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Unlock This CourseIndia paid a heavy price for a war it had not chosen. It became a supply base for the Allied armies, sending them food, cloth, steel and weapons.
Key terms:
Industry grew. Steel, cement and cloth factories worked flat out and there were new jobs in the cities. Britain bought most of its war goods on credit. India had begun the war in debt to Britain. By 1945 Britain owed India more than £1,300 million in sterling balances.
The government printed money to pay for the war, and so much was bought for the armed forces that goods ran short. The result was inflation. Prices more than doubled between 1939 and 1945. Cloth, kerosene (lamp and cooking fuel) and food grains were scarce. The poor, whose wages did not keep up, suffered most.
The worst suffering came in the Bengal famine of 1943. Between two and three million people died of hunger and the diseases that followed. Several causes came together:
The famine did great political damage. To many Indians it proved that British rule could not even keep them alive.
The Indian army grew from about 200,000 men in 1939 to about 2.5 million by 1945. It was the largest volunteer army in history. Indian soldiers fought in North Africa, Italy and Burma. About 87,000 were killed. There were too few British officers for so large a force, so thousands of Indians became officers.
By 1945 Britain's position in India was far weaker than in 1939:
Field Marshal Lord Wavell became viceroy in October 1943. He had commanded the army in India.
Subhas Chandra Bose had been president of Congress, but he broke with Gandhi in 1939. He believed that only force would drive the British out, and that Britain's enemies could help India. In 1941 he escaped from house arrest in Calcutta and reached Germany. In 1943 he moved on to Japanese-held Asia.
That July, in Singapore, he took over the INA. It had been formed in 1942 from Indian soldiers taken prisoner by Japan. Indians living in South-East Asia joined as well. At its peak the INA had about 40,000 members. In October 1943 Bose announced a Provisional Government of Free India. His followers called him Netaji ('respected leader') and his war cry was 'Chalo Delhi' ('On to Delhi').
In 1944 the INA marched with the Japanese army into north-east India. The invasion was beaten at Imphal and Kohima. The INA retreated through Burma, losing many men to hunger and disease. Bose died after a plane crash in Taiwan in August 1945.
'The main effect of the Second World War on India, in the years 1939-45, was the weakening of British rule.'
How far do you agree? Explain your answer. [16 marks]
You may use the following in your answer:
You must also use information of your own.
The war weakened British rule badly, but it was not the only major effect. I will argue that it was the main one, because it decided that the British would leave.
The war left Britain too weak to hold India. Britain bought war goods on credit, so by 1945 it owed India more than £1,300 million and relied on American loans. Its defeats by Japan in 1942 destroyed its image of strength. British control also now rested on an Indian army of about 2.5 million men, with thousands of Indian officers, and Bose's Indian National Army had shown that some Indian soldiers would fight against Britain. Even the viceroy, Wavell, believed that Britain could not hold India by force after the war. This supports the statement, because without money, prestige or a force it could fully trust, the Raj could not last.
However, the war also changed Indian politics through the growth of the Muslim League. When the Congress ministries resigned in 1939, and the Congress leaders were jailed at the start of Quit India in 1942, Jinnah was left free to build support. The League passed the Lahore Resolution in 1940, governed several provinces by 1943 and claimed about two million members by 1944. This was a very important effect, because Britain could no longer settle India's future with Congress alone.
A third effect was hardship for ordinary Indians. Prices more than doubled, and cloth, kerosene and food ran short. In the Bengal famine of 1943 between two and three million people died. For those who lived through it, this was surely the worst effect of the war. Yet it also fed the weakening of British rule, because the slow response convinced many Indians that the British were not fit to govern them.
Overall, I agree to a large extent. Judged by human suffering, the famine was the worst effect. But judged by how far each effect changed India's future, the weakening of British rule was the main one. It turned independence from a distant promise into something certain. The rise of the League shaped what kind of independence would come, but only because the British were now sure to go.
What lifts it to the top level: it covers three effects, including one that is not in the bullets, argues both for and against the statement, and reaches a judgement by naming the test it is using (how far each effect changed India's future).
An answer that uses only the two bullets cannot reach the top level. Here, bring in a third effect of your own, such as the Bengal famine or the growth of the Indian army, and say in your conclusion what you are judging 'main' by.