WORLD WAR II: “A BIG, MORAL GLOBAL CRUSADE”
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THE BRIEFING Viewpoints SECOND WORLD WAR
Viewpoints Expert opinions on the historical issues behind today’s news
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India’s neglected war A proposed new memorial in New Delhi omits mention of the Second World War – and, in doing so, downplays the role that conflict played in the birth of modern India BY SRINATH RAGHAVAN
ast September, the Indian government announced an international competition to design a National War Memorial in New Delhi, to honour all of the Indian soldiers who served in the various wars and counter-insurgency campaigns from 1947 onwards. The terms of the competition also specified
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that the new structure would be built adjacent to the India Gate – a memorial to the Indian soldiers who died in the First World War. Between the old imperialist memorial and the proposed nationalist one, India’s contribution to the Second World War is airbrushed out of existence. The Indian government’s conception of the war memorial was not merely absent-minded. Rather, it accurately
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reflected the fact that both academic history and popular memory have yet to come to terms with India’s Second World War, which continues to be seen as little more than mood music in the drama of India’s advance towards independence and partition in 1947. Further, the political trajectory of the postwar subcontinent has militated against popular remembrance of the war. With partition and the onset of the India–Pakistan rivalry, both of the new nations needed fresh stories for self-legitimation rather than focusing on shared wartime experiences. However, the Second World War played a crucial role in both the independence and partition of India. Although the Raj had pulled the country into the war without any consultation with the nationalists (in particular, the dominant Indian National Congress), India played an immense role in the war in Asia. The Indian army recruited, trained and deployed some 2.5 million men, almost 90,000 of whom were killed and many more injured. Even at the time, it was recognised as the largest volunteer force in the war. These soldiers fought in an astonishing range of places: Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaya, Burma, Iraq, Iran, Syria, north and east Africa, Italy, mainland Greece, Cyprus and Crete. India’s material and financial contribution to the war was equally significant. India emerged as a major military-industrial and logistical base for
The political and social churn triggered by the war was evident in the waves of popular protest and unrest that washed over India in the aftermath of the conflict
Allied operations in south-east Asia and the Middle East. This led the United States to take considerable interest in the country’s political future, and ensured that this was no longer the preserve of the British government. Other wartime developments pointed in the direction of India’s independence. In a stunning reversal of its long-standing financial relationship with Britain, India finished the war as one of the largest creditors to the imperial power. Such extraordinary mobilisation for war was achieved at great human cost, with the Bengal famine the most extreme manifestation of widespread wartime deprivation. The costs on India’s home front must be counted in millions of lives. Indians signed up to serve on the war and home fronts for a variety of reasons, including such existential concerns as reliable access to food. Yet over the course of the war many were convinced that their contribution would open the doors to India’s freedom. As a Pashtun soldier who fought in north Africa and Italy told the British official Malcolm Darling: “We suffered in the war… we bore this that we might be free.” The political and social churn triggered by the war was evident in the massive waves of popular protest and unrest that washed over rural and urban India in the aftermath of the conflict. This turmoil was crucial in persuading the Attlee government to rid itself of the incubus of ruling India.
If the war paved the way for independence, it also took the knife to India’s unity. In a bid to cut down to size the Indian National Congress, and to ensure adequate wartime mobilisation, the British had propped up the Muslim League and encouraged its demand for a separate Pakistan. Following the crackdown on the Congress leadership after the Quit India revolt of 1942, the Muslim League had a clear field in which to sow the seeds of Pakistan. That reaped rich rewards in the elections of 1945–46, which set the stage for partition. The staggering violence and ethnic cleansing that accompanied partition also owed a great deal to the militarisation of a large chunk of the population during the war years. Indeed, the districts that had higher numbers of men with combat experience saw significantly higher levels of ethnic cleansing. Seventy years on, it is time that India engaged with the complex legacies of the Second World War. Bringing the war into the ambit of the new national memorial would be a fitting – if overdue – recognition that this was India’s War. Srinath Raghavan is senior fellow at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi. His book India’s War: The Making of Modern South Asia, 1939–1945 is out now in paperback from Penguin
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1 Gaetano Salvemini, the respected historian who formed the antiFascist organisation Italia Libera in Florence 2 Giacomo Matteotti, the socialist politician whose abduction and murder by Fascists spurred resistance efforts 3 Carlo Rosselli, the Florentine activist who was a figurehead in the anti-Fascist movement – until his murder in France in 1937
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4 Piero Gobetti, the writer and editor who led criticism of Mussolini in Turin. Savagely beaten by Fascists, he died of his injuries aged just 24
AKG IMAGES/TOPFOTO/ FONDAZIONE CIRCOLO FRATELLI ROSSELLI
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The thorns in Mussolini’s side During the early years of Mussolini’s dictatorship, brutal blackshirt militia and Italian state forces attacked, exiled and murdered his opponents – yet resistance burgeoned. Caroline Moorehead recounts the stories of brave anti-Fascists who opposed the regime in the face of violent repression
