In the First World War, 1.3 million Indians participated and saw service in Africa, the Middle East, Western Europe and the Dardanelles, and Asia. Though the bulk of the Indian troops came from poor, rural areas and weren't literate, their receptive minds could understand the difference between the free West and colonial India. They could understand the strengths and weaknesses of the Allied armies and that of the enemy. They could also understand the hypocrisy of the European powers in fighting for preservation of their own freedom even as they subjugated and ruled over vast masses of land and people elsewhere. The Indian soldier was the first to see and understand the west, its systems, its culture, its people. And he brought that understanding, that enlightenment back home. He also returned a more confident man after having beaten the white man in his own land. Thus in the same Flanders fields, where the seeds of the English Magna Carta were sown several hundred years earlier, the Indian soldier discovered himself and his worth.
Globally, too, the Indian soldier's reputation grew. The French and Belgians saw him as their liberator; Frenchwomen found him worthy enough to let him father their children. The Germans were initially dismissive of them. The German press had maintained that for a country like India, the Indian Army is quite an achievement, but because the soldiers are trained to serve the white man, they will be no match for the superior troops of the Kaiser. The British press, on the other hand, maintained that there was a nasty surprise waiting for the Germans in the Indian Army. After their first contact with the Indian soldier, the Germans started to treat him with respect. And after several night raids on their trenches (the first-ever such raid conducted by the 39th Garhwal Rifles), the German soldier started to see the Indian soldier with fear.
Indian soldiers fighting in Italy during the Second World War
A Daily Chronicle correspondent wrote on November 21, 1914, about Belgians holding their line at Flanders for 48 hours against relentless German attack, and the Indian Army giving the Kaiser's troops a rude shock: "The Germans pressed forward to encounter, not retiring Belgians, but oncoming, swarthy figures. Before they could recover from their surprise, those dusky soldiers were amongst them. There was a short, sharp encounter, and then a rapid German retreat. Fright and the deadly Indian bayonets turned that retreat into nothing more dignified than a scamper to cover. Yet on came the soldiery which, till then, the German had regarded as a myth. The retiring troops were simply dug out of the trenches in which they had taken shelter and driven backwards farther still by the well-aimed bullets and the relentless steel of the East's finest fighters. When the Germans had hoped to break the line, the Indians turned the tide of the battle, and behind them followed the Belgians..."
The German crown prince William, the son of Kaiser Wilhelm II, who had himself commanded an army in 1914, had written this in his book, From My Hunting Day-book: "The Gurkhas are small but extraordinarily wiry and tough little people who fear neither hell nor the devil."
Praise from the enemy is praise indeed.
When the war ended and Indian troops returned home, people expected Britain to grant home rule (like the dominions of Australia, New Zealand and Canada). The government of India gave some indication that home rule was indeed on its mind. Some concessions were made. But those were counterbalanced by equally repressive measures. This, along with the rise of the United States during the war and collapse of the Tsarist regime in Russia after it, changed the course and nature of the Indian freedom movement. The Indian soldier, with his participation in the First World War, had singly influenced the course of history of his own country.
By the time the world went to war again in 1939, India had long buried the desire for home rule — she now wanted total independence. The political opinion at home was against involving Indian troops in the British war effort, but the British still dragged India into the conflict. And they had no problem in finding volunteers for the Army.
At the start of the war, the Indian Army had a strength of over 2,10,000. In 1940, London asked India to raise six more infantry divisions and two armoured divisions for the war. In September that year, General Wavell of the Indian Army (later viceroy) announced at Cairo that the Indian Army's size was being increased to 10,00,000. The previous order was still being met when London issued another order to raise four more infantry divisions and one armoured division. In 1942, again, London asked for four more infantry divisions and an armoured division. By May 1944, the Indian Army had over 26, 68,000 servicemen — the largest army of volunteers in history. The question now is: how did this happen when the political opinion in the country was strongly anti-British?
Men of the 7th Rajput Regiment (now Rajput Regiment) of the Fourteenth Army in Burma, 1944
The answer may be found in the age-old adage that the common man has nothing to do with politics; he is only bothered about making two square meals a day. This was truer in colonial India where there was abject poverty and sickness. At that time, there was no India Inc, no IT boom, no IITs and IIMs to lift the ordinary Indian out of his misery. There was only one thing that guaranteed higher pay and family benefits — military service. It was a sureshot way of upliftment that also brought honour to the family in a country that had deep-rooted military traditions, a country that deified warrior kings and queens. So, despite the freedom movement reaching a crescendo, millions of Indians signed up for the war.
The Second World War, many critics have argued, was a foreign war heaped on us, Indians. True. But without this war, there could be no independence for us.
To be continued ...
(Write to this correspondent at manimugdha.sharma@timesgroup.com)
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/followceleb.cms?alias=World Wars,World War II,World War I,Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose,Indian National Army
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