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- [00:01]
William Dalrymple
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- [00:59]
Anita Arnand
Hello and welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arnand.
- [01:03]
William Dalrymple
And with me, William Dalrymple.
- [01:05]
Anita Arnand
Well, we're doing something a little bit different today, so this episode is going out just before Remembrance Weekend, so we thought we'd do something on the Indian army troops that fought across the empire during the first and second World Wars. And we have a fabulous guest, don't we?
- [01:20]
William Dalrymple
William Yasmin Khan, whose book the Raj at War I rave reviewed when it first came out three or four years ago. I wrote one of the most enthusiastic reviews I've ever written for this book in the Spectator, which is not my usual point of your usual birth, is it? But there we go.
- [01:37]
Anita Arnand
Well, do you have to file from home or do they allow you into the building?
- [01:41]
William Dalrymple
I did file from home for that.
- [01:42]
Anita Arnand
Did you?
- [01:43]
William Dalrymple
Okay, not sure I necessarily will be let it now that Michael Gove is manning the door. But there we go.
- [01:49]
Anita Arnand
Sort of imagine sort of gun turrets pointed at your silhouette.
- [01:52]
William Dalrymple
It is true. The rudest review I've ever written is also of the current editor, Michael Gove, which was I regard as one of my great achievements, was to have got a rude review of his terrible 77 Chelsea 77 book, which is a profound Islamophobia, into the paper he wrote for, which was the Times and the Sunday Times, and he discovered it on the Friday night and tried to have it spiked. And I'm very glad to say that the literary editor threatened to resign if he wasn't run in full and so appeared in full in his paper, which is one of the few triumphs I've had over anyone in the Conservative government.
- [02:25]
Anita Arnand
What you're basically doing right now is writing a daily Mail call. Someone's gonna pick this up and run with it. That's what's gonna happen. Anyway, look, none of our Loyal members.
- [02:35]
William Dalrymple
Would dream of doing anything against us.
- [02:36]
Anita Arnand
It's all a free press, my darling. It's a free press. Okay, look, so just to start with, something that really gets into the heart of what we're discussing today. So if you've ever been to Constitution Hill, at the end of the Mall in Westminster, there are these gates. I mean, they're called gates, but they're more like four huge pillars called the Commonwealth Gates in memory of those from the Commonwealth who fought for Britain during the Second World War. And the thing is, even that very title is quite interesting because the Commonwealth didn't really exist during the Second World War. Didn't exist at all. Didn't exist at all. Not even emotionally. Didn't even slightly exist. It was the British Empire. But you can't put, I suppose, the British Empire on that gate. Can I also just pay tribute to the woman who really drove that through?
- [03:20]
William Dalrymple
Oh, you so can. Yeah.
- [03:22]
Anita Arnand
Our dear departed Baroness Shrila Flather. Who? She was the first Asian woman in the House of Lords. She was a tiny woman who died earlier this year, but she certainly didn't.
- [03:33]
William Dalrymple
Feel like a tiny woman by the time that she charmed you.
- [03:36]
Anita Arnand
Pocket Rocket is how I would describe her. Utterly, utterly full of charm from head to toe. And it was just through sheer will and bloody mindedness, which really was her. And acres of charm.
- [03:49]
William Dalrymple
Acres, yeah, Oodly.
- [03:50]
Anita Arnand
That she managed to get these gates built and through and was always a source of great pride. So just, you know, she's not with us anymore. She's sort of recently left as she was.
- [03:58]
William Dalrymple
When did she die?
- [03:59]
Anita Arnand
Recently. This year?
- [04:00]
William Dalrymple
Yeah.
- [04:01]
Anita Arnand
No, very, very sad.
- [04:02]
William Dalrymple
She was always at parties, being very, very charming and quite flirtatious, as I seem to remember.
- [04:05]
Anita Arnand
Oh, gosh. Should have seen her in the House of Lords. I used to have lunch with her every so often. I mean, the old peers loved it. She was an outrageous flirt. Anyway, look back to you, Yasmin, let's talk to you. The origin of these gates. How recent was it that people actually started considering the contributions of those, we call them now, Commonwealth soldiers or Empire soldiers to the British war effort during the Second World War?
- [04:26]
Yasmin Khan
Those gates only were established in 2002, but it just means when the millennium turned, people really weren't reflecting at all on the contribution of Empire or Commonwealth to the Second World War. It's only such a recent thing that that's actually started to happen.
- [04:42]
Anita Arnand
So, I mean, you wanted to take this story right back to Delhi, didn't you?
