15. Allies to a Declining Power: The Martial Races, the Second World War and the End of the British Empire in South Asia

Abstract

In retrospect, it is hardly surprising that the massive upheaval which the Second World War wrought in South Asia precipitated the termination of British rule in India. This chapter seeks to contribute to this literature by exploring how attitudes towards the so called martial races were influenced by the series of economic, strategic and imperial crises which developed during the 1930s and 1940s. Like the British Empire itself, the Indian Army which emerged from the First World War was a much-changed institution. In much of the existing literature, the history of the Indian Army in the interwar period is dominated by the debates over 'Indianization' of the officer corps. The chapter has suggested that, contrary to colonial claims, this violence needs to be understood in the context of colonial recruiting strategies and their consequences as much as in terms of pre-colonial communal tensions. Keywords:British Empire; interwar; martial races; Second World War; South Asia