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To: Culum
Given that their country was occupied by England, and Indians were essentially being forced to fight in a war that had nothing to do with them

FWIW, India had no conscription. The Indian Army in WWII was the largest all-volunteer army in history.

14 posted on 05/09/2005 9:45:17 AM PDT by Restorer
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To: Restorer

However one shouldn't have the impression that they all signed up out of burning patriotism for the British Empire and a desire to crush fascism; the Indian economy was very bad during WWII, one of the worst problems was inflation in food prices such that the average Indian couldn't afford food; most joined up out of financial desperation.


21 posted on 05/09/2005 10:01:56 AM PDT by Strategerist
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To: Restorer

Yes, the Army was a great career move for many Indians. I didn't mean to suggest that the British pointed guns at people's heads and said "fight for us or else".

My point was that these men (tiny fraction that they were) cannot be called traitors because they were fighting in Britain's wars, and decided to fight against Britain because they believed that was best for their country. A good analogy would be the Free French Resistance in WWII which decided to fight against their country's (Vichy) govt and Germany instead of for them.

The only difference is that the Free French wound up on the winning side, while these suckers wound up on the losing side. Don't get me wrong - I'm no supporter of Subhas Chandra Bose - the man was a fascist nutcase, and if he'd come to power, instead of Nehru, India would have turned out like Saddam Hussein's Iraq or something.

I do agree that the British Indian Army was no longer pro-British by that time, but I'm not so sure that that was a major factor in Britain giving Independence. (The lack of a white settler class was certainly a factor). But I don't think the British ever seriously considered ruling India by force, using the Indian Army, even if it had been reliable. Simply too many people, and too big a country, and too hard to handle.

The British came to power by playing Indian rulers against each other and stayed in power by co-opting the Indian elite. The Independence movement became serious when the Indian educated elite turned against the British when they realized that they might be allowed education at Oxford and Cambridge, but they were never going to be treated as equals like the Australians. It is to be noted that the racism against Indians *increased* in the last 70 years of the Empire - the early British assimilated a lot more.(Nehru once called himself "the last Englishman to rule India"). Gandhi's genius was in taking the movement of an educated elite and making it a mass, all-India movement, but the British lost their trump card when they lost the support of the elite.

Anyway, I've wandered wildly off topic so I'll stop now..


24 posted on 05/09/2005 10:10:39 AM PDT by Culum
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