Forgotten Heroes: Indian Soldiers in World War-II

On the eleventh hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, the guns fell silent over Europe, bringing an end to a brutal first world war that drew in soldiers and contributions from around the world. Indian soldiers and their contribution are not widely recognized in India.

Background of Indian involvement World War II

Fight against Fascism: Two conflicts and a reticence Indian reticence over these two conflicts arises from the uneasy relationship between the Indian contribution to fighting fascism on a global stage and the nationalist movement for freedom at home.

Betrayal of nationalistic expectation: The success of the first is seen to have come at the cost of the second. It began with the betrayal of nationalist expectations of greater autonomy for India in return for support during the Great War.

No consultation with Indian leaders: This was compounded by the bitterness of Viceroy Lord Linlithgow declaring war on Germany on India’s behalf in 1939 without consulting Indian leaders, and further roiled by the pitting of Indian against Indian when Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s Indian National Army sided with the Axis Powers in the hope that this might bring freedom.

Fighting for India and for World: But the failure of Indian independence to follow automatically from India’s participation in the wars does not mean that the war efforts extended colonial rule, or were all about protecting Britain: there was fighting on Indian soil to defend India.

What is Indian soldiers role in World War II

Support of nationalist leaders: Almost 1.5 million men volunteered to fight in the Great War. Indians mobilized four days after Britain declared war on Germany, with the support of nationalist leaders, including Mahatma Gandhi.

War in Europe, Asia and Africa: Indians fought with valor and distinction in the trenches of Europe, West Asia and North Africa, earning 11 Victoria Crosses along the way. Of those men, about 74,000 never came home.

Largest volunteer for war: India raised the largest ever volunteer army, of 2.5 million, for the Second World War. More than 87,000 of those men are cremated or buried in war cemeteries around the world and in India.

Thirty-one Victoria Crosses: 15 % of the total Victoria crosses went to soldiers from undivided India. Without Indian soldiers, non-combatant labourers, material and money, the course of both conflicts would have been very different as acknowledged by Field Marshal Auchinleck, Britain’s last Commander-in-Chief of the Indian.

The issue of Non-recognition of India’s contribution

Indian soldiers are honored by Britain: In Britain, the contribution of the Commonwealth including the Indian subcontinent is memorialized in the Commonwealth Memorial Gates that lead up to Buckingham Palace. The Gates commemorate the campaigns where Commonwealth soldiers served with distinction; there is also a canopy inscribed with the names of the Commonwealth recipients of the George and Victoria Crosses.

Indian soldiers fought the Britain’s war: Much of India’s recent history is encapsulated in these gates, in a spirit of gratitude and equality. Britain, after all, has much to be grateful for, but Indians seem less keen to acknowledge this. British perfidy, however, does not in any way reduce the sacrifices of those who fought for freedom. Those who went abroad to fight alongside white British soldiers returned with the knowledge that they were equal to their colonial masters. In not recognizing and honoring this, we push those men back into colonial subjugation.

Britain betrayed the hopes of freedom: Some of this ambivalence owes itself to the atrocities of colonial history, which must be acknowledged too. Britain may have handed out 11 Victoria Crosses over the course of the First World War, but it betrayed the hopes of nationalists with the imposition of martial law after the war ended, culminating in the horror of Jallianwala Bagh in April 1919.

Does India fought the war for its own sake?

Indian fought the Japanese: These were not just European wars to defend foreign lands. India was threatened in the Second World War by advancing Japanese forces who got as far as Burma/Myanmar. They were repulsed in the battles of Imphal and Kohima between March and July 1944. These were brutal battles. In Kohima, the two sides were at one point separated by the width of a tennis court. A Commonwealth cemetery on Garrison Hill, Kohima, contains this epitaph (by John Maxwell Edmonds): ‘When You Go Home, Tell Them of Us, and Say/For Your Tomorrow, We Gave Our Today’.

Ultimate sacrifice for India’s freedom: The memory of the almost 10 million battlefield deaths in the First World War and the 15 million or more who were killed fighting the Second World War is now honored in countries around the world on November 11, with nationwide silences and the laying of wreaths. Not so much in India apart from in Army cantonments and at the British Consulate in Kolkata even though over 1,61,000 men made the ultimate sacrifice for India’s freedom.

Current Account Deficit (CAD) likely to be lower at 3% this fiscal

The SBI has estimated a lower current account deficit at 3% for this fiscal as against the minimum consensus of 3.5%, citing rising software exports, remittances and a likely $5-billion jump in forex reserves via swap deals.

What is Current Account Deficit (CAD)?

A current account is a key component of balance of payments, which is the account of transactions or exchanges made between entities in a country and the rest of the world.

This includes a nation’s net trade in products and services, its net earnings on cross border investments including interest and dividends, and its net transfer payments such as remittances and foreign aid.

A CAD arises when the value of goods and services imported exceeds the value of exports, while the trade balance refers to the net balance of export and import of goods or merchandise trade.

Components of Current Account

Current Account Deficit (CAD) =  Trade Deficit + Net Income + Net Transfers

(1) Trade Deficit

Trade Deficit = Imports – Exports

A Country is said to have a trade deficit when it imports more goods and services than it exports.

Trade deficit is an economic measure of a negative balance of trade in which a country’s imports exceeds its exports.

A trade deficit represents an outflow of domestic currency to foreign markets.

(2) Net Income

Net Income = Income Earned by MNCs from their investments in India.

When foreign investment income exceeds the savings of the country’s residents, then the country has net income deficit.

