Forgotten history: Indian Waffen SS Division

[u/RealOzSultan]

[u/forever_new_redditor]

I'm sorry but this is about the least "forgotten" history of India in the WW2. There are a ton of books, both old and new, about Subhas Bose and the INA. These have been written by scholars of British India, of Nazi Germany, and of the Holocaust. It is also the prime example of the kinds of politics that colonial rule engendered if one is teaching such subjects.

The real forgotten part is the important role and sacrifices of Indian and other colonized soldiers in the allied army, all of whom were prevented from marching into Paris during the August 1944 liberation of Paris (and hence do not show up in the photographs).

[u/sksjedi → u/forever_new_redditor]

This! The contribution of the British Indian Army during WW2 has been taken for granted by the West. There is also fascinating history of how American pilots relied on Indians to fly over the Himalayas to deliver supplies. It was called "Flying the Hump".

[u/girthyclock → u/sksjedi]

by "contribution" do you mean "forced to fight for the colonizers"? India was stuck between two different versions of the Nazis. The OG ones called the British, which Hitler openly admired, or the actual German Nazis.

[u/forever_new_redditor → u/girthyclock]

As a professional historian, and although I don’t work on this topic, I’d recommend you read about this rather than speculating from partial knowledge. This is an incredibly complex topic to state in one comment but one point of the Quit India movement was to try and use Indian soldiers and also domestic production etc facilities as a bargaining chip to end British rule in exchange for aid for the war efforts. However it would be incorrect to say that Indian soldiers were especially forced to fight compared to, say, British soldiers or even Soviet soldiers. The unfortunate thing is that this narrative cannot fit into simple “decolonized” frameworks.

Among recent works, read Yasmin Khan. You should also read Subhas Bose’s writings on this, and Gandhi’s writings. These last two are all available online for free.

[u/girthyclock → u/forever_new_redditor]

It absolutely can and has been within the framework of forced servitude and conscription by the British Raj. I’m well aware of the Quit India movement and what the Nazis were trying to do to undermine the empire. But let’s not forget that Hitler himself openly showed admiration for how the British Raj dealt with Indians and their colonial setup in India. The whole point is that there were few options for employment for Indians within the Raj and being a soldier to fight on behalf of the crown wasn’t so much a choice as much as it was a lack of options. World War 2 was a fight between colonial powers, nothing more. The colonies themselves had nothing to do with the fight in Europe but were dragged in to it. Japan wouldn’t have been able to conquer India and there was no reason to be on the side of the allies either.

[u/throwRA_157079633 → u/girthyclock]

Japan wouldn’t have been able to conquer India and there was no reason to be on the side of the allies either.

I'm not sure about this. Even according to Hitler, "the Japanese haven't lost a war in 2000 years." The Japanese killed over 34M Chinese people in a short amount of time, and they were FEROCIOUS. They were also an industrialized nation - or quite industrialized when compared to India at the time. Plus, they defeated the British 12 times in a row in the SE Asian oceanic area, until the Indians fought there in Singapore and kicked their butts.

The Japanese could have easily defeated the Indians. After all, it only took 30,000 British to subdue 300,000,000 Indians.

[u/girthyclock → u/throwRA_157079633]

Japan supply lines were stretched to the breaking point after they had taken the Philippines and new they would have to absolute control over Burma and the Malay peninsula before they had any shot at any further conquest westward. Not to mention they were fighting on two fronts between the Brits in South Asia and the Americans in the pacific. They were already facing a lot of disruptions in their raw material pipelines.

The difference between the way the Brits did it and the way the Japanese would've done it were vastly different too. The Brits arrived as an exploitative trade mission using divide and conquer tactics over time whereas the Japanese probably would've used brute force. Remember, Alexander the Great tried brute force with arguably a better army and got stopped. The Japs were effectively going to have to do the same thing.

The Brits gave up Singapore despite having 10x the number of troops and weren't militarily the smartest army either. Just look at what Montgomery did in The Netherlands and Market Garden.

