As part of walking tours along various historical sites in Berlin neighbourhoods, I was mesmerized by their mammoth spatial conservation efforts based on their historical connections. The massive Holocaust Memorial, the Roma Memorial, the Soviet War Memorials, the Homosexual Memorial, the Marx-Engels Forum, the East Side Gallery and many other sites dominate the central cityscape of Berlin, easily accessible by tourists and ordinary citizens via the extensive networks of the rapid transit system. These sites, along with the city’s rich museums, serve as a symbolic means to propagate historical awareness amongst people across generations. Regarding the effectiveness of conserving and commemorating the not-so-distant ‘past’, I can draw an overt and agonizing contrast between Berlin and Kolkata, my hometown. I think it is the right time for humanity to revisit its lessons once again. As xenophobic and exclusionist voices are echoed once again globally, as it happened in the early half of the last Century.
Lest we forget the saying, “ignorance is the mother of all evil”, and as mankind, for the sake of humanity and shared destiny, I think one should overcome the hindrances caused by indifference, and share mutual empathy with the sufferings of people during the troubled past. Again, my country, India, being a post-colonial republic, sails for new ambitions in the face of a multiplicity of challenges; living in history seems a luxury. For ordinary Indians, especially, the younger generations, the memories of the turbulent past seem to be gradually fading from the collective consciousness. We are exposed to the vices of misinformation and fabricated stories than ever before. On my very first workshop at histoCON 2025 on ‘colonialism’, I encountered a picture of the Indian soldiers of a British Indian regiment serving on the North African front during WWII.
The majority of these ‘hapless’ conscript soldiers, serving under the British Empire’s Union Jack, found their sacrifices insignificant to the general masses of their times, and our generation remains unbothered. Nevertheless, India was a pivotal base for the China-Burma-India theatre of the Second World War, where Anglo-American led allied forces fought a series of battles, as part of the Burma Campaign, between 1942 to 1944 across the dense mountainous region of North East India and British Burma (present day Myanmar). Kolkata and its surroundings became a major centre for allied reinforcement, and various military foundations were established. The city fell victim to surprise Japanese air raids, appealing Bengali ‘lullabies’ emerged based on the Japanese bombardment of ‘Calcutta’. India’s wartime experience was a tragic one; not only did the 87,000 British Indian soldiers lose their lives, but Bengal province saw a massive famine with three million impoverished ‘subjects’ perishing due to colonial misgovernance.
The following post-war events in India were marked by independence and communal partition of two provinces, Bengal and Punjab, where the former faced a severe refugee rehabilitation problem. In West Bengal those abandoned wartime establishments became ‘transit camps’ for East Bengali refugees. Astonishingly, there remains blatant negligence by both the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and the independent Indian authorities for not dedicating any memorials for the fallen British Indian soldiers during WWII, unlike their counterparts during the First World War.
On this issue, I find ‘commemoration’ the central agenda, not mere nominal recognition. Notwithstanding the earlier institutional shortcomings, there exists ample scope for the governmental bodies and autonomous civic engagement groups to undertake educational initiatives to develop and nurture easily accessible quality museums, memorial parks, short but permanent open-air exhibitions, neighbourhood walks and many more, across such notable alleys and avenues of Kolkata. Likewise, considering the multiple significances of those abandoned strategic bases, can we not organize walking tours involving school students, the elderly people with refugee roots, academicians, and civil societies?
I find it an urgent task to re-visit the wartime and post-war experiences and memories of the ordinary or marginal masses, who bear the great burden of war and even peace. Despite a handful of sporadic individual initiatives, like the Kolkata Partition Museum, a virtual museum dedicated to Bengal refugees of 1947, I could hardly trace any tangible relics dedicated to events of that era. Still, I am optimistic, if not today, but in the near future, such initiatives will take place in India. In a world marked by significant people-to-people connectivity, learning from other countries’ cultural or civilizational values can greatly shape our worldviews.
At the same time, I am often troubled by how India addresses the complexities of WWII legacies, especially concerning the Indian nationalists who sided with the Axis powers. The core issue is that the official narratives hardly engage openly with these ambiguities, resulting in ‘grey zones’ in India’s public memory. Likewise, Subhash Chandra Bose’s alliance with Axis Japan and Indian soldiers serving on both sides of the respective belligerents (i.e., British Indian soldiers of the British Royal Army and Indian Soldiers in the Axis-backed Indian National Army) often seems naively portrayed. My argument is that, like Germany’s forthright engagement with troubled histories, India should encourage a frank discussion of this contested past. As mentioned earlier, when neo-fascist warmongers are re-emerging, efficient ‘democracies’ such as the Indian Republic should not have a vague or compromising attitude in dealing with Fascist ideologues or personalities.
This publication does not represent an expression of opinion by the Federal Agency for Civic Education. The author is responsible for the content.