- [04:45]
William Dalrymple
So, yes, I mean, you mentioned the gates in London, thinking of New Delhi, New Delhi itself, which looks today as if it's been there for millennia. You know, the great Raisina Hill, Rastrapati Bhavan, India Gate. All that is so ingrained in our mind. It's like the Red Fort or the Kut of Manar. It feels millennia old, but in fact, it was only finished in 1929. And if you read the press from the time people are writing about it, as this is a quote, Lord Stamfordham, it's a symbol of the might and permanence of the British Empire. He said that the Indian would see for the first time the power of Western civilization. And there's absolutely no feeling in 1929 that the end of the Raj is anywhere near. How on Earth between 1929 and 1940, how did sort of, you know, 200 years of history get crushed into such a short period of time?
- [05:35]
Yasmin Khan
You're absolutely right. And when you look at New Delhi and you think that was built in 1929, it's extraordinary that they're gone within sort of 17 years.
- [05:42]
William Dalrymple
Seventeen years later, they're off. They're running down the Union Jack. Yeah.
- [05:45]
Yasmin Khan
But I think your portrayal of it leaves out the sense that there were always British people who wanted to go, who wanted to pull out. I think the division is among British people. There were liberals who always said home rule, which Ireland has had, which Canada and Australia, they've all had home rule. India is the next up, and there's plenty of people who are waiting for that to happen. But then you have your Die Hards and you have your Churchills. You have Linlithgow. You have those who absolutely cannot imagine anything.
- [06:12]
William Dalrymple
So who's Linlithgow? Because he's an important person in our story as the war nears and then breaks out.
- [06:17]
Yasmin Khan
So he's the Viceroy when the war breaks out. And Nehru had a brilliant description of him as, I think, heavy of body and slow of mind. Brilliant, crushing description of this man who was a bit plodding and didn't really grasp the nettle or any of the challenges.
- [06:37]
William Dalrymple
Who appointed him? What was he doing there?
- [06:39]
Yasmin Khan
Well, I mean, there was a whole series of viceroys who've come through at different points. I mean, he's appointed by the British government. He's there as the man in charge of Indian affairs, but he didn't recognize the urgency of the independence movement and how critical things were getting. And I think that's the key thing. And when war breaks out, all the British and Europeans in India are kind of horrified. Of course, by what's happening in Germany and among the Nazis and what's happening in Europe. He just assumes that Indians are going to feel the same way and says that it's so morally evident, our moral case is so strong, that everybody will approach it the same way. And he doesn't kind of recognize the threat.
- [07:20]
Anita Arnand
Is it a unified response from Indians, though, or is it quite a complicated response from Indians?
- [07:25]
Yasmin Khan
It's really complicated because there are generations of soldiers who've made their careers and brought their family income through serving the British Raj, especially in Punjab. But there are regiments all over India who have been loyal traditionally to Britain and have been rewarded for that. And that goes right back to the 19th century, but into the First World War.
- [07:46]
William Dalrymple
Just talk about that one second. Because to our modern views, particularly if you're of Indian or Pakistani heritage, you tend to think of these guys who've been fighting as sepoys or whatever, as mercenaries, who couldn't possibly have felt anything for these invaders. What's going through their minds as they sign up? Are they basically saying that we like this empire, or are they just mercenaries? Are they fighting for money?
- [08:07]
Yasmin Khan
It's a mix. There are some who clearly want food. You get meals, you get clothed, there's a pension attached. Families are going to be supported by one man going off and fighting. So there's a mercenary element for sure. It's very similar to the Gurkhas in Nepal as well, who are in the same boat. But there is also evidence of people saying, our homeland, our motherland is in danger, God save the king, rallying to the flag. Both those strands run through the response. When the war's starting and it is complicated and it very much depends on people's own histories and their families and their own position.
- [08:40]
Anita Arnand
Is it colored at all by the First World War when, you know, people were asked to sign up and told that they would be rewarded with great riches, land, mules, that kind of thing. And then when they return, what they get is even more draconian laws through the Rowlett act. And there's a sense of betrayal at that point.
- [08:57]
Yasmin Khan
They do get those draconian laws. But there is also irrigation put in place in Punjab. There are schools for army kids, there are hospitals. So in a way, the British are very careful to nurse these districts around Dulanda and places where lots and lots of troops have always been recruited. And so the Fisbo war does play a role because some of the letters say, I fought in the First World War. I'm sending my son to. To you. There was even a Medal for women who had three or more sons going into the Indian army in the Second World War, which is just extraordinary because they're just paying off these mothers to send their men.
