The Raj at War: A People's History of India's Second World War
Language: English
Pages: 432
ISBN: B00UR2SJLI
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
The Second World War was not fought by Britain alone. India produced the largest volunteer army in world history: over 2 million men. But, until now, there has never been a comprehensive account of India's turbulent home front and the nexus between warfare and India’s society. In The Raj at War we hear the myriad voices of ordinary Indian people, from the first Indian to win the Victoria Cross to the three soldiers imprisoned as ‘traitors to the Raj’ who returned to a hero’s welcome, from the nurses in Indian General Hospitals to labourers and their families in remote villages.
Yasmin Khan presents the overlooked history of India at war, and shows how mobilisation for the war unleashed seismic processes of economic, cultural and social change – decisively shaping the international war effort, the unravelling of the empire and India’s own political trajectory.
Prince of Ayodhya (The Ramayana, Book 1)
Maharana Pratap: Born King & a Fearless Warrior
Five Past Midnight in Bhopal: The Epic Story of the World's Deadliest Industrial Disaster
Propaganda papers aimed at soldiers, like Fauji Akbar, Jang ki Kabren and Duniya, Indian Information and the War in Pictures, used professional journalists and intrepid photographers. Officers advocated a light touch when censoring letters home.7 Men felt far more committed to their work if they had reliable news from home and knew the truth about their families and their circumstances. But alongside this new strategy of openness the men were also subject to manipulation by propaganda that played.
Into the party with open arms, and encouraged to stand as a candidate for Parliament once more. Menon, however, and India, had moved on. Now he was destined for diplomacy, a post at the United Nations, the front cover of many magazines, and in his old age would become a controversial Indian Defence Minister. It is difficult not to regard the war as a time of frustration and dashed hopes for Menon, and a period when he felt cut off from old friends and alienated because of Indian affairs that he.
164, 228, 284–5, 295, 297 Coward, Noël 222 ‘I Wonder What Happened to Him’ 222–3 Craig jute mill 165–6 Craik, Henry, Governor of Punjab 22, 54, 55 Crasta, John Baptist: Eaten by the Japanese 294, 306 Criminal Investigation Department (CID) 179, 182, 289 Cripps, Sir Stafford 132, 133, 317 Cripps Mission (1942) 132–4, 139, 140, 177, 196, 219 CSP see Congress Socialist Party Cyprus 203, 236 Dacca Station 211 Daily Express 146 Dalhousie hill station 14 dalits (‘untouchables’) 16, 56,.
INA was swept aside in the fervour of the moment. The vehement outpourings of anger that greeted the INA trials, and widespread rejoicing at the release of the prosecuted men, were the result of a hardened form of nationalism. Everywhere there was a new belief in the power of violence to release India from colonial control, and an upsurge of post-war euphoria which gripped civilians and soldiers alike. Policemen, magistrates and military generals became reluctant to intervene in a cause célèbre.
Newsreels relived their exploits and heroism. The photographs of the famed Indian Victoria Cross winners appeared on collectible cigarette cards around the British Empire-Commonwealth and the Taj Hotel in Bombay printed their faces on menu cards. During the rest of the war, medal winners would be heavily photographed, featured on propaganda, sent on international tours to Britain and the USA. Back in India, once discharged from hospital, Premindra Bhagat Singh found himself fêted as a VIP.