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The ancient fortress of Sigiriya, with its ornate water gardens, towers above central Sri Lanka. Its heyday lasted just two decades before it was abandoned as a capital
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ALAMY
The cities that history forgot
Abandoned historic sites aren’t just enticing travel destinations – they also evidence the enormous challenges faced by ancient civilisations. British Museum curator Jago Cooper explores seven inspiring lost cities
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JOURNEYS In the footsteps of a 15th-century tour of Iberia
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the dramatically sited Benedictine monastery of Montserrat. They undertook the hazardous climb to the main site along a narrow path cut into bare rock, then ascended a ladder to view hermit monks’ cells high on the mountainside. Münzer was greatly fatigued by the steep, rugged terrain, and was relieved to regain the monastery after a two-hour descent. Next day they travelled southwards along the coast, reaching Valencia on 5 October. Impressed by the plentiful olive oil, sugar and pomegranates produced in the region, Münzer described how the local sugar was prepared: “What mounds I saw, in which they form the sugar and make it into loaves shaped like pyramids! We saw the sugar being clarified, and boiled, and separated ... then confected into candy.” More harrowing was the sight of men, women and children brought from Tenerife for sale as slaves. One Valencian merchant carried 87 on his ship, 14 of whom died; the others were sold. Across pleasant plains
Leaving Valencia on 9 October, the companions rode across pleasant plains to Alicante, where they arrived three days later. As they trekked, Münzer noticed plants producing cumin, esparto and aniseed, admired extensive areas of vineyards and observed how the local Muslims dried grapes: “The Saracens make a brew from the ash of vines and other small sticks, and let it settle in a pot for eight days. Then they boil it in fierce heat and with a large perforated ladle dip the bunches in the boiling brew.” The grapes were spread to dry on rush mats for 10 days, then taken to market. On 12 October the four companions traversed a barren plain, once infamous for attacks by robbers, and four days
In Barcelona Münzer was fascinated by an exotic civet cat – a blackish beast with dog-like feet and a fiery temper 8
A woodcut of Münzer’s home town in the Nuremberg Chronicle (1493)
Hieronymus Münzer: roaming Renaissance man Born in Feldkirch in Vorarlberg (now in Austria), Hieronymus Münzer (1437 or 1447–1508) studied at the University of Leipzig, where he became a lecturer. He then learned medicine in Pavia, south of Milan, where he qualified as a physician in 1477 or 1478. He then started work as a doctor in Nuremberg, where he became a leading figure in the city’s Humanist circle. Münzer was a real Renaissance man, an expert geographer who also worked extensively in the fields of cosmography and astronomy. He contributed geographical sections – including the first printed map of Germany – to the famous illustrated biblical and world history known as the Nuremberg Chronicle, first printed in 1493, and wrote a booklet on the nature of wine as well as several medical reports. Münzer was a partner in a trading company run by his brother Ludwig, through which he became very wealthy. In 1480 he married Dorothea Kieffhaber, and they had at least three children. He created a vast library and, while travelling in Italy to escape the plague in 1483, bought numerous books in Rome, Naples and Milan. He became renowned for his 1494–95 grand tour of the Iberian peninsula, described in his Latin account, the title of which translates as ‘The itinerary or pilgrimage of Doctor Hieronymus Münzer of Feldkirch, citizen of Nuremberg, man of both the arts and medicine’. Münzer died in Nuremberg in August 1508, leaving an enormous fortune.
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ore than a century after the Black Death devastated Europe, the danger from plague had receded but was certainly not eradicated. Periodic disease outbreaks prompted many to flee their homes. So it was in the early 1480s that a Nuremberg-based doctor, Hieronymus Münzer, travelled to Italy to evade the plague that was then afflicting Germany. In 1494, the plague flared up once more – and in autumn Münzer again set out from Nuremberg with three companions on what would become a remarkable 7,000-mile horseback odyssey. The quartet traversed Germany, Switzerland and France before looping through Spain and Portugal. Münzer’s diary provides a unique insight into life in the Iberian peninsula soon after the fall of Muslim Granada to the Christian monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492. His sparse, scientific style focuses on the geography, flora and fauna he observed, and on churches, monasteries and relics he visited. Arriving in the Catalan city of Barcelona on 21 September, he was immediately struck by the sight of the great Gothic Cathedral of the Holy Cross and St Eulalia, “with more than 20 altars with gilded images, a noble library and a garden with oranges, lemons and a cypress”. Also in Barcelona, Münzer was fascinated by an exotic civet cat chained in a cage – a blackish beast with grey and white spots, dog-like feet and a fiery temper. Its owner showed the travellers its penis and testicles, from which he extracted some musk with a glass spoon, rubbing it over Münzer’s hands – on which the odour lingered for days. Having enjoyed the lavish hospitality of some German merchants, on 26 September the travellers headed for
Münzer is wowed by the famous cathedral of Santiago de Compostela
Münzer arrives in Barcelona, where he admires the Gothic cathedral and is fascinated by a civet cat
Arriving in Évora, one of Münzer’s companions is knighted by King John II of Portugal
In Madrid, the companions join an audience with King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella
The travellers are distressed at seeing slaves in Valencia
Münzer is unsettled by the “wailing” of the muezzin in Granada
In Almería Münzer sees a mosque – a “devilish temple” – for the first time
ILLUSTRATION BY THERESA GRIEBEN
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