- [09:31]
William Dalrymple
Yasmin, give us a picture of India just before the outbreak of war. Obviously the independent struggle has been going on for a long time now. Where are we on that whole run?
- [09:41]
Yasmin Khan
There was a bit of a stalemate really. There'd been such a long struggle as you know, Gandhi has been trying to defeat and bring independence to India since the First World War. By 1937 you've got provincial governments in India which have some Indian participation and there's some sort of electorate. So Indians are much more involved in running the state than they ever would have been in the past. But at the same time, ultimately they're not able to really participate in their own sort of foreign affairs, central economy.
- [10:11]
William Dalrymple
And tell us a little about the views of Indians for the previous three or four years. We've had the Nazis rearming. It's very clear war is coming and all France. What do Indians think of the Germans and the Japanese in 1939? What are the attitudes to these forces which will soon be attacking the Raj?
- [10:27]
Yasmin Khan
So there's some people who are adamantly anti fascist in India and I think Nehru is among them. He goes to Spain to support the International Brigades and the Spanish Civil War. There are those on the left, like Emin Roy, who are communists, who are very strongly against fascist rule in the rise of Germany. But it's complicated, as it always is, because there are also very strong feelings that independence should come first, that it's Europe's war and that nationalism should come first, independence should come first, so that people have self determination, they're able to determine their own foreign policy and make that decision collectively. And that's very much Gandhi's position, that India can't be taken into a war against its will and shouldn't be sort of dragged into a war that it's not actually initiated or been part of. Because the epicenter of the war, at the beginning at least, is very much in Europe. Of course, it does shift eastward when Japan comes in.
- [11:19]
Anita Arnand
It's such a gear shift for him because during the First World War he was a big cheerleader. He was telling people, sign up, join up, you know, go and fight. And if you, if you can't fight this battle in the First World War, you don't deserve to have your own country. This is a man who has done a complete turnabout on this idea that somehow Indians owe loyalty and fealty to the battles of the British. The call goes out, who signs up, how many sign up.
- [11:42]
Yasmin Khan
There are very rapid recruitments and there's tens of thousands of men rushing forward. So the army at the start of the Second World War is under a million men, and by the end it's two and a half. It really kind of grows into the largest standing army. I mean, certainly the largest volunteer army in world history.
- [12:00]
Anita Arnand
And what kind of age profile, what were they like?
- [12:02]
Yasmin Khan
Some of them are really young and actually quite a few of them didn't have birth certificates. You know, I think there are other people who are in the war joining up who probably aren't quite old enough, but definitely some of the photos you see, they're sort of 14, 15, they're not quite shaving.
- [12:15]
William Dalrymple
You have a wonderful line in your book. Right at the beginning, you said, britain did not fight the Second World War, the British Empire did. Could you address that? Because, again, in Britain we have this idea that, you know, plucky little Britain takes on the Nazis alone, this tiny little island surrounded by enemies. But you make the point very strongly in your book that huge numbers of troops, not just from India but across the Empire, sign up and fight the Second World War alongside white Brits from Britain.
- [12:40]
Yasmin Khan
Yeah, I think I was motivated by years of being educated in the British school system and doing lots of war history at GCSE and A level and never really understanding the Eastern aspect of the war at all, let alone any of the imperial contribution. And suddenly when you see that there are troops in North Africa, they're in Sicily, they're in Malaya, in Burma, they're all over the world. And I think for British kids who have a link to South Asia, this is really important in connecting them to their own sense of participation in a really important part of British history.
- [13:13]
Anita Arnand
I went through exactly the same education system you did, and really it was only later in life that I knew that people I knew from my family would have been involved in the Second World War. It was, to me, it was mind blowing. What was the attitude at the time of British senior officers to their Indian troops?
- [13:30]
Yasmin Khan
That's a good question. And like a lot of these things, there's always an example that runs one way and an example that runs the other. So there's camaraderie. There are emergency commissioned officers, so they're sort of younger men. In fact, I had a grandfather who was one who go out from Britain and are pretty pally with their Indian troops because they've grown up in a different way, they're younger, they admire their bravery, they want to sit in the same mess with them, they want to eat the same food, they don't want to be separated out. And sometimes struck up lifelong friendships. I mean, the National Army Museum, I found these letters sometimes that went on right in through the 60s and 70s between officers and their men, which is really touching. And some of those officers actually sponsored then or helped men come across who settled in the uk. Some of those first factory workers who come in the 1950s to Bradford and Birmingham often stayed with or were helped across by their officers. There's some really strong, touching relationships there. On the other hand, the top jobs and not going to Indians.
