amount of shipping that would be available over the next six months. And the chiefs recognized that they had erred.

  Later that month Wavell travelled to London to confer with the chiefs of staff. After some days of discussion, it was agreed that Anakim could not be attempted in the dry season of 1943–44. Apart from operational and logistical problems, it was felt that launching Anakim would commit British forces to a major operation that was not essential for the ultimate defeat of Japan. Only minor land operations should be undertaken from Assam in the coming campaign season.42 The challenge, of course, was to convince the Americans. Opinion in Washington was divided. President Roosevelt seemed ready to drop the idea: ‘ “Anakim out”. Keep China going by air’, he had scribbled in a note. But the joint chiefs wanted to take ‘vigorous steps’ to launch Anakim.43

  In early May, Churchill and the chiefs of staff travelled to Washington for the ‘Trident’ Conference. The prime minister had never been enthusiastic about an overland invasion of Burma – an undertaking that he likened to munching a porcupine quill by quill. Examining the chiefs’ latest proposal, he employed a marine metaphor: ‘Going into swampy jungles to fight the Japanese is like going into the water to fight a shark. It is better to entice him into a trap or catch him on a hook and then demolish him with axes after hauling him out on to dry land.’44 Churchill favoured a landing at some unexpected point in the crescent stretching from Moulmein to Timor. This slotted smoothly into place with Wavell’s thinking about alternatives to Anakim.

  At the conference, the British delegation expressed their inability to take on Operation Anakim. The reconquest of Burma, however desirable, was not ‘indispensable from the military point of view’. Even if Anakim were successful, the Burma Road was unlikely to be open until mid-1945. After considering alternatives such as Sumatra, the joint planners recommended concentrating Allied efforts on increasing the airlift to China and operations in northern Burma. Wavell and the British chiefs of staff sought to whittle down the latter, but Stilwell insisted that abandoning Anakim would devastate Chinese morale. Roosevelt eventually came round to the view that operations should be undertaken to clear the Japanese from north Burma and open a road from Ledo to Yunnan.

  The planners then came up with an outline of land operations that fell into three groups. First, a British-Chinese offensive to open the Burma Road by a three-pronged attack: three Chinese divisions advancing from Ledo to Myitkyina; ten Chinese divisions from Yunnan to a line from Myitkyina to Bhamo to Lashio; and three British-Indian divisions from Imphal to Mandalay. Second, simultaneous operations to establish airbases on the Arakan coast. Third, following the above, to capture Rangoon by overland advances from Prome and Bassein and from the north through Mandalay. The British were deeply sceptical. Wavell believed that such an operation could not be mounted in time; and if it were launched, British forces could not be maintained during the monsoon in Mandalay. The outcome, he insisted, ‘would be that we should sacrifice large quantities of men and would achieve nothing’.45 In fact, these plans would be the basis of the successful British campaign in Burma the following year – if under very different circumstances. The finally agreed resolution at the Trident Conference dropped the third phase entailing the capture of Rangoon.

  In the course of the conference, news was received of the debacle in Arakan with the loss of Buthidaung and Maungdaw. The Indian army and its commander came under considerable flak. Churchill was rigid with reproach, describing the campaign as among the most disappointing and discreditable of the war. Although Wavell tried to outline the constraints under which the operations were undertaken, the prime minister was convinced that the Indian army and the India Command needed to be shaken up. Linlithgow had already suggested to Amery that the commander-in-chief should be freed from operational responsibilities: they were detracting from his other roles in India. Amery had agreed and recommended to Churchill the creation of a separate supreme commander for South-East Asia operations and the establishment of India Command as a base for organizing, training and supporting the forces. Churchill had also discussed this with Wavell, who observed that the supreme commander should be British, with an American deputy.46 Wavell considered himself the ‘obvious choice’ for the appointment – though he felt that Churchill was disinclined to give him the job.47

  In the wake of the Arakan fiasco, the prime minister decided to go ahead with the creation of a South-East Asia Command (SEAC). For some months past, Churchill had also been looking for a replacement for Linlithgow, who was due to step down as viceroy. The prime minister decided to kick Wavell upstairs. The decision to appoint the general as viceroy was a sharp departure from the past practice of keeping political and military roles in India resolutely apart. Some old India hands, such as the former viceroy Lord Halifax, felt that Wavell was ‘a bad choice, tantamount to saying: “We don’t care a d--n about the political side.” ’48 Yet, this was precisely why Wavell commended himself to Churchill as a wartime viceroy of India. At Amery’s recommendation, Churchill reluctantly agreed to reappoint General Auchinleck as commander-in-chief of India. But he was clear that Auchinleck would not be given command of SEAC. Not only was Churchill disappointed with Auchinleck’s performance in North Africa, but he believed that the latter’s cautious approach ‘would rightly excite the deepest suspicion in the United States that we are only playing and dawdling with the war in this theatre’.49

  Churchill’s assessment was not wholly off-beam, though Auchinleck’s caution came in handy to him in dealing with the Americans. By the time the next Allied conference was held in mid-August 1943, Auchinleck had been in harness for some six weeks. Prior to the conference, the new commander-in-chief had informed London that the lines of communication to Assam could not adequately be improved in time to support both the increased airlift to China and the proposed ground offensive into northern Burma. Further, the levels of shipping required to support the amphibious attacks on the Arakan coast would heavily impede the conduct of Allied operations in the Mediterranean. This enabled Churchill once again to pull out his pet idea of a strike on Sumatra – and thence Singapore – as an alternative to operations in Burma.