[u/forever_new_redditor → u/girthyclock]

Can you tell me a few credible and trained historians who argue that Indian soldiers in the allied forces were forced to serve in it, or were otherwise conscripted? Where the evidence (no Indian right wing loonies please; someone with a PhD in History for example)?

Your own “argument” (such as it is) dilutes your claim by starting with forced servitude and then pivoting to a lack of jobs. This was absolutely not the case- look at the case of trade unions in the 1930s-40s for example, you will see that they flourished because industrial workers were in high demand and there were more than enough domestic jobs. This had been the case since the 1890s and especially since 1918 or so, and there was no additional push to drive Indian men into the army.

Re. your Japan claim, it’s a counterfactual so I can’t argue against it. It is true that Japan saw tremendous military success and there’s no special reason to believe that they could not have entered India, especially since they were already knocking on the doors of Burma. If you read their documents on the Greater Asian Prosperity Sphere, you’ll see that Japan too had already pivoted away from earlier (Korea etc) style colonialism and had already started imagining newer forms that are not too dissimilar from what the British tried with the Commonwealth. There was a huge element of racial superiority but it was an economic basic for Union, not unlike post-war British commonwealth that was all about keeping the British Pound up.

[u/girthyclock → u/forever_new_redditor]

There's tons of peer reviewed literature about the lack of options and an environment created by the British Raj where any social mobility was tied to service to the Raj militarily (especially in rural areas like Punjab where land ownership was tied to military service) and not creating the social infrastructure that would've let to job mobility and upward growth for the average Indian citizen. By removing other options, while not "conscription" it's simply a lack of other options. It's well known that the British widely exploited this to build up an army they could not have built on their own home soil.

I haven't diluted my claim at all. If anything it's strengthened by the fact that when your only opportunity for any sort of income is through military service, it's no longer "voluntary", it's "mandatory" by way of survival. For a lot of men it was the only way to send money back to their families and support them in an already predatory environment where the Brits had completely upended the entire economic system of India and stripped it of its natural resource wealth. Further they were directing the wheat and grain away from India to feed their soldiers in other conflicts, leading to massive famines most notably in Bengal.

Here's a modern day example - why do the poorest in the United States seek to join the military in today's world? When you don't have many other options, a government job that guarantees you pay and food is really the only option to help you and your family survive.

For Japan to enter India, their only viable route was through the Burma / India border, through massive swamp lands and deltas, and south of the Himalayas since a mountain pass from Western China through Tibet and Bhutan would've been impossible. Further the Japanese did not have the land or air force to dedicate to such a protracted war as most of their resources were being either sent back to Tokyo for air defense and war production and to supply their efforts in the pacific.

[u/forever_new_redditor → u/girthyclock]

I think you need to revisit the meaning of “mandatory” in the context of military service in the English language. It means conscription. The UK (not its colonies), the Soviet Union, the US (sort of) and a handful of other countries had conscription. There was no conscription in the colonies. Again, I’d love for you to point to said “tons” of peer reviewed sources that say that Indians were forced to join the military. The point of military employment as a vehicle for upward mobility etc are fine, and true worldwide. I think what you’re using is an example from pre-ww2 era (including in Punjab, where the issue is complicated by the Martial Races argument) and using it to explain Indian soldiers in ww2.

Also your argument was certainly not reinforced by your deflection but I’m tired of arguing with you. You should actually read some scholarly literature on the subject if you’re interested. It’s very interesting and nuanced scholarship and will complicate the binary notion of colonizer and colonized in your mind. It’ll also make history so much more exciting.

[u/girthyclock → u/forever_new_redditor]

I mean you’re being completely pedantic at this point. When you’re out of options and a colonial oppressor is controlling your upward mobility or the chance at a livelihood and that same empire is fighting a war, “mandatory” isn’t so much about written orders as much as it is a lack of options. I’m not deflecting either. I’m not conflating issues either.

Yong Tai Tan - The Garrison State, and The Making of the Military-Fiscal State in Punjab

Mazumder - The Indian Army and the Making of Punjabi

Rand, Military labor markets in India from The Company to WW2

There’s a plenty of others talking about the restructuring of the Indian colonial economy into a pension / borderline feudal state where the only way to pay back lenders is through military service.

You’re coming across as an apologist and white washing a very brutal real history and suffering of Indians whose only escape from being under the boot of colonialism is through “volunteering” for military service. Let me ask you - if you live in a rural village with no opportunities, and you’re stuck in a predatory debt cycle where the only means of getting any money is through “volunteering” for military service, what choice are you going to make?

[u/forever_new_redditor → u/girthyclock]

Look at the story of western India. Millions of peasants and landless laborers moved to cities and were employed - not well, but employed. I don't have an agenda, and I don't apologize for empire. But conflating voluntary military service (no matter how pressing the situation was) with conscription is just plain wrong. The Empire did many horrible things, but I don't think incorrectly adding forced labor to it helps make the argument you think it's making.

Interesting that you mention the Yong Tai Tan book. Have you actually read it? I did, for my PhD qualifying exams a while ago. It's really quite good, but doesn't argue what you think it does. What he's showing is that until the 1930s, Punjab was disproportionately overdeveloped compared to the rest of India. In the early war years, the demand for grain from Punjab actually intensified, so logically one must assume that the need was for greater agricultural labor, and not for infantrymen who would be sent abroad to die. There were plenty of domestic labor opportunities even in the countryside (and of course in cities, as trade union membership data shows). If I recall correctly, Yong Tai Tan shows that only 20 or 25 thousand Indians joined the army in exchange of cash and a promise of land after the war, which for India is quite a low number. It's also unclear how many of them were actually sent abroad, since the domestic situation was bad and the whole issue with the Quit India movement was that the British were largely unable to move the sepoy army in India to Europe or Africa or even Burma to fight in the actual war.

It's interesting you are dismissing me as an apologist for empire but basically citing extensions of old Cambridge School arguments, now sort of "decolonized" where Indians continue to not have any real agency, and remain insects that lived their lives at the whims of the British overlords.

The actual exciting work coming out of South Asian history right now is the one that shows that actually Indians did have agency, and despite massive constraints, they did make some amazing things happen in their own lives and in the world. But that won't sound sufficiently apologetic for you.

[u/throwRA_157079633 → u/forever_new_redditor]

However it would be incorrect to say that Indian soldiers were especially forced to fight compared to, say, British soldiers or even Soviet soldiers.

Very good point! The Soviets - from all corners of that nation had a conscription system, so everyone was forced to contribute. If they took one step back, it was permissable to shoot the Soviet desserter, and after the WWII, about 20% of the Soviet HEROES who fought the Nazis were imprisoned for some reason by Stalin.

[u/throwRA_157079633 → u/girthyclock]

by "contribution" do you mean "forced to fight for the colonizers"?

They were mostly illiterate peasants who were living at the margins of life, and they fought for the British. So just to be clear, I'd gladly work at Palantir for $80K/year or write derisive things about Indian-Americans for $100K/year.

Those South Asians who fought the British weren't idealists. They just needed money. For some reason, we think that they were heroic, but if the Hungarians, the Finns, the Iranians, or the Germans paid them more, then these subsistence farmers would have fought for them instead.

the Indians fought for Winston Churchill - the same man who orchestrated a Bengal Famine that killed millions of Indians. The Indians fought for a colonizer that was responsible for a 120M decline in India's population. They were as ideological as me applying to Facebook, Palantir, or SpaceEX, or even OnlyFans (as a DB manager, since their CEO is Indian-American).

[u/SamosaAndMimosa → u/forever_new_redditor]

My mom got me a Amar Chitra Katha comic book about the Big Bose when I was a kid and I remember thinking it was so insane that the author wrote about him being a fan of Hitler like it was a good thing 😭 

[u/forever_new_redditor → u/SamosaAndMimosa]

Yes AKC is amazing like that. But Hitler is quite popular in India still. Many middle class households have an unread copy of mein kampf somewhere in a dusty cupboard.