- [14:30]
Anita Arnand
Was there a limit placed on how high a rank an Empire soldier could reach?
- [14:34]
Yasmin Khan
They couldn't become a commander.
- [14:36]
William Dalrymple
So the war breaks out, obviously, 1939, in Britain, you enter what's called the Phoney war, when nothing much happens for a few months. But in India, I mean, you get the impression of the Japanese moving pretty quickly towards India, across Southeast Asia, Singapore in what, 1942. Yeah.
- [14:54]
Yasmin Khan
When the Japanese entered the war in 1942, that changes everything, because suddenly the war is not an abstract thing happening in Europe. It's really on the doorstep of India. And there's actually a real threat of Japanese invasion. There are bombs. I've seen a bomb in a museum in Vizag.
- [15:11]
William Dalrymple
They bomb the port in Vizag, don't they? And Madras, where is Vizag?
- [15:14]
Anita Arnand
Vizag is on the eastern coast.
- [15:16]
Yasmin Khan
So there are real threats of invasion. And there is a little moment at the beginning of 1942, George Orwell says India is the most critical place in the world right now because there's this kind of few weeks where it's looking a bit wobbly in real terms. They probably would never have actually managed to hold India, the Japanese. But they do take the Andaman Islands, they do take Burma, so they're very close. And that creates, you know, all sorts of implications in India itself.
- [15:42]
William Dalrymple
But between the declaration of war in 1939, the sudden emergence of the Japanese threat moving very rapidly from 1942 over Southeast Asia. I mean, are Indian troops going to the Western Front? Are they being shipped out of the country?
- [15:55]
Yasmin Khan
A few, but really the main place is North Africa, so they push back Rommel in North Africa. So there's big battles at El Amin. There are lots and lots of troops from India. Those are some of the first big fights in the Second World War. And they're really nasty battles because there's not a lot of air cover and there's not a lot of hardware. The troops are pretty poorly equipped. It's more like the First World War. They're sort of trying to take positions, just using their kind of weapons and their fists. And there's some real heroic deeds done by Indians, but there's also a lot of losses and I think thousands of men were killed during some of those battles. Some of the statistics on who was lost even are a bit hazy.
- [16:34]
Anita Arnand
So you have all of these sometimes incredibly young men who've signed up to join and fight for the British. Where are these Indian soldiers sent exactly?
- [16:42]
Yasmin Khan
They initially are going to North Africa mostly. Some men go to the Western Front and are evacuated at Dunkirk with their mules. But the majority of men are going to North Africa and they're in Eritrea. They're in present day North Africa pushing back Rommel and fighting at battles like El Amin and really fighting hard. It's nasty war that. It's more like the Feswell War. They're so really not very well equipped. There's not much air cover and they're fighting hand to hand combat. And quite a few Indian soldiers get recognized through Victoria Crosses and things. I also suspect that there were lots of deaths that weren't properly registered during some of those battles because it was a mess.
- [17:20]
William Dalrymple
And so what are they doing? They're going by boat from Bombay to Port Suez and then shipped up across the North African coast. How are they getting there?
- [17:26]
Yasmin Khan
They're taken to Port Suez, they're offloaded and then they're deployed in these battles and they don't know where they're going because it's top secret. And then they are often waiting in the desert. And some of those regiments, they've been trained already on the Afghan frontier in the Northwest Frontier provinces. They've often fought there and some of them then get moved all around the place. They do desert warfare, they fight in jungles. Some of those soldiers had extraordinary experiences.
- [17:53]
Anita Arnand
So you were talking about very dirty warfare and the fact that Victoria Crosses were handed out. I mean, are there any specific acts of daring do that stick out in your mind?
- [18:02]
Yasmin Khan
There's one guy called Rich Paul Rahm who won one of the very first Victoria Crosses in the Second World War. And he won it during a battle called Keren, which was a very nasty, vicious battle and he was killed during that attack. And his wife, who was a kind of Punjabi peasant who'd never been to Delhi before, she went to Delhi and collected the medal on his behalf and was splashed all over the newspapers. Of course it was recruitment propaganda. In lots of ways. But it's just this extraordinary photograph of this lady collecting a medal on behalf of her husband, who died thousands of miles away.
- [18:37]
William Dalrymple
And Anita, you have a story from Dunkirk.
