“A Glorified Maginot Line”?: The Frontier and the Second World War, 1939–1946

Abstract

When war broke out in Europe in September 1939, British officials throughout the subcontinent dug in for a long and protracted conflict. The Viceroy, Linlithgow, declared India at war with the King’s enemies without consulting a single Indian politician on the night of 3 September and, whereas the authorities in the First World War had waited until 1915 to drastically curtail civil liberties, in 1939 Delhi immediately went to work on war legislation. Shortly thereafter, the British administration regained total control of most of India’s provinces. Congress ministers, who had resigned in protest over Linlithgow’s unilateral declaration, were replaced by Governor’s rule under section 93 of the Government of India Act.1 In the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), Dr. Khan Sahib’s Congress government resigned at the beginning of 1940, and Sir George Cunningham took up the reins of power under section 93, before passing it off to a Muslim League ministry in 1943.2