My
grandson (age 10) has been given as a present,a new pictorial book
about World War II. He is absolutely thrilled and fascinated with
that book, with all those pictures of guns, tanks, fighters and
bombers in their full glory. When he was talking to me about the
great war, I happened to mention to him that I was born in the war
years (1939-1945.) He was very much impressed, I do not know why? Any
way, I did not elaborate anything further and just left him with his
war book. Later, I tried to recollect, whatever little I remembered
about those times and also what was told to me by my parents and
grandparents, since I was a very young boy then. Surprisingly, I
realised two things. Firstly, India was not directly affected by the
war at all, though as a British colony, it had participated in the
war effort, on the side of the Allies, in a major way. Secondly, even
though it was not directly affected, it suffered major problems in
form of crippling shortages of almost all the commodities as colonial
British Government in India, contributed huge amounts of financial,
industrial and military assistance that was to form a crucial
component of the British campaign against Nazi Germany and Imperial
Japan till US joined the war later. Several Indian Princely States,
also provided large donations to support the Allied campaign during
the War.
In
1939, the Indian Army numbered 205,000 men. It took in volunteers and
by 1945 was the largest all-volunteer force in history, rising to
over 2.5 million men, who were fighting Axis forces around the globe
at the height of the war. But, believe it or not, at the end of the
World War, India actually emerged as the world's fourth largest
industrial power and its increased political, economic and military
influence paved the way for its independence from the war shattered
United Kingdom in 1947. In the overall view, it becomes clear that
India was actually benefited at the end by the great war with a huge
sterling balance left in India's account. Unfortunately, within next
two years India was partitioned by the British, which dealt a severe
blow to the country as majority of grain producing fertile lands were
awarded to Pakistan.
I also
made an interesting observation that just like the country as whole,
our family fortunes also were affected in a positive way by the war,
though on a nano scale compared to the country as whole. I hope that
readers would find these little stories from the past, absorbing, as
they show how great events can impact lives of even small people, who
are not directly affected by them. What makes it more interesting for
me is the fact that the way India, as a country was benefited by the
war at the end, even our family fortunes changed for the better.
Before
I narrate to you those happenings, I must tell you about the
shortages first. To help the war effort, British Colonial Government
requisitioned all grains produced in India, cloth produced by Indian
textile mills and as a first priority, started supplying it to,
wherever it was asked to supply by the British Government. As a
result of this action, there was a total rationing of food in India.
I remember some one from the family going to ration shops every week
and picking up whatever was allotted. We would get ridiculously
meager quantities of Sugar and usually Milo would be supplied
instead of wheat and instead of plain rice, we received parboiled
rice in limited quantities. There was rampant black marketing in
grains and sugar. The world war gave a huge boost to the sagging
textile industry of Gujarat and Maharashtra in India. But all the
cloth they produced was requisitioned for military use, leaving
limited quantities of coarse cloth available to Indians. All silk
cloth produced, was used for making of parachutes. Even in the post
war period the crippling shortages of almost everything that people
needed continued. Cement, iron and steel were is such short supply
that the Government had to appoint controllers for distribution,
which invariably lead to corruption. This actually went on and on
till the Green revolution of 1970's.
The
war years were politically very important for India. The Indian
National Congress, led by Mahatma Gandhi, denounced Nazi Germany,
but refused to collaborate with British until India was independent
and on the contrary launched the Quit India Movement in August 1942,
refusing to cooperate in any way with the government until
independence was granted.
Coming
back to the family fortunes, the first good thing that had happened
during war years was a personal break-through for my father. Previous
to WW II, British looked at India, in a typical Colonial way as a
source for raw materials and a huge market for their finished
products. The education system in India was oriented to produce
office clerks. Any kind of technical training was not encouraged.
The war years changed all that. The British Government felt the need
of having trained technical personnel in India, who could work in the
industry. In line with this thinking, Ernest Bevin, the British
minister for labour, launched a scheme known as 'Bevin Training
scheme,' under which he decided to train Indians in the Government
training centres in England in specialized fields. My father was
selected for one such course in 1944, held at the training center in
Manchester, England and later did a stint for few months at the works
of a major electrical instrument producer of those times, Ferranti
Ltd. My father impressed the management of this company so much that
after the war was over, they invited him again to work in the factory
for further training. With these two stints in England, my father's
career really received a tremendous boost and he never looked back
later.
The
second boost, the war years gave to our family, was even better from
the family point of view. At that time, my grandfather ran a small
workshop that produced scientific apparatus, required by schools and
colleges. He also manufactured some instruments like spectrometers
that involved optics. The Indian Navy in those days used Aldis
signal lamps to communicate between ships at night so as to maintain
total radio silence. Because of the ongoing war in Europe, Navy had a
great shortage of the signaling lamps as no supplies came from
England. Navy therefore decided to investigate, whether the lamps
could be procured from India itself. My grandfather was one of the
few manufacturers contacted by Navy and he was able to produce a
prototype that satisfied the stringent requirements of Navy, who
immediately placed a huge order with my grandfather. With this order,
everything changed for my grandfather and in turn our family fortunes
received a big boost.
In
today's context, both these happenings might look very trivial, but
believe me they were not so in war years. Most of the Indians were
very poor in those days and even the middle classes barely managed to
survive on meager salaries facing rising inflation.
World
War II years brought big changes to India. This led to its eventual
independence from the British in 1947. Interestingly in a small
miniscule way, the war years also brought good days for our family
too.
17th
March 2014
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