- [18:38]
Anita Arnand
It's one of the earliest scoops I got and I'm so proud of it. And it was a really flippant conversation I was having with Paddy Ashdown, who used to be leader of the Liberal Democrats. And we were just talking about parents. And then he somehow brought up this story about how his father faced a court martial after Dunkirk. He was at Dunkirk because an order was issued, cut loose your Indians and your mules, because there weren't enough transports. And he said his father had refused to obey the order and point blank said, no, I'm bringing my Indians back with me. And then faced a court martial where he was found innocent. He was cleared of all charges. But that order has always stuck in my brain. Cut loose your Indians and your mules. And it was a big front page story here. I mean, it went huge in this country because you don't think that that's possible.
- [19:20]
William Dalrymple
Well, that's now a good time to take a break. When we come back, we will be looking at the response in Delhi to this order. Welcome back. So, Yasmin, talk us through what's been going on in the political field in Delhi. So they haven't consulted the Congress or the Muslim League. What's their reaction to the British Army's horrific order to cut loose your Indians and your mules during the evacuation of Dunkirk?
- [19:51]
Yasmin Khan
They're horrified. They're absolutely aghast. It's a real failure of diplomacy on the British side because actually it's about a snub in a way. I think if Linlithgow had brought them in and she really talked to them and made it look like a Congress decision, perhaps the outcome could have been.
- [20:06]
William Dalrymple
Different because Nehru was very anti fascist. He'd be very keen to have a crack.
- [20:09]
Yasmin Khan
Exactly. And Nehru is in agonies actually about the right position at that point because he is very anti fascist and he doesn't know, you know, what to do. His best friend, for instance, Krishna Menon back in London, is in air raid precaution work, helping sort of stave off the Blitz. So there's a lot of dilemmas there for some of those individuals. But politically, the Congress and Gandhi particularly says, this is just not on. You can't put us in a war that we haven't acquiesced to and therefore endanger India. And so Gandhi starts this low key civil disobedience individual satyagraha. So trying to kind of not make it too big a movement but to really make a protest.
- [20:46]
William Dalrymple
Yeah, that escalates, doesn't it?
- [20:48]
Yasmin Khan
Absolutely. We get into the Quit India movement which is frankly one of the greatest uprisings. In fact, one of the Viceroys, Linlithgow at the time writes back to London saying we're facing the greatest uprising against the British since 1857. And they really feel it's like a replay of 1857 and both sides are.
- [21:05]
William Dalrymple
Feeling put out because the Indians haven't been consulted. But the British feel that their backs against the wall and they're not getting support when they need it.
- [21:12]
Yasmin Khan
You see that reflected in friendships too. Even quite liberal left leaning, pro Indian British people, Leonard Woolf for instance, or some of that sort of Bloomsbury circle are really aghast at India's position in the Second World War because they can't square it with their friendships. They can't understand why this doesn't come first fighting Germany. Whereas Gandhi says, well this is not our war. You know, we're caught between two empires, we're caught between the Japanese Empire and the British Empire. It's not our war. And if it is going to be our war we should at least have the opportunity to say so.
- [21:41]
Anita Arnand
Gandhi takes a fairly, in the eyes of the British, a fairly intransigent and they would say treacherous line when it comes to the war. What is Jinnah doing? And also can we talk about another name which people will not be familiar with here in Britain but they are so aware of it in India. But Subhash Chandra Bose, who's another Indian who is making great waves here. So let's start with Jinnah's position. Where is he in all of this?
- [22:01]
Yasmin Khan
He sees an opportunity to curry favour and he sees an opportunity to actually support recruitment. A lot of his supporters are in the north west, but he also sees that this is a chance to actually gain favour with Churchill and with the British and to actually push his own agenda. And it's no coincidence that in 1940 you get the Lahore Resolution which is the first time Mussolini really kind of starts to articulate the demand for a separate state. And although that's hazy and it's not very well worked out, it's a product of the conditions of the Second World War that the Muslim League starts to.
- [22:35]
Anita Arnand
Shout louder and Subhash Chandra Bear is the other name that I mentioned. First of all, let's physically describe what he was like. So he was a Bengali, he was sort of soft bodied, chubby face, almost sort of childlike face, very distinctive round glasses. Would wear what we call now a nether cap, which is like the Nehru hat that you've probably seen in many, many of the pictures, but always dressed in a khaki uniform and he is not on side at all, to say the least. Yasmin, tell us what Subhash Chandra Bose's position is. During the Second World War.
