From the ashes of Empire

When I was in college in Patna, radio was a novelty. My friends and I used to listen to the news. After Munich, we felt the war clouds had receded, but we were mistaken. Our then imperial rulers declared war against Germany on September 3, 1939. We dismissed the British claim that they were fighting for democracy against fascism.

At that time, we felt some affinity with the Germans because they had adopted the swastika. We rejoiced at German victories and lampooned British “planned withdrawals”. One of us wrote a couplet: “Fateh Sarkar ki hoti hai, Qadam German ka barhta hai (The British are winning but the Germans are advancing).”
There was great excitement when on December 7, 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbour and wiped out the US Eastern Fleet. In those days we rejoiced at spectacular Japanese victories in the Philippines, Indochina, Malaya, Burma and Indonesia. These shattered, forever, the image of the supremacy of the white man in Asia. My grandfather had been a student in Kolkata during the Russo-Japanese War of 1905. He told me how the Russian Baltic Fleet, comprising eight modern battleships and several small warships, had sailed round the Cape of Good Hope towards Japan. The defeat of Japan appeared inevitable. Suddenly, on May 27-28, 1905, the Japanese Navy annihilated the “invincible” fleet of a white imperial power in the Battle of Tsushima. The Russians were also decisively defeated in land battles in Manchuria, and they surrendered Port Arthur, considered impregnable. Those victories were celebrated by my grandfather and his generation and these, in turn, gave a big fillip to the freedom movement in India.
Events moved fast in 1942. Japanese planes bombed Calcutta, setting off an exodus. Blackouts began in Patna. The Japanese occupied the Andamans, which they handed over to the Azad Hind government. They advanced up to India’s borders in Assam. The Quit India Movement in August 1942 caused much turbulence in Bihar. Railway lines were uprooted and government institutions attacked. The Second British Division was deployed to restore order. They were ruthless and there were several reports of atrocities. The Royal Air Force machine-gunned crowds from the air on five occasions, as admitted by Churchill in Parliament. Three of these incidents were in Bihar. Our hostel was closed. I trekked with other students for three weeks from Patna to Purnea, where my father was posted. By 1943 all was quiet. In the absence of Congress leaders, who were all in jail, the Muslim League was gaining strength. I decided to join the Army but had to wait a few months, till January 1944, because 18 was the minimum age for officers and 17 for soldiers.
I was serving with my battalion in Burma during the closing months of the Second World War. My reaction to the dropping of atom bombs and the surrender of Japan in August 1945 was rather juvenile. I told my friends that Asia had been humbled. Our battalion was given the task of guarding Japanese soldiers who were surrendering. We had 8,000 of them in a prisoner of war camp where I was appointed camp adjutant. I was impressed by their standard of hygiene and discipline. The Japanese had treated Allied prisoners very badly. The British wanted to take revenge. The Japanese prisoner was given subsistence rations, almost a starvation diet. Prisoners doing manual work were given more rations. I tried to employ all prisoners in manual work, like road construction, jungle clearance and other duties, to get them higher rations. All Japanese, irrespective of their rank, had to salute Allied officers and had to run up to them when summoned. I was then a captain and felt embarrassed when a Japanese general or colonel saluted me.
After the war, Southeast Asia was in ferment. The Allied forces in Southeast Asia had 80 per cent Indian soldiers. After the war the Army moved to Malaya, Indochina and Indonesia. We had to take the surrender of Japanese soldiers, arrange to send them back to Japan and repatriate Allied prisoners in Japanese custody. The French and the Dutch wanted to re-establish their rule over Indochina and Indonesia respectively, like the British in Burma and Malaya. The Indian Army got involved in fighting insurgencies in Indochina and Indonesia. I was posted to Indonesia.
In Indonesia, many of us felt we had become mercenaries, fighting in support of Dutch imperialism. We discussed our predicament among ourselves. The consensus amongst us was that India would soon become independent, the British officers would depart and our country would need us. We should lie low and bide our time. A disturbing trend was that some of our Muslim soldiers deserted and joined the Indonesians. The latter had also approached some officers. When the Indian Army withdrew from Indonesia, we left behind a large number of Muslim soldiers who had deserted.
The INA trials and the naval mutiny in then Bombay had a great psychological impact on the Indian soldier. Asian nationalism rising out of the ashes of European colonialism in Southeast Asia also had a big impact. There was an increasing realisation of this among British officers. In Indonesia, soldiers of a Maratha battalion refused to act as orderlies to Dutch officers attached to their unit. The British decided not to precipitate matters and the Dutch officers were moved out. In September 1946, the Interim Government came to power in Delhi and one of its first acts was to bring back all Indian troops from Indonesia. I returned. We had our hands full restoring order during Partition and soon thereafter fighting a war in Kashmir. India became Independent in August 1947 and then so did all the countries of Asia, one by one. The colonial era was over. Asia stood fully liberated from white man’s rule. Not only colonialism but racism too was eventually given a burial. Thus, a Nelson Mandela could come to power in South Africa and a Barack Obama in the US. December 7, 1941, was a landmark in the history of mankind, a day that set in motion a chain of events resulting in the present world order.

The author, a retired lieutenant-general, was Vice-Chief of Army Staff and has served as governor of Assam and Jammu and Kashmir.