Since this is Veteran’s day in the United States I felt it was most appropriate to have a post about military matters. Embassy Magazine is a publication targeting the diplomat community in the Ottawa, Canada area and recently ran a piece about the often overlooked Brown soldiers of the two World Wars.
Over 1,300,000 soldiers of Indian ancestry fought in the First World War. It remains the largest volunteer army ever assembled in the history of the world. It was the largest number of soldiers fighting from the British Empire after those from the British Isles. Not Canada, not Australia, no other part of the Empire contributed as many troops.
Two and half million Indian soldiers fought in the Second World War. You might want to read those sentences again.
If this group of soldiers came from anywhere in the Western world and if they were white, there’d be monuments to them in every major Western capital in the world.
I guess thats the way of history though isn’t it? Whoever ends up in charge writes history by highlighting certain things and not emphasizing others.
But most of us don’t know about any of that. Instead we believe what we’re led to believe: that these wars were fought by Europeans or their descendants in North America, Australia or New Zealand, arrayed against the forces of blank — insert the word of your choice — across our world. If any soldiers from the colonies or dominions get featured in those narratives, they’re from those same places. Considering the origins of Kipling’s poem you could call it “the white man’s burden revisited”. Accordingly, we all, even those of us of third world ancestry, owe our freedom and the very existence of Western democracies to the European men and women who fought in the world wars.
Anyway in honor of Veteran’s Day I hope people will take the time to read this article. It is full of facts that should not be forgotten.
Did you know that the last undercover wireless operator in occupied France during the Second World War was a Muslim woman, Noor-un-Nisa Inayat Khan? Undercover agent, multi-linguist, pianist, writer of children’s stories, Khan once shot her way out of a German ambush. The second time she was captured, she was interrogated. They got nothing out of her. Finally, she was sent to Dachau and shot. She was 30 years old.
I need to come by here more often (having you linked should help); y’all have good stuff. This post being a good example of said “good stuff.” Keep it up!
The ethnic press has been carrying a number of profiles of South Asian American soldiers in the US military. One of the stories that caught my eye was that of Sgt. Surjo Banerjee of the US Army, as reported in My Uncle, Fighting in Iraq, Targeted by Gop Voter Purges by Neelanjana Banerjee, and Voter Registrations Challenged in Ohio from ABC News (via the AP).
After all, we’re talking about men and women with brown arms, with last names like “Khan,” “Singh,” and “Ram.” Many wore beards, turbans, spoke in Indian tongues, practicing and maintaining their religions — Sikhism, Hinduism — and dare one say it in 2004, Islam. They fought on land, in the air and by sea.
In today’s world, people with such names and of such appearance tend to make headlines only in association with terrorism or religious fundamentalism, not because they’ve fought for freedom — our freedom — through acts as horrific, bloody, necessary and glorious as anyone else’s.
Hmmmm…or maybe that’s because Islamic fundamentalists aren’t frequently on the side of freedom today. And somehow I doubt this guy would think that the Cold War or the conflict in Afghanistan were “necessary and glorious”.
(I would bet such adjectives would only apply to wars in which nonwhites fought vs. whites…I doubt the author will grant that there was a single military operation involving whites vs. nonwhites where the former was on the side of right & the latter on the side of wrong.)
Still, interesting article, even with this spittle-flecked raving within.
@ the height of the cold war, the US military had an all volunteer force of over 3M men in uniform during the 80s (now it’s down to ~1.5M).
I agree that Indian contributions in WWII are overlooked as are ANZUS and Canadian (for ex., did you know that on D-Day, 1 of the 4 landing zones was entirely allocated to Canada? It feels almost oxymoronic now to imagine hordes of angry, yet polite, Canadians with guns storming the beaches to visit death & destruction upon the enemy Private-Ryan-style.)
BUT, I firmly disagree with the author’s notion that this was a “white war” – fascism in all its forms would have been a scourge upon India far worse than anything the Brits did to it. They sure as hell had a stake in ensuring this Bad Idea was discredited.
BUT, I firmly disagree with the author’s notion that this was a “white war” – fascism in all its forms would have been a scourge upon India far worse than anything the Brits did to it. They sure as hell had a stake in how it turned out.
But would fascism have descended upon India? Remember, the Brits dragged India into World War II without consulting Indian leaders. Subhash Chandra Bose (spelling?) allied himself with Japan in order to free India from British control.
If the Axis powers prevailed, fascism may have indeed enveloped other countries, but not India. Was it right for Britain to drag India into the war just to save her own ass? I certainly don’t think so. It was a “white war” – Britain cared more about her empire than resisting fascism.
This is a BIG can of worms. BUT, I’ll summarize it by saying that ultimately, all battles are about conflicting ideas about society & the individual. (there are opposing theories here about “what’s war all about”… but I’m just giving a taste of this school of thought; and, of course, there are always proximate factors as well – like what were the Brit’s motives in bringing India into war?).
These ideas may have come into India by sword (e.g. Nazi’s invading India) or perhaps by suasion (e.g. India admiring the German politico-economic “miracle” and trying to appropriate it’s “lessons” just like they did the Soviets a decade later).
Fascism was thoroughly discredited by WWII and today it’s pretty much inconceivable that the ideas undergirding Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan really could have a universal appeal or really deliver higher GNP, standard of living, etc. But, at the time, there were a very non-trivial number of folks who seriously believed it and they had a non-trivial amount of data to draw upon to at least argue thier position (compare Japanese to Korean/Chinese GNP at the time, for ex).
But WWII provided a rather conclusive answer to this debate.