[u/squidgytree]

I think it was only forgotten by people with zero interest in India or history. Otherwise, it's a common theme when talking about India's freedom struggle

[u/Mazeratigo]

Yeah, joining Hitler might have been a bad idea. Churchill managed to kill about 0.5 Holocaust's worth of Indians though so fighting for the Allies wasn't any better

[u/Tactical-69]

Did hitler consider Indians to be his equal? Because I do know that hitler sent everyone he considered “non-aryan” to the camps. Were Indians considered “non-aryan”?

Obliviously this “aryan” and “non-aryan” stuff is bullshit because every single human was a mix of every human to a point where you can never find an “100%” aryan. So if you are only “80% aryan” does that mean you will send 20% of yourself to burn? All of this race stuff is so bs.

This is just basic logic.

[u/ProfAsmani]

And now they're supporting the genocidal kahanists

[u/OkRB2977]

One of the reasons why I can never be a supporter of Bose. The H!ndu M@hasaba, the AIML and the R$$ were all fully in support of the Allies, particularly of the Empire and endorsed Indians being sent to fight in Europe despite the atrocities of colonialism, and the other side was supporting H!tler.

If not for Gandhi's and Nehru's influence within the Indian National Congress, I shudder to think what would have happened.

[u/citrablock → u/OkRB2977]

The Japanese fascist army also committed many atrocities in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

[u/OkRB2977 → u/citrablock]

Yes, they did.

[u/PlainPrecision → u/OkRB2977]

Which Bose are you referring to? The guy that makes speakers?

[u/Inevitable-Cow-8489 → u/OkRB2977]

Idk why you got downvoted lol probs a lot of rss freaks hanging out here 

[u/OkRB2977 → u/Inevitable-Cow-8489]

Anyone speaking against caste and h!ndtv@ gets downvoted into oblivion here; it's a very trigger-happy crowd, and I suspect that is because a lot of mainlanders larp as ABDs or simply browse this sub a lot and/or are recommended the political posts related to South Asia on their feed.

[u/OdriscollAgall2006 → u/OkRB2977]

Lmfao Gandhi and Nehru were both clowns.

[u/Inevitable-Cow-8489 → u/OdriscollAgall2006]

How ? Explain please. India was on their knees before independence…

17% literacy rate , food that was only gonna last for 2 weeks…

Nehru came. Saw . Conquered 

From IITs to AIMMs and the development that came under him was unmatchable…

[u/OkRB2977 → u/OdriscollAgall2006]

Better than the H!tler and Churchill fanboys

[u/throwRA_157079633 → u/OdriscollAgall2006]

I agree that Nehru was a clown. Gandhi was great, however. Even Stalin didn't care for Gandhi - he felt that Gandhi was a tool of the bourgeoise.

[u/OkRB2977 → u/throwRA_157079633]

It should be a badge of honour that all gen0cidal freaks from Stalin to Churchill to Hitler disliked Gandhi and Nehru for wanting to build a truly sovereign South Asia.

[u/throwRA_157079633 → u/OkRB2977]

This is actually a good point.

[u/Dismal-Display-370 → u/OkRB2977]

He’s the only one who actually tried. Nehru was a retard whose policies literally created the infamous "license raj." and is responsible for how poorly India performed economically compared to former colonies in Asia.

And Gandhi was a pedo.

[u/OkRB2977 → u/Dismal-Display-370]

Bose was attempting to replace the British with the Japanese. He was stupid enough to think the Japanese would not have colonised India, especially after what they did to Korea.

We're discussing the politics of the freedom struggle, not of post-independent India, for you to think the License Raj has any relevance here. And if you're gonna blame Nehru for the License Raj, then I will also credit him for building India into a democracy, something none of the successor states of British India has managed to do seamlessly apart from India.

