Pragmatic Euphony  

There is little research on the contribution of the Indian armed forces to the Indian independence movement.

People always seemed to know half of history, and to get it confused with the other half. ~Jane Haddam

Even though the Royal Indian Navy Mutiny of 1946 has earned a footnote in the history of India’s independence movement, the role of the pre-independence Indian armed forces in hastening the departure of the British colonialists from India is pathetically under-researched. In his articles and lectures, Lieutenant General S. K. Sinha has often highlighted certain incidents leading to the British questioning the loyalty of the Indian armed forces which hastened their departure from India. But such anecdotal evidence does not make for a compelling academic case which can be quoted authoritatively.

While it is easy to lament the non-availability of India’s official war histories after independence for the abysmal quality of research on military affairs in this country, the declassification of all pre-1947 records by the British government poses no such restrictions on researchers interested in that era.

In his column for the Indian Express, Lord Meghnad Desai highlights two unheard incidents — one after the First World War and another during the Second World War — which shows that this subject needs more research, and the dissemination of such research into the public domain.

It was India’s contribution in the First World War that so impressed the Imperial power that the Montagu Chelmsford reforms were announced already in 1917 even before the war ended. Despite the tragedy at Jalianwala Bagh in April 1919, the Bill to implement the reforms was passed in Parliament in June 1919. Indeed one can confidently say that it was the soldiers who won the first tranche of self-government.

It was the same again in the Second World War. Congress ministries in seven out of eleven provinces where they had a ruling majority resigned when the war was declared and insisted that India (the Congress) had to be consulted for participation in the war effort. The British paid no attention to the Congress because the Army was ready to fight and did so for all the six years of the War. The Army was recruited from the provinces where Congress did not rule. There was no elected government at the centre and in any case Defence was a reserved subject in British hands. The Congress went on complaining but the Indian soldiers performed bravely and won the gratitude of the British who were fighting for survival against Germany.

The war effort went on while the Congress was out of office in the provinces or in jail. But the newly independent India had a sterling balance of £1.5 billion thanks to war contributions. But all this is forgotten.[Indian Express]

It would not be grossly incorrect to hypothesise that lack of enthusiasm in nationalist politicians and left-wing historians towards highlighting any meaningful contribution of the armed forces in India’s independence movement has been driven by their pathological antipathy towards the colonial armed forces. But more surprisingly, even 62 years after independence, one is not aware of any such project [or its result] being undertaken by the three defence services or by the think-tanks that the defence services so liberally fund, support and host.

It is high-time someone corrected this anomaly by undertaking a comprehensive, focused research on this topic. And if such research already exists in the public domain, please leave a link to the reference in comments for others to savour (and learn from) them.