| Summary: | <p>During the Second World War some sixty-seven thousand Indian personnel of the British Indian Army were captured by Imperial Japanese forces, including a large number at the surrender of Singapore in February 1942. This thesis examines why these colonial Prisoners of War were largely forgotten in the post-war period, and therefore represents a case study in the formation of British wartime historical memory. It does so by addressing three questions, relating to the impact of evidence that some Indian prisoners were disloyal, the role of British colonial propaganda, and the unavailability of important documentary sources. It argues that the process of forgetting can be understood in terms of three active memory practices, namely: suppression; obscuration; and selection. Examples of how each of these have impacted British memory of Indian prisoners are provided within the thesis. These practices acted in a colonial context within which a pertinent element was a “Myth of loyalty”, namely the idea that, whatever may have occurred in captivity, most Indian prisoners stayed fundamentally loyal to the British. Newly available sources, in particular records from British Military Intelligence, allow a reassessment of such narratives. The thesis consists of an Introduction, four thematic chapters, and a conclusion. The first thematic chapter examines British responses to the loss and recovery of Indian prisoners. The second chapter examines how the experiences of Indian prisoners were remembered. The third examines how those Indian prisoners who fought against British forces later in the war, were often marginalised and forgotten in British accounts. While the fourth reviews post-war war-crimes trials of Japanese military personnel where the victims were Indian prisoners, the focus being the effect on trial outcomes of British suppression of knowledge regarding Indian prisoners. Throughout, the emphasis is on the role of forgetting in the management of unpalatable truths.</p>
|
|---|