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Britain’s exploitation of India
up to Partition and ‘independence’ in 1947 went much further than extracting
investment and trading revenues and dominating its economy. Just consider the
British Indian Army, established under British government control in 1858 after
it took over from the East India Company. Manned by colonial Indian subjects,
this force was critical for British imperialism’s many battles. In wars large
and small, especially those outside Europe, against national liberation
movements, uncooperative populations and rival powers, Indian troops greatly
boosted the numbers of those who would fight and die for it.[1]
Prior to 1914, British armed
forces had largely been used to police the Empire. Since Napoleon early in the
19th century and the Crimean War with Russia in mid-century, there had been
little or no direct conflict with other major powers. British policy was to
depend upon alliances with others, rather than to maintain a large standing
army itself. So it was important to be able to draw upon a force of colonial
troops when needed, including for the policing of the British Raj.
Important though they were for
British power, Indian troops commonly faced racial discrimination, were looked
down upon by white officers and were often used as cannon fodder, while also
being given worse grade arms and equipment than regular British troops.
Attractive as a cheap military resource for the Brits, these men could
nevertheless see enlistment in the army as a reasonable option. There was
regular pay and regular food, something not always available in the Indian
economy dominated by British Empire interests – as became brutally clear with
the Bengal famine in 1943.
Extra battalions
At the start of World War One in
1914, British army regular forces numbered less than 250,000, but they had
grown to 3.8 million by 1918, including reserves, helped by conscription after
volunteers proved insufficient. Over the same period, the British Indian Army
grew from around 150,000 to more than one million, of which some 700,000 served
overseas, making it a valuable additional force. This latter army fought in
Ypres, Loos, Neuve Chapelle and Gallipoli, and in Mesopotamia (roughly
corresponding to Iraq today), Palestine, Egypt and East Africa.
Although troop numbers fell back
in the 1920s and 1930s, the Second World War and its aftermath saw a further
utilisation of Britain’s Indian Army. Battle locations during the war included
in North Africa (Tunisia, Libya and Egypt) and Europe (Italy, especially). A
good book on this period notes that, in early 1942, “264,000 Indian troops were
serving overseas, including 91,000 in Iraq, 20,000 in the Middle East, 56,000
in Malaya and 20,000 in Burma.”[2]
By later that year, the Indian army had recruited another 600,000 men, and by
the end of 1942 it stood at almost 1.55 million. Another 280,000 were recruited
in 1943. By 1945, it had grown to some 2.5 million. This compared to 3.5
million in the British army you will more commonly read about.
Indian troops were, of course,
used by the British to push back Japan’s wartime incursions into India itself.
But the downside for the Brits in the early 1940s was that many Indian
prisoners of war (held by the Axis powers) were ready to switch sides and join
versions of the anti-colonial Indian National Army. Japan, in particular, made
efforts to attract these forces.
Ahead of India’s independence,
the Brits had to be a little cautious, but that did not prevent them from using
Indian troops to help put down anti-colonial movements in Malaya, Vietnam and
Indonesia. These were efforts by the much-lauded ‘socialist’ Labour Government
to restore not just the British, but also the French and the Dutch to their
former status. To add to the outrage, Britain also used just-defeated Japanese
troops for the same purpose!
Despite demobilisation after
1945, by April 1946, “the Indian army still had two brigades in the Middle
East; four divisions in Burma; three divisions in Malaya; four divisions in
Indonesia; one division in Borneo and Siam (Thailand); a brigade in Hong Kong;
and two brigades in Japan.” A division comprised roughly 10-15,000 men, and a
brigade roughly 1,500-3,500 men.
Oh well, that’s enough about
soldiers.
[1] The points
below focus on Indian troops, but one should note that the British also used
African troops and Chinese labourers in their war efforts. France also made
great use of its African colonies. A good book detailing these points for the
First World War is David Olusoga’s The World’s War: Forgotten Soldiers of
Empire, Head of Zeus, 2014.
[2] This, the
later quotation, and most of the information on Indian troop numbers, are taken
from Srinath Raghavan, India’s War: the Making of Modern South Asia,
1939-1945, Penguin, 2017. For the post-1945 period, also see Christopher
Bayley and Tim Harper, Forgotten Wars: the End of Britain’s Asian Empire,
Allen Lane, 2007. A good online source for the history is here.