  At the conference in Quebec, the Americans were insistent on sticking to the earlier agreement. They maintained that reopening the Burma Road, and indeed the eventual recapture of the whole of Burma, were imperative. Churchill’s suggestion of Sumatra was shot down by Roosevelt. The president argued that the Japanese could be defeated only by an advance across the Pacific towards Formosa (Taiwan) and an advance from Burma into China proper. Ultimately, it was agreed that northern Burma should receive priority for the com
ing campaign season, while the target of an amphibious strike was left open.50

  In any event, the Americans felt that the British were reluctant to use their resources in India to retake Burma and reopen the road to China. The British seemed far more interested in harbouring their strength for a strike at Singapore.51 Their desire to establish SEAC under a British supreme commander was seen as a move in the same direction: to recover the prestige of the British Empire. As Stilwell’s political adviser, John Davies, trenchantly noted in October 1943: ‘We have chosen to bring a third-class island kingdom back to its anachronistic position as a first-class empire. We are rejecting the opportunity to move boldly forward with the historical tide.’52

  SEAC was soon dubbed ‘Save England’s Asiatic Colonies’. Stilwell’s staff sang: ‘The Limeys make policy, Yank fights the Jap, / And one gets its Empire and one takes the rap.’53 Davies pointed out in December that by participating in SEAC operations, ‘we become involved in the politically explosive colonial problems … we compromise ourselves not only with the colonial peoples of Asia but also the free peoples of Asia, including the Chinese’. It would, therefore, be best to restrict involvement in SEAC: ‘after the recapture of North Burma there comes a parting of ways. The British will wish to throw their main weight southward for the repossession of colonial empire.’54

  As supreme commander of SEAC, Churchill nominated one of his favourites: Admiral Louis Mountbatten. As a naval commander and military planner, Mountbatten was something of a train wreck. His principal credentials for the new job were his royal pedigree and his acceptability to the Americans. Soon after arriving in Delhi, Mountbatten paid a visit to Chiang Kai-shek; his first task was to effect a reconciliation between the Generalissimo and his American chief of staff. Chiang and Stilwell periodically fell out, though on this occasion Chiang was determined to get Stilwell sacked. Mountbatten’s charm and persuasive powers prevailed: Stilwell stayed put. The admiral hit it off with Chiang and his wife. ‘He is a most arresting person,’ wrote Mountbatten, ‘far the most impressive Chinese I have ever seen.’ As for Soong Mei-ling, ‘She has a beautiful figure and the most lovely legs and feet imaginable.’55 Mountbatten briefed Chiang about the decisions arrived at at Quebec and secured his agreement to place Chinese forces in Burma under Mountbatten’s overall command with Stilwell as his deputy.

  Mountbatten had his own ideas about the best way to implement the decisions of Quebec. On 1 November, he informed the combined chiefs of staff that the best objective for the amphibious operation would be the Andaman Islands.56 Affirming his amphibious orientation, Mountbatten shifted his headquarters from India to Ceylon, though the botanical gardens of Kandy were rather removed from the island’s coastline. Much discussion ensued between SEAC, New Delhi, London and Washington on whether the land operations in north Burma (Operation Tarzan) should be coupled with an amphibious operation for the capture of the Andamans (Operation Buccaneer) or one aimed at Akyab (Operation Bullfrog). Stilwell was soon disenchanted with the supreme commander: ‘The Glamour Boy is just that. He doesn’t wear well and I begin to wonder if he knows his stuff. Enormous staff, endless walla-walla, but damned little fighting.’57

  The next Allied conference was held in Cairo in November 1943. Chiang Kai-shek was invited for the first time: as an equal partner. Since the combined chiefs had not yet made up their mind about the amphibious leg of the offensive, Mountbatten presented the plans for Tarzan. Chiang repeated his long-held views on the need to control the Bay of Bengal alongside a thrust into Burma from the north. The Chinese also claimed that Tarzan was insufficiently ambitious: it should encompass the reoccupation of all of Burma, though their forces would not operate south of Lashio. The Allied chiefs explained to Chiang that Tarzan was the first step towards capturing the entire country. Roosevelt, too, assured him that a considerable amphibious operation would be undertaken in the next few months. Chiang changed his mind thrice and left the conference without according his approval to Tarzan. Mountbatten pursued him to Ramgarh and persuaded him to come aboard – on the understanding that Operation Buccaneer would be launched in the spring of 1944.58

  By the time the Allies met next, in Tehran, in late November 1943, no agreement had been reached on Buccaneer. Churchill felt that it was best postponed until the Allied landings on Western Europe had been successfully completed. After some consideration, Roosevelt sent a laconic message to Churchill: ‘Buccaneer is off’. He also cabled Chiang asking if he would be willing to go ahead with Tarzan despite their inability to stage a major amphibious operation in the Bay of Bengal. ‘Britain is not sincere about advancing into Burma’, noted Chiang. Their attitude was ‘suffocating our economy’.59

  Chiang sent a convoluted reply, suggesting he might be willing – provided the Americans loaned China a billion dollars in gold. Even as Mountbatten toyed with various options for a smaller-scale amphibious operation, Chiang sent another message that he was not willing to play ball without a major naval show. By mid-January, Mountbatten realized that it was too late to put into motion any amphibious operation for that year. So the supreme commander issued a directive rescinding all previous orders for operations in 1944. The only operations that would now be undertaken were an overland advance on Arakan, a limited probe from Imphal–Tamu, an advance on the northern front to cover the construction of the Ledo road, and operations by Long Range Patrol groups.60 Stilwell and the American chiefs made one more attempt to persuade the British to launch a serious offensive on Myitkyina. Roosevelt agreed and a telegram was sent to Churchill. But the prime minister refused to consent.61

  And so the Allies remained deadlocked on Burma. The impasse would be eventually overcome when the Japanese launched their own offensive on India on 7 March 1944.

  14

  War Economy

  While the Allied statesmen and commanders were debating strategy, India began gearing up its economy for the enormous demands of war. Until early 1942, the Indian economy was hardly operating in wartime mode – the government’s attempts at mobilizing it were commensurate with neither the requirements of war nor the latent resources of the country. Nor yet did the government tap into the entrepreneurial energies of the Indian business classes. Indeed, it took rather a narrow view of the kinds of industries that needed to be supported and nurtured. Thus a number of industries were prevented from being set up owing to concerns that they might not deliver the goods quickly, that imports of machinery would eat into shipping, or that they might undercut existing British producers.

  Although Indian business was sympathetic to the Allies, and yearned to make the best of the war, it felt rebuffed by the government. The only crumb of comfort held out to the business community was the appointment in mid-1941 of a director of the Tata Group, Homi Mody, as supply member of the viceroy’s Executive Council. Then, too, the government’s unwillingness to associate Indian industry in managing the war economy, or even in exercises at stock-taking such as the Roger Supply Mission of 1940, rankled deeply. The authorities’ attempts to arm-twist certain industries aggravated their concerns. In July 1941, for instance, GHQ India demanded the use of the Defence of India Act to take control of the entire textile industry, and so ensure the necessary quantum of production for military requirements. While the Supply Department protested against such a drastic move, it agreed that steps must be taken to ensure that government orders were accepted and delivered. The industry responded by collectively rallying against the government. Although a compromise was worked out, by appointing an advisory committee with representatives from the mill-owners’ association,1 the government’s ham-handed methods grated on Indian businessmen.

  Relations between business and government took another hit following the Japanese advance into Burma. At the end of January 1942, the India Office cabled New Delhi about the ‘great military importance [of] “scorched earth” policy in territory invaded by enemy’. Military installations and telegraph networks, harbours and railway bridges, oil stocks and refineries
, key industries and power stations: all must be denied to the enemy.2 Given the concentration of industrial plant in and around Calcutta, the government began actively considering options in the event of a Japanese thrust into eastern India. While priority was accorded to physically removing key plants and materials to distant locations, the viceroy and his advisers were alert to the limitations of any such effort during a crisis. ‘In the last resort’, wrote Linlithgow’s private secretary, ‘we must be prepared to deny the use of valuable plant and materials. A junior officer of the Royal Engineers has been deputed to prepare for demolitions.’3

  When the word got around, Indian business howled in protest. At its annual session of March 1942, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) denounced the adoption of a scorched-earth or ‘denial’ policy. G. D. Birla trenchantly observed that

  we cannot be sure what the position of the enemy in respect of India will be, but supposing in a time of panic we just destroy all the good work that we have done in half a century and if after a few months or few weeks we find ourselves able to push back the enemy into the sea, we would realize that just in a mood of panic we have destroyed all the good work that we have done in a generation.4

  Eventually, while some industrial plant was relocated to other parts of India the government did not destroy anything in haste.

  Political developments, however, imposed additional strains on the relationship between Indian business and government. After the failure of the Cripps Mission, leading businessmen urged the government not to go into a sulk. As the Congress mulled the Quit India resolution, Purshottamdas Thakurdas, J. R. D. Tata and Birla, among others, wrote a joint letter to the viceroy: