Review

Jayant Dasgupta

Japanese in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands - Red Sun over Black Water

2002, published by Manas Publications, New Delhi

pages 1-170, including bibliography, index and black and white photographic section, priced at USD40.00

hard cover 14.5 x 22 cm (5-5/8 x 8-5/8 in)

ISBN 81-7049-138-X

The Japanese occupation of the Andaman and Nicobar islands 1942-1945 is a little-known aspect of World War II. It is also intimately connected with a highly controversial episode in India's struggle for independence (see our biography of Subhas Chandra Bose on this web-site). A book looking at the Japanese occupation of the islands has been long overdue and would be highly welcomed but this is not it. A first step topwards it, perhaps.

A major irritation is that the book is not what it says on its title: a history of the Japanese in the Andaman and Nicobar islands. Instead, it is a history of some aspects of the Japanese occupation of Port Blair in the Andamans. The Nicobars, the northern parts of the Andamans and the aboriginal Andamanese Negrito are only mentioned by the way. The British side gets more but still inadequate attention. As far as the Nicobars are concerned, the author blandly remarks that "they were also in Japanese hands during the same period as the Andamans. But that is another story." Is it, in a book with this title?

Less serious is a certain irritation with language style. The author is said to teach English at the National Defence Academy. His command of the language is indeed good, yet his writing is uncertain in tone and with a few elementary errors creeping in.

One elementary error is that in the first half of the book Dasgupta tends to refer to "English" troops while in the second half they are more often called "British". Surely, a lecturer at a military academy knows that the two terms are not synonymous. There is also a certain vagueness, even sloppiness, that strikes a wrong note in an historical study. For example, appointments or events are said to have taken place "a couple of months later". A more widespread problem is the fact that Dasgupta is generally vague about the Japanese command structure, especially who was in charge of what and when. Names are given in one place while in another unnamed officers are said to have been appointed or dismissed. It would be impossible from this book to put together a complete list and sequence of Japanese officers in charge of the Andamans. Admittedly, the movements at the top of the Japanese command in the Andamans were complex and most Japanese documents were destroyed at the end of the war. It is a difficult subject for a historian to tackle, but unfortunately Dasgupta's vagueness has done nothing to make it easier.

So much for the negative, now on to the positive.

The strength of the book lies in describing the sequence of events among the Indian population at Port Blair during the Japanese occupation. Dasgupta has probably picked the last moment when there are still survivors of this time to be interviewed. We must all be grateful to him that he has used the opportunity to do so. After the first bloodless conquest of the islands (the British - with a few exceptions - had abandoned them without a struggle), Japanese behaviour initially was correct and even friendly towards the remaining Indian population. This soon changed and many gruesome atrocities took place. Some nationalist Indians sympathized with the Japanese as the alleged liberators from the British joke. They were soon to be disillusioned. Subhas Chandra Bose set up his "independent India" at Port Blair and unrolled there what some Indian nationalists still regard as a turning point in Indian history, the "first flag of an independent India". Wishful hindsight, controversy and confusion is stil obvious at Port Blair as any visitor to the Cellular Jail and monuments to the war dead can testify. It is difficult to discover on the monuments or exhibits who precisely killed the dead mourned there. Responsibility is deliberately obfuscated so that it comes as a shock to find out , eventually, that the baddies were not the British but Bose's allies and friends, the Japanese. The contradictions in the founding of independent India are still glaringly obvious and virulent.

Dasgupta, as befits an historian, tries not to take sides. By and large, apart from a few slip-ups like calling Cellular Jail "the Indian Bastille", he succeeds. While he gives a detailed and most interesting description of a British commando raid, he also notes that while these raids may have had their military and psycholoigcal uses (though it is not clear what), they also upset the Japanese to such an extent that they then vented their frustration on the defenceless local Indian population.

Dasgupta also notes the general indifference in mainland India towards the the Islands that were supposed to be part of India. He even hints at a possible reason for the lack of interest.:

There was an estimated population of 20,000 in Port Blair and adjoining areas of South Andaman at the time of the occupