At the start of the Second World War, India was under British rule or British Raj,
as it had been since 1858, before which it was under the thumb of the British East India
Trading Company. The war itself was a catalyst for change, a violent shake of the snowglobe,
and while it resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Indians,
it also promoted military, economic, industrial, and political growth, with India emerging as
an industrial powerhouse and ultimately breaking the shackles of British rule.
While there were radicals who went as far to side with Axis, not every Indian with anti-colonial
inclinations took up arms against Britain and the Allies. As we all know, millions of Indians fought
alongside the Allies with distinguished bravery, with tens of thousands paying the ultimate price.
The thing is, not all of us do know that, and like so many fighting nations,
India's contributions to the Allied cause are overshadowed by those of other powerful nations;
in this video, we're going to chase off some of that shadow, though we're also going to shed a
bit of light on those radical anti-colonial Indians who marched under Axis flags.
When India declared war on Germany shortly after Britain in September 1939,
the British Indian Army remained a volunteer force, boasting a strength of about 205,000.
Though, despite remaining a volunteer force, its numbers grew to 2.5 million
throughout the war, making it the largest volunteer army that has ever been.
But why would they volunteer to fight for Britain, when so many of their own people were fighting
to be free of British rule? It's certainly more complicated than this, but, for a lot of Indians,
it came down to protecting their homes and their families from a Japanese invasion,
which did come to fruition in the Japanese U Go Offensive. Also, the war was starving
India -- devouring its resources and inflating its economy, and many Indians volunteered for the
army simply to fill their bellies and to make some bank; others joined just for the challenge of it.
On the other side of the desk, the British Indian Army filled its ranks with caution,
recruiting only those who weren't so easily swayed by politics, such as those from regions
of India which weren't so strongly nationalist. Lastly, we must also consider that 2.5 million
isn't a whole lot compared to India's 1939 population of almost 378 million.
So what did the British Indian Army actually do? Well, comprised of infantry, engineer,
artillery, armoured, airborne, and Gurkha units, the army fought on home soil in India,
in South-East Asia, in the Middle East, in Africa, and in Europe. However,
some of its more famous contributions were in the Battles of Imphal and Kohima, in which British
Indian units rebounded the Japanese U Go Offensive and turned the tide of the Burma Campaign,
and in the Battle of Monte Cassino, in which British Indian units replaced withdrawn American
units and spent thousands of lives to help capture the abbey and the mountains surrounding it,
lifting the Italian Campaign out of the mud in which it was stuck.
Overall, it's estimated that some 87,000 Indians lost their lives
fighting for the British Indian Army, while more than 34,000 were wounded,
more than 11,000 were deemed "missing," and between 67,000 and 80,000 became POWs.
But Indian bravery and sacrifice did not go unrewarded. Indians received
4,000 awards for gallantry throughout the war,
including 31 Victoria Crosses and 7 George Crosses. Among those Indians who received
Victoria Crosses were Fazal Din and Namdeo Jadav, whose brave deeds we'll outline now.
At 23, Punjabi Muslim Fazal Din was a Naik, which is equivalent to a corporal,
in the 7th Battalion of the 10th Baluch Regiment. On the 2nd of March 1945, Din and his section were
assaulting a Japanese position in Burma. The section was previously accompanied by a tank,
though the tank had rolled on ahead, leaving the small infantry unit between three enemy bunkers
on one flank and one bunker and an enemy-occupied house on the other flank. Machine gun fire whipped
through the death-channel in which they were caught, and grenades burst all around them. But
Din has grenades of his own, and he lobbed them at the bunker nearest to him, filling its occupants
with metal. He then led his unit against the next bunker, all while under heavy machine-gun fire.
Though, before he could clear out the house, six Japanese soldiers charged out of it,
brandishing swords. Din's Bren gunner managed to gun down one of the onrushing swordsman, though he
expended his mag in the process and was cut down. Din was running to the downed Bren gunner's side,
though before he could reach him, a Japanese officer ran his blade through Din's chest
and out his back. But the heroics of Naik Fazal Din didn't end there. After the officer slid his
sword out of his chest, Din wrestled the sword from the officer's grip and used it to slay him.
He then cut down two other Japanese soldiers with that very same blade and, waving the bleeding
weapon through the air, rallied his section onward, ultimately allowing them to take the
enemy position, which had been held by 55 men. Din staggered to his platoon's HQ, made a report,
and collapsed, dying soon after from his wounds. His Victoria Cross was awarded posthumously.
Also at 23, Namdeo Jadhav was a Sepoy in the 1st Battalion of the 5th Mahratta Light Infantry
regiment, and on the 9th of April 1945, he and his company were assaulting the floodbanks of a
section of the Senio River in Italy. The Germans had hollowed out positions in the banks and sown
the banks with mines, and while Jadhav was wading through the five-foot deep, fifteen-foot wide
section of the river, the Germans open-fired on his company, killing all but Jadhav, his company
commander, and two other men, who were both gravely wounded. While under heavy machine-gun
and mortar fire, Jadhav carried one of the wounded men through the river and up the slippery face of
a floodbank through a belt of mines. Jadhav then returned for the other man, making the daring trip
all over again, and once both of his wounded comrades were in relative safety, Jadhav let
out his rage through the barrel of his Tommy Gun, killing everything in the nearest German dugout.
During his vengeful assault, however, Jadhav was wounded in the hand, rendering him unable
to use his firearm. But that didn't even slow this courageous Sepoy. Jadhav ditched his Tommy Gun and
started lobbing grenades instead, obliterating two more German posts. He then stood out in the open,
mortar shells blowing up all around him, and shouted the Maratha war cry while waving the other
British Indian companies over the river, allowing them to secure a better bridgehead and ultimately
thwarting all German resistance in the area. Namdeo Jadhav survived the war and continued
to serve in the British Indian Army and, subsequently, the Indian Army until 1963.
To conclude this section on the British Indian Army, Field Marshal Sir Claude Auchinleck said
that Britain "couldn’t have come through both wars if they hadn't had the Indian Army," and British
historian Yasmin Khan said, “Britain did not fight the Second World War, the British Empire did.”
Though, it wasn't all battle cries in the face of the Axis. As we said, tens of thousands of
Indians actually fought alongside Axis powers, with by far the greatest proportion of these men
serving in the Indian National Army or INA, which was forged in an alliance with Imperial Japan.
Basically, Indian revolutionary leader Rash Behari Bose proposed the Indian POWs captured by the
Japanese in the Malayan Campaign and in Singapore be released and unified in an anti-colonial
pseudo-military force, which the Japanese agreed to. Differences between the INA's
leaders and the Japanese military led to the INA being disbanded in the same year it was created,
1942, though Indian nationalist Subhas Chandra Bose reunified the INA in 1943,
building the force to a strength of around 43,000. Reinvigorated by Chandra Bose,
the INA fought alongside Japan against the British Indian Army and the Allies in the Burma Campaign,
most notably in the aforementioned Battles of Imphal and Kohima. Though, after the war, 16,000
INA members were repatriated to India, and 11,000 of them were tried for treason. While the Allies
may have viewed the INA as Axis collaborators during and immediately after the war,
many Indians commemorated them as patriots after India broke the shackles of British Raj. So, yes,
the situation was a little bit more complicated than "Allied equals good" and "Axis equals bad,"
and the men of the INA still fought bravely for what they, and many other Indians, believed in.
Indian POWs and expatriates in Europe were similarly unified in the Free India Legion,
which was first assigned to the Heer and then the Waffen-SS,
under which it was known as the "Indian Volunteer Legion of the Waffen-SS." The same Chandra Bose
initiated the formation of the unit, and it peaked at a strength of around 4,500.
An anti-colonial Indian unit known as Battaglione Azad Hindoustan was also formed in Fascist Italy,
growing to a strength of about 400. This unit was disbanded, however, as the Italians feared
the Indians weren't wholly loyal, which proved to be true when Axis forces were defeated in
El Alamein in November 1942 and the Indian troops of Battaglione Azad Hindoustan committed mutiny;
these Indians were returned to the POW camps from which they were recruited.
While we've covered the contributions of the British Indian Army and some Axis-collaborating
Indian pseudo-military forces, India also contributed to World War II in many other ways,
such as providing financial and industrial support to the Allies, which included supplying them with
huge quantities of armaments, and allowing the construction of US military bases in India for use
in the China-Burma-India Theatre. Though, those are, perhaps, the topics of subsequent videos.
For now, we hope we've provided you with some insight into the bravery of and sacrifice of
Indians in the Second World War, a topic that sorely needs some more light cast upon it.
But we're interested to hear what you think. Why do you think Indians volunteered to fight
for the British even though the British were basically occupying their country?
Also, do you think Axis-collaborating Indians like those in the Indian National Army were patriotic
heroes, or do you think they were traitors? Please share your thoughts down in the comments.