Representing or interpreting World War II has posed a unique set of problems in the subcontinent, practically since the end of that great conflict. Subsequent narratives (the field being sparse) have mainly dealt with the INA and the freedom struggle to the exclusion of the (British) Indian Army, based on a certain post-colonial stigma attached to those who fought for empire. The few notable exceptions are from regions such as the Northeast or the Andamans, which the war touched most directly.

Raghu Karnad’s book, as the back jacket informs us, is history. To be more specific, it is the intersection of larger historical events with the personal. Beginning from Calicut, it follows his mother’s father, Kodandera, and his two Parsi brothers-in-law, Godrej and Manek, who went to war in different armed services: Kodandera as an Army doctor, Godrej with the Bombay Sappers and Manek in the Royal Indian Air Force.

As the reader follows the three young men on their different journeys, Karnad brings in the larger history of the war, across its well-known fronts: Europe, North Africa, the Pacific and even the lesser-known West Asia. Through Manek, who alone of the three saw action, Karnad visits the China-Burma-India theatre, although Kohima and Imphal are less eponymous of the ‘farthest field’ and more this country’s backyard.

Karnad gets an opportunity to show much from the war, and much more beyond it: the country of the 1930s and the generation that lived in it, or at least that class to which the three young men belonged.

This book recommends itself chiefly because personal narratives of Indian stories from the war do not exist. As an introduction and overview, it is particularly suitable for guided reading by school students. The maps are lucid enough for youngsters to understand the big picture.

However, beware generalisations such as the idea — when discussing the Indian Army in Iraq — that while the Americans held the fate of the war in their hands at one end and the Russians at the other, the Indians held the middle. It is ludicrous enough that India’s ancient history is now subject to revisionism of the most egregious kind without adding the idea that we won WWII practically on our own.

It must be asked, however, which of the two histories — that of the war and that of the author’s ancestors — would matter more to the interested lay reader. Unlike Karnad, who arrived at the war through these personal tales, a reader would pick up this book for the reverse reason — it is about the war.

As an overall history of World War II, there is little here which may not be found in existing primary or even secondary research. Karnad shows evidence of wide reading and draws competently from such works. The personal history makes for adequately interesting reading, although it is likely to have a far greater emotional connect with the descendants of the three young men, as is natural. Here the author or editors could have trimmed the page count to their advantage.

More than 86,000 young Indians died in World War II in fields and theatres across the world. Academic research has moved on from merely documenting India and the war to more specific and exciting research, such as the politics behind the Great Bengal Famine, or rapes by Indian soldiers in France after the Normandy invasion, or the ideological divide between the INA and loyalist soldiers, or desertions by the martial races.

More than 30 men from the subcontinent would eventually receive the Victoria Cross. In field after field across the world, tended by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission but seldom visited by Indians, lie the sons of Garhwal terrace farmers, Sikh sharecroppers, Baloch fishermen and Gurkha tea labourers, who endured some of the most incredible journeys.

However, 70 years after this great and terrible conflict and 68 years after Independence, a book meant for general readers tells the tale of an army doctor, an engineer and a pilot. If you wish to read a personal World War II history of the men and families of the ‘other ranks’ and their descendants, of that ‘other India’, you will have to wait, for the talent scouts and English language publishers haven’t reached that farthest field, and might not for some time yet.

Siddhartha Sarmais a journalist, author and military historian

Published on August 7, 2015