MJHW (Online) on Japanese Grand Plan in India during WWII
December 2nd, 2024 at 18:00 JST — ONLINE
Japanese Grand Plan in India during World War – II: Analysing the Motives, Methods, and Missed Opportunities
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Saroj Kumar Rath (University of Delhi, New Delhi)
In recent years, the National Archives of India at New Delhi declassified new documents on how the Japanese envisaged a strategy to conquer India during the Second World War. The Japanese grand plan, as these declassified documents reveal, included the assimilation of India within Japanese sway, and then use the Indian soil to reach Europe via Afghanistan. The Japanese stratagem was not a spontaneous event. The genesis of the plot could be traced back to the pre-war period starting in 1935 onwards when Japan showed her interest in Afghanistan, India, and Burma. Japanese planners systematically started propaganda against the British Empire in India. The medium of the propaganda was Buddhism as well as Samurai events. Some of the Japanese were even working as agents in different parts of India. The plan was partially detected by British intelligence when they arrested and deported 13 Japanese nationals who landed on the Madras Coast in March 1944 and were suspected to be Japanese Agents. The Japanese secret agents were clandestinely planted in consul offices in different parts of India such as at Mussoorie, Calcutta, Bombay and even Delhi. Sometimes they used women, who systematically got married to Indian men, to facilitate their secret mission. In 1943 the Japanese army slowly losing their control over the Pacific region and wanted some new area where they could hold a strong position to spread their imperialism in Asia. They prefer North East India as the main gate to control the British Empire. Meanwhile, they fully controlled Singapore and the Indian war prisoners of the British army offered to join the Japanese force to conquer Burma and India. Those who refused to join forces with the Japanese were punished severely. Former Congress President and leader of the Indian National Army Mr. Subhas Chandra Bosh was also in touch with the Japanese Government with a division of the Indian National Army. The Imperial General Headquarters (GHQ) in Tokyo devised a method that could give Japan a spectacular victory. A plan submitted by Lt. Gen. Renya Mutaguchi, “the victor of Singapore” and commander of the 15th Army in Burma suggested ‘an assault on the British Empire from northeast frontiers of India’. On 9 January 1944, Prime Minister Hideki Tojo authorized the plans for Operation U-Go against North-eastern India. Most of the available literature talks about the decisive Japanese defeat in north-east India. Also, existing available work in the public domain narrates only the events of the war that occurred in Burma and North East India. Literature is abundant about the battle of Kohima and Imphal. However, the question of why the Japanese were interested in India has never been dealt with in the existing literature. The grand plan was never analyzed. The foiled or failed plan needs academic scrutiny. This study offers an analytical examination of the Japanese grand plan in India.