- [23:02]
Yasmin Khan
There's a lot of Indians who look at Germany and Japan and particularly Italy and they think these are countries that have built themselves up, they've made themselves manly and strong and they're unifying their nations. Now of course we look back with horror at this because of fascism, but there was an idea that, you know, drilling and discipline and wearing uniforms and building up a strong manpower body was what modern nations needed. And that was a, that was a really current way of thinking in the late 1930s. And Bose really is seduced by that.
- [23:29]
William Dalrymple
What does Bose do then?
- [23:30]
Yasmin Khan
So he goes to Germany.
- [23:32]
William Dalrymple
How does he get there? Give us a quick glimpse of his escape.
- [23:34]
Yasmin Khan
It's his departure from Germany that's more interesting than how he gets there. Which is, which is that he's taken out by U boat to Japan and is making connections between Nazi Germany and Japan and India. And he is, he is actually trying to foment pro Japanese feeling in India through underground radio, through propaganda. But then he also actively ferments rebellion within the British Indian army and calling.
- [24:00]
Anita Arnand
His the Indian National Army. I mean, he gives a name to this resistance, the Indian national army, which he says, you know, rise up, slit the throats of your British commanders, come and fight with the Japanese. They are more your friend and it, to me, you know, for those who haven't seen, he looks like such a sort of soft faced librarian. But this is the hardest line any of the Indian nationalists have taken throughout.
- [24:21]
William Dalrymple
So Gandhi and Nehru are in jail, Jinnah is campaigning and suddenly now talking very clearly about a Muslim homeland. Pose is first in Nazi Germany, then in Japan and then in 1942 the Japanese sweep down very dramatically and engulf Singapore and then raid and take over Burma. And a mass of Indian refugees go up by foot through the jungle. I mean a nightmare march, horrible, horrible situation.
- [24:47]
Yasmin Khan
I mean all these Indians, although some of them had been born in Burma, but they're Indian workers and labourers who've been working in Burma have to leave very, very quickly. And they are walking, as William says, through these mountains, through this jungle and this cholera dysentery, refugee camps. Actually it kind of anticipates the refugee camps we see later with partition. And Gandhi says there was one route for blacks and one route for whites.
- [25:11]
Anita Arnand
But what about the British leadership? I'm always intrigued by Churchill. So Churchill knows how much he's relying on these Indian troops. His generals are telling him how much they need these Indian troops. What is his attitude towards Indians fighting in the Second World War?
- [25:23]
Yasmin Khan
Shedding was supportive of the troops, but constantly made furious by this resistance to British rule. And during Quit India, he absolutely snaps. And the official British figures of people killed during the Quit India movement, when there's resistance to British rule sort of breaks out in a forceful way with people cutting telegraph wires and pulling up railway tracks and trying to bring down the administration. At least 2000 Indians were kill during that. And those are the official figures. So it's probably, you know, considerably more. And Churchill is apoplectic. He just says, how can they be doing this at a time when we've got to win a war? And we really see that feeling coming out in 1943 in his reaction to the famine.
- [26:04]
William Dalrymple
So let's talk about the famine. So in the middle of all this, we've got Quit India, we've got Congress in jail. The Japanese are advancing up Burma, heading towards northeast India. And amid all this, partly exacerbated by the government in India removing boats and knocking down bridges and trying to protect their communications, an enormous famine breaks out in Bengal, something which Britain is barely aware of even now.
- [26:26]
Yasmin Khan
It's really hard to talk about because when you look at the photographs, they are so distressing. I mean, there were people who draw the comparison at the time with the concentration camp photographs that they saw once they were released in 1945. It's very distressing to see photographs from that time and to think about over 3 million people who died.
- [26:44]
William Dalrymple
And how far are the British responsible for that? I mean, famines take place in India, but they don't help.
- [26:49]
Yasmin Khan
This is the million dollar question. And of course it's very divided. It's a very divisive question. It's the question, actually, I think in Britain that still riles people because it's not clear. I mean, I don't think Tejo is responsible. Nobody's saying, let's kill Indians. You know, there's nothing intentional about it, there's nothing planned about it. And yet it's a consequence of this wartime situation where the military operation is being prioritized, feeding the troops is being prioritized, and relief to civilian Indians is low on the, on the list. The thing that really sort of makes it nasty and adds this very pernicious element is the fact that Churchill's on the record. I've seen the archives in the National Archives saying, you know, they're breeding like rabbits on the same page as saying, we're not sending relief.