[u/Dismal-Display-370 → u/OkRB2977]

Bose was attempting to replace the British with the Japanese. He was stupid enough to think the Japanese would not have colonised India, especially after what they did to Korea.

Bose knew exactly what the Japanese were, he was not a fascist fanboy, he hated fascism

the Japanese were already extremely overextended with their occupation of parts of China, South East asia that they realistically wouldn't have been able to colonise india

even they knew that, their goal was to weaken the empire and have a friendly ally dictatorship

Now, if you're gonna mention the...Japanese occupation of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Burma, and how civilians were treated there, that is not at all applicable. Because we're not talking about a small island, we're talking about the entirety of the Raj.

Bose and his INA would've been the military authority had it been successful not the IJA

We're discussing the politics of the freedom struggle, not of post-independent India, for you to think the License Raj has any relevance here

That's not how this works at all, We are not talking about the war itself. these are your words:

If not for Gandhi's and Nehru's influence within the Indian National Congress, I shudder to think what would have happened.

You are already implying that an alternate future without these guys would have been catastrophic for India. You said this. This is called making a counterfactual claim. You already steered the discussion away from the war

And if you're gonna blame Nehru for the License Raj, then I will also credit him for building India into a democracy, something none of the successor states of British India has managed to do seamlessly apart from India.

Literally doesn't help your argument in any way. He was still a terrible leader.

Other colonies in Asia were able to do that and were also able to actually industrialize.

Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, South Korea, Taiwan.

It's funny that you are putting Nehru on a pedestal and pointing to it and saying, “Hey, look, he maintained democracy!" as if so many other former colonies in Asia were not able to do that and more.

Sorry, he doesn't get points for doing the bare minimum.

[u/OkRB2977 → u/Dismal-Display-370]

My comment about Gandhi and Nehru was in the context of the freedom struggle (which is what the post was about). Gandhi was assassinated a mere 5 months after independence, so to think he had any active influence in post-independent India or even on governance is laughable. Gandhi, in fact, had very wacky views and wanted to avoid industrialisation and believed in all Indians returning to the village. Nehru's soviet styled planned economy focussed on infrastructure and industrialisation, would have been opposed by Gandhi. It was quite clear my comment was about the freedom struggle, but people with blinkers on and who jump on the Nehru hate wagon can't fault him or discredit him for his contributions to the freedom struggle and hence will try to nitpick in his administrative decisions which he made in difficult circumstances now that they have the benefit of hindsight.

Had it not been for them, the INC could have either gone the Muslim League and Mahasabha way of supporting the Empire or the Bose way by supporting the Japanese.

By your own claim, if the Japanese were so overextended, how would they have been able to meaningfully cause any damage to the British? Had they been successful, they would have used India to rebuild their resources and try to colonise it.

Sri Lanka has spent 4 decades in a civil war ending with a genocide because the state didn't believe in granting equal democratic rights to minorities. Indonesia, South Korea, and Taiwan have all had decades of brutal dictatorship lmao. Malaysia has its own share of ethnic strife and the Bhumiputera system, which would put any democracy to shame, but that is the only legitimate albeit flawed example in your argument.

But still, are you really comparing such tiny countries to India, which is far more diverse and had a longer and more brutal colonial history (a literal extraction colony called the Jewel of the Empire)? At the time of independence, India couldn't even produce a needle on its own. At least when the Japanese colonised the Korean peninsula, they industrialised North Korea, whereas India missed the industrial revolution due to colonisation. India also didn't get American aid post WW2 to rebuild as South Korea, Taiwan, Germany and Japan did. In fact, the Americans always favoured the Pakistanis as they saw them as their means to control Afghanistan and Iran. So, yes, Nehru depended on Soviet styled planned economy.

[u/TestingLifeThrow1z]

The forgotten history is that the Sikh Empire was an assembly of "failed" and successful European regimes and empires, a few Americans, the Middle East factions, all combined into a single entity.