More recently, the cold war clearly discredited the idea that Communism / Socialism could deliver these goods. Broadly speaking, there’s consensus now that economies need to be more open, rather than closed, trade is good, comparative advantage exists, etc. (Arundhati Roy aside…)
If the lessons of the cold war were somehow available to India at its independence, the disastrous economic policies that Nehru, Gandhi, etc. subscribed to which shackled an entire generation would almost certainly have been avoided…. regardless of whether India saw itself as “unaligned” in this “war”…
And that’s my point – wars ultimately test ideas – if you’re lucky, it’s in a rather unmistakeable way. Even if you’re not directly involved in the fighting, you are an intellectual heir to the lessons….
(that’s not to say that the horror of war is the best / only way to test ideas !!!!)
(BTW Subhash Bose was also responsible for the Nazi-allied Legion Freies Indien of the German Army)
“If the Axis powers prevailed, fascism may have indeed enveloped other countries, but not India. Was it right for Britain to drag India into the war just to save her own ass? I certainly don’t think so. It was a “white war” – Britain cared more about her empire than resisting fascism.”
Self preservation is obviously at the heart of every society that is threatened. However, the Empire was the last thing on the minds of the British, it was survival. Indian leaders, especially during WWII realised that supporting Britain would be better in the long run.
The Japanese were knocking on the eastern front. Allied soldiers including Americans fought on this front.
At times people overlook how the World Wars and sticking with the British actually gave India a chance as a nation. In WWI, a majority of the British ‘White folks’ who were employed in security and Government were pulled to fight the war.
This resulted in Indians taking up many administrative positions and learning the ropes of Government. By the time the Brits left, India was almost exclusively governed my Indians. As a result, the transistion to a modern Government was smooth compared to many other British colonies (where locals were not involved in administration as Indians were).
That was a little off topic, but Thank You to all the Veterans and Active Duty folks. We owe all Allies for their sacrifices, not just white or brown.
it’s pretty much inconceivable that the ideas undergirding Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan really could have a universal appeal
First, I would say that it’s definitely not inconceivable given that China is pretty much using those exact same ideas. What do you get when “racial pride” is legitimized for poor nonwhites as a means of giving them self-esteem in place of material goods…but then the poor nonwhites start getting richer than whites? You get neo-fascism in China. The Sinos are CINOs…Communists in Name Only 😉
Others may also point out that many/most Islamic and African dictatorships have an avowedly racial component to them (as did most 3rd world Communist ones, for that matter).
or really deliver higher GNP, standard of living, etc
This is an interesting albeit controversial question, which is somewhat off the main topic of the thread. It’s pretty clear that Communism destroys economies – you only need to look at the USSR, Maoist China, North Korea, Vietnam, East Germany, Cuba, etc. and compare their pre-Communist states &/or their expatriate performance &/or co-ethnic states (South Korea, Hong Kong, West Germany) to see what Communism hath wrought.
But while Nazism is clearly awful & comparable to Communism as “worst ideology of all time”, I don’t know if the case for its economic bankruptcy is as cut & dried.
I’ve heard two schools of thought on this issue:
1) That Nazi Germany’s booming pre-war economy was a mirage in the same way the growth figures for the USSR were a mirage…the sort of short term growth concentrated in military sectors that can be obtained by authoritarianism (=Nazism) or totalitarianism (=Communism) in a pre-computer era. In short, that this growth was (to use the left’s word) unsustainable.
2) Conversely, there is another school of thought which says that Nazi Germany’s socialism was not as extreme as the USSR’s outright communism, and would have lead to a similar outcome as modern Western Europe…namely, stultifying long term effects of socialism but not economic collapse.
Also – Nazi Germany may well have been more socialist & centrally planned than Imperial Japan. I find it hard to believe, though, that Imperial Japan’s ideology was going to lead its economy off a cliff. Were they really that socialist? The Japanese had that same adaptability back in 1868 that they do now (i.e. copying & perfecting of Western tech) and I don’t see that being fundamentally altered by the defeat.
It would be nice to believe the evil guys were also dumb & going to screw up their economy with their ideology, but it seems a little too pat (esp. given the massive pre-war economic boom & buildup) to say that their economies were on the verge of collapse. However, if there’s alternative evidence I’d be willing to see it. Note that this is not a defense of Nazi Germany, but simply an observation that their economic policies may not have been as guaranteed to be ruinous as those of the USSR.
A little off topic again. HBO just showed an hour long documentary called ‘Last Letters Home’ about Soldiers who passed away in Iraq as a veterans day special. All cable companies unscrambled the signal for that hour. Their families were shown reading their last letters.
A very powerful, non political, and well made documentary.
These guys were merceneries; joining army was the easiest getaway from poverty.
last time i checked hitler did not hurt a fly in india. whereas that scumbag churchill was responsible for the death of 4 million bengalis during the second world war.
“last time i checked hitler did not hurt a fly in india. whereas that scumbag churchill was responsible for the death of 4 million bengalis during the second world war.”
4 million? That sounds quite high, can you back that up? I dont think you will find anyone who will claim the British Raj had not commited any atrocities. Far from it. They were colonists. But, knowing what we know today would living under the Japanese (not todays version, but imperial Japan) been happy times? Ask the folks in the Phillipines if they preferred their American Colonists vs. The Japanese. Even though you will find many people who don’t like the Americnns, no one will claim to have been better off under the Japanese.
Picking lesser of the two evils was the choice. Indians ulitmately made the right one, eventually leading to a successful and vibrant democracy.
4 million is about the right order of magnitude. The Bengal Famine during WW2 was created by British policy during the war.
Incidentally, Noor Inayat Khan was a descendant of Tipu Sultan. One of the ironies of history.
At the ‘VE’ (Victory in Europe) and ‘VJ’ (Victory in Japan) days to mark the anniversary of the end of World War II, an astonishing fact came to light at the roll call, that it was Indians who outnumbered even the British as the largest recipients of Victoria and George Cross medals, the highest British awards for bravery.