- [27:32]
William Dalrymple
Are they sending Indian grain abroad?
- [27:35]
Yasmin Khan
There's a little bit of export, but not really. But it's the refusal to accelerate relief, even when Wavell, who's now the Viceroy, has taken over from Linithke, demanding it, because he's been warned, Churchill's been warned to Cabinet, saying, you know, we need relief. There's more and more urgent warnings coming. And Wavell, who's no liberal and is a kind of battle hardened general, is sort of scathing in his diaries. I mean, what I would say to anybody who's skeptical about this is just read Wavell's diaries.
- [28:01]
William Dalrymple
He's appalled by Churchill's response.
- [28:03]
Yasmin Khan
He's absolutely appalled. I mean, he says, anyone would think I'm paraphrasing, but you know that he's being punitive, really.
- [28:10]
William Dalrymple
He's deliberately starving Indians to punish them for quit India.
- [28:14]
Yasmin Khan
Yeah, to punish them for quit India. What did he say? I feel that the vital problems of India are being treated by His Majesty's Government with neglect, even sometimes with hostility and contempt.
- [28:24]
Anita Arnand
You've said a really very interesting thing in your writing. You said that there is a strong case for integrating the dead of the Bengal famine into calculations of the global war. Because we do, don't we, with Stalingrad. They're counted. Hiroshima is counted. But those who died in such hideous ways in Bengal are not counted.
- [28:39]
Yasmin Khan
No, they're not.
- [28:40]
William Dalrymple
And these are lies. Numbers. 3 million is half the Holocaust.
- [28:42]
Yasmin Khan
Yeah, I think it is. It is a wartime casualty. I mean, at the same time, of course, there's a great differentiation within Bengal. There are people who are well off, eating quite well. Amartya Sen and others have talked about where food is being distributed and how. But ultimately, I mean, the buck stops with the British administration at that point. And there is a wartime condition of transport, as you mentioned, having done this policy of burning boats, cutting communications because they fear the Japanese are coming. That has really hampered food distribution as well at that time. So, I mean, I try to be balanced about it because I think it's so inflammatory. You know, it's a really, really tricky, sore subject. And I think there's too much simplistic, think about it, on both sides.
- [29:21]
William Dalrymple
Then suddenly we have the beginnings of massive Hindu, Muslim violence.
- [29:25]
Yasmin Khan
Yeah, it's not a happy decade in Indian history. You see, this demand for constitutional settlement is building what the British do say because they know they've got to say something at this point. They can't just carry on with the empire forever. And they say, you know, we will look at independence after the war. They don't put a date to it, but there is some sort of quid pro quo. There is some sort of promise. And the Muslim League is building strength. The Quit India movement has blown up. And then in 1946, particularly at the end of the war with demobilization and massive economic crunch, there's this surge of strikes and demonstrations. And some of this is communal, some of this is Hindu.
- [30:03]
William Dalrymple
We have famine, we have violence, we have Quit India. The Japanese are on the doorstep. But. But in the middle of all this, some people are actually doing very well. If you own a factory that can be making military supplies and so on, this is boom time for you.
- [30:15]
Yasmin Khan
Absolutely. I mean, some of the big companies that we know today in India had their foundations in the Second World War. They're making machinery, they're making vehicles. And all sorts of money is flowing into India through that production. So business is booming for some of those big industries. And in the cities, lots of people moving into the cities, women even working in factories. Some wonderful images of women working in tank factories and so on.
- [30:39]
William Dalrymple
And this changes the. The kind of social fabric what we're.
- [30:42]
Yasmin Khan
Seeing is it's a modern India starting. It's a younger generation. There are young women who are much more out in the world in the political world, both on the Congress and the League side. This is the beginnings of a sort of different type of India, I think, and the growth of some of those big cities.
- [31:00]
William Dalrymple
So just as the war progresses and we move from 1942-43, the balance begins to tip. We have this massive battle at Imphal and Kohima. Tell us about that. And then this push back through Burma.
- [31:13]
Yasmin Khan
The pushback is 44. Really. It's 1944 under Slim, who is a popular general, both with Indian and British.
- [31:21]
Anita Arnand
Troops, spoke Hindi as well. I mean, Field Marshal Slim really immersed himself.
- [31:25]
Yasmin Khan
He was really kind of down to earth and presented himself as man of the people. And they managed to rally. There'd been these horrible defeats. And in 1944, I mean, as Slim's book is called, Defeat into Victory, they turned it around, but with the help of the Americans. So, you know, the Americans are there now in force, lots and lots of Americans. When you talk to people in Calcutta, it's amazing how they remember the Americans being there.
