The Japanese Southern Drive and India, 1941-1943 : With Special Reference to the ʻDenial Policy\u27 in Bengal

The Japanese army began to invade Southeast Asia simultaneously with the Pearl Harbour attack on 7th/8th December 1941. Advancing with surprising speed, it captured Singapore and Rangoon on 15th February and 8th March respectively, finally reaching Akyab on the Bay of Bengal on 4th May. In Japan the history of the 1940s in South Asia has mainly been studied from the viewpoint of the interaction between the Japanese ideology of the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere and Indian nationalism as represented by Rash Behari Bose, Subhas Chandra Bose and the Indian National Army in complete disregard of what the Japanese war actually brought about ‘inʼ India. This paper seeks to invert this historical gaze and to enquire into the way in which Indian colonial society responded ʻfrom withinʼ to the unprecedented critical situation created by the Pacifi c War. Sections 1 and 2 discuss the war situation in the eastern half of the Indian Ocean. Section 3 studies a few important features of the Indian reactions to the war, including various emergency measures taken by the colonial government, rumours circulating among the people, and a massive exodus of the urban population from Calcutta. Section 4 conducts an indepth study of the ʻDenial Policyʼ, a diluted form of the ʻScorched Earth Policyʼ, which the Indian army imposed upon Bengal from 1942 to 1943 to frustrate the landing of the Japanese army in coastal districts. Here not only are the details of the operation brought to light but also the reactions to it shown by diversev groups of Indian society ranging from political leaders like Gandhi and business elite like Purushotamdas Thakurdas to fi shermen in the countryside are carefully examined. This study is mainly based on the archival materials collected by the author in the West Bengal State Archives（Kolkata）, the National Archives of India（Delhi）, the India Office Library（London）, the Roosevelt Library （Hyde Park, NY）, the Alderman Library at the University of Virginia （Charlottesville, VA）, the Military Archives of the National Institute for Defense Studies（Tokyo）, and the Diplomatic Record Offi ce of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan（Tokyo）