This foreign investment can help a country’s economy grow. But if foreign investors worry they won’t get a return in a reasonable amount of time, they will cut off funding.

Net income is measured by the following things:

Payments made to foreigners in the form of dividends of domestic stocks.

Interest payments on bonds.

Wages paid to foreigners working in the country.

(3) Net Transfers

In Net Transfers, foreign residents send back money to their home countries. It also includes government grants to foreigners.

It Includes Remittances, Gifts, Donation etc

How Current Account Transaction does takes place?

While understanding the Current Account Deficit in detail, it is important to understand what the current account transactions are.

Current account transactions are transactions that require foreign currency.

Following transactions with from which component these transactions belong to :

Component 1 : Payments connection with Foreign trade – Import & Export

Component 2 : Interest on loans to other countries and Net income from investments in other countries

Component 3 : Remittances for living expenses of parents, spouse and children residing abroad, and Expenses in connection with Foreign travel, Education and Medical care of parents, spouse and children

What has the SBI said?

The biggest impact on CAD is oil imports, which form as much as 30% of the country’s import bills.

Every $10 increase in crude prices impacts the CAD to the tune of 40 basis points while the same on fuel inflation is 50 bps and also results in 23 bps decline in growth.

Strong remittances and software exports had lowered CAD by 60 basis points (bps) in the June quarter.

Forex reserves, which have declined from $642 billion in September 2021 to about $531 billion last week, are expected to rise by $5 billion as swap transactions reverse.

Mangrove Alliance for Climate (MAC) launched at COP27

At the 27th Session of the Conference of Parties (COP27), this year’s UN climate summit, the Mangrove Alliance for Climate (MAC) was launched with India as a partner.

Mangrove Alliance for Climate (MAC)

An initiative led by the UAE and Indonesia, the MAC includes India, Sri Lanka, Australia, Japan, and Spain.

It seeks to educate and spread awareness worldwide on the role of mangroves in curbing global warming and its potential as a solution for climate change.

Under MAC, UAE intends to plant 3 million mangroves in the next two months, in keeping with UAE’s COP26 pledge of planting 100 million mangroves by 2030.

Working of MAC

MAC would work on a voluntary basis. It means that there are no real checks and balances to hold members accountable.

Instead, the parties will decide their own commitments and deadlines regarding planting and restoring mangroves.

The members will also share expertise and support each other in researching, managing and protecting coastal areas.

Why protect mangroves?

Infrastructure projects — industrial expansion, shifting coastlines, coastal erosion and storms, have resulted in a significant decrease in mangrove habitats.

Between 2010 and 2020, around 600 sq km of mangroves were lost of which more than 62% was due to direct human impacts, the Global Mangrove Alliance said in its 2022 report.

Importance of mangroves

Biodiversity: Mangrove forests — consisting of trees and shrub that live in intertidal water in coastal areas — host diverse marine life.

Fishing grounds: They also support a rich food web, with molluscs and algae-filled substrate acting as a breeding ground for small fish, mud crabs and shrimps, thus providing a livelihood to local artisanal fishers.

Carbon sinks: Equally importantly, they act as effective carbon stores, holding up to four times the amount of carbon as other forested ecosystems.

Cyclone buffers: When Cyclone Amphan struck West Bengal in May, its effects were largely mitigated by the Sundarbans flanking its coasts along the Bay of Bengal.

Threats to Mangroves

Anthropogenic activities: They are a major threat to the mangroves. Urbanization, industrialization and the accompanying discharge of industrial effluents, domestic sewage and pesticide residues from agricultural lands threaten these fragile ecosystems.

Saltpan and aquaculture: This causes huge damage to the mangroves. Shrimp farming alone destroyed 35,000 hectares of mangroves worldwide.

Destruction for farming: 40% of mangroves on the west coast has been converted into farmlands and other settlements in just 3 decades.

Sea-level rise: This is another challenge to these mangroves- especially on the Bay of Bengal coast.

Mangroves in India

India holds around 3 percent of South Asia’s mangrove population.

Besides the Sundarbans in West Bengal, the Andaman region, the Kutch and Jamnagar areas in Gujarat too have substantial mangrove cover.

How can India benefit from MAC?

India is home to one of the largest remaining areas of mangroves in the world — the Sundarbans.

It has years of expertise in restoration of mangrove cover that can be used to aid global measures in this direction.

The move is in line with India’s goal to increase its carbon sink.

Energy Transition Accelerator (ETA): A new carbon offset scheme by the US

The US has unveiled a new carbon offset scheme called Energy Transition Accelerator (ETA) for climate finance.

Energy Transition Accelerator (ETA)

ETA is carbon offset plan that will allow companies to fund clean energy projects in developing countries and gain carbon credits that they can then use to meet their own climate goals.

The plan will be developed by the US along with the Bezos Earth Fund and the Rockefeller Foundation.

It would receive inputs from public and private

The concept is to put the carbon market to work, deploy capital otherwise undeployable, and speed up the transition from dirty to clean power.

Benefits of ETA

It may be good for renewable energy projects for sure and for those coal plants that are very old and unviable and which India wishes to shut down.

The scheme comes at a time when there is growing mistrust among developing countries about developed nations failing to deliver on climate finance commitments.

Limitations of ETA

The proposed initiative would be insufficient to make up for the lack of funding from rich countries.

What developing countries need is predictable finance – not offset markets.

The proposed initiative cannot make up for the US’s failure to provide its fair share of climate finance – an estimated $40 billion of the unmet goal of $100 billion a year.