- [31:48]
William Dalrymple
So really remote parts of India, Meghalaya and Nagaland, which previously have had very little colonial contact, suddenly found themselves having airstrips and troops flying in in huge numbers. And it all sort of hinges on a. A single tennis court at one point.
- [32:01]
Yasmin Khan
So in Imphal and the battle of the tennis court, where there are men on one side, Japanese on the other, and they can hear each other and see each other. But I think actually the military history buffs say that the Japanese were too stretched, they'd gone too far from Japan, their supply lines were failing, they were breaking up, and they couldn't have held it much longer. And the British and the Americans see the opportunity. They build on an incredible scale. So roads. They have to bring in so many laborers from around India to build these roads that are trying to get through to Burma and also to China so that they don't have to do this thing called flying the hump, which is.
- [32:33]
William Dalrymple
Flying over the Himalayas, where many planes crash into the side of mountain.
- [32:37]
Yasmin Khan
So, in a way, I mean, it's a real white elephant. They only really finish it just before the war ends, but there's still, well, road that they built. And people said it wasn't going to be possible when they started. And by the end of the war, they've actually managed to build this thing. And there are American truck drivers, often black guys from east coast cities. So it's. There's a lot of transformation.
- [32:57]
William Dalrymple
And at the very end, just as the British armies are pushing back and retaking Rangoon, Mountbatten flies in, this time as an admiral, and takes the best rooms in the Strand Hotel.
- [33:06]
Yasmin Khan
I mean, he's been in Ceylon, Sri Lanka, as the Southeast Asian commander, which.
- [33:11]
William Dalrymple
Is the first time Southeast Asia has invented as a word, isn't it?
- [33:14]
Yasmin Khan
Yeah, that would be right, yeah. So he's had that role there. But he comes in at exactly the right moment, if you like. He's typical Mountbatten. He comes in at exactly the right moment to sort of preside over the.
- [33:23]
Anita Arnand
Sweeping in for glory, the victory that.
- [33:25]
William Dalrymple
Other people have worked to.
- [33:26]
Anita Arnand
I mean, you've taken us very neatly to the end of the world, and unfortunately, we could talk to you all day. Can I just ask you, just a thought experiment, but if there had been greater sensitivity, if Lin Lithgow had not been just so arrogant as to not consult any of the Indian leaders about the war before declaring war on behalf of Indians, could things have been different? Could partition perhaps have been different? Could there have been less bloodshed?
- [33:50]
Yasmin Khan
Oh, I think what's important is that the war is transforming India politically and socially. And I think if there hadn't been a war, things would have been very different. And I wouldn't like to blame Jessalyn Lithgow, but I think the whole thing, it's just such a horrible kind of mix of circumstances which leads to this situation in 1947, because people have already gone through years of food shortage, of being under threat of attack, of having lost loved ones or being separated from them.
- [34:17]
William Dalrymple
So just paint us a picture, just to sign off now, of where we are on Victory Day, where the Japanese surrender. What's the situation? India is now a completely different place to what it was in 1939.
- [34:28]
Yasmin Khan
It's a completely different place in terms of the British Raj. There's demoralization. It's civil servants who've been running the steel frame of empire, absolutely exhausted, fed up that they've been stuck in India and haven't been fighting themselves and fighting the Germans themselves. And they can't recruit anymore. They can't get people from Britain who want to go and make a career in India because they can see it's only going to last a short time and there's not much to be had out of that. So the British are just demoralized. Everyone is awaiting the release of the congress leaders from jail. And that's the kind of tenderhooks moment, is they've all been in jail and everybody's thinking, what are they going to say?
- [35:03]
William Dalrymple
So really, the divide between Hindus and Muslims is now sort of irreparably widened.
- [35:08]
Yasmin Khan
It's widening, but I wouldn't say irreparably. I never think it was inevitable, partition.
- [35:12]
William Dalrymple
I think it was a whole lot of dreadful accidents.
- [35:15]
Yasmin Khan
Yeah, I think so. I don't think it was irreparable, but I think things are fraying very badly.
- [35:20]
Anita Arnand
Well, yes. I mean, that really is fascinating. Fascinating and something to mull over. Thank you so much for coming on and thank you so much for giving us so much to think about. That is, though, sadly, all we've got time for until the next time we meet. It's goodbye from me, Anita Arnan, and.
- [35:35]
William Dalrymple
Goodbye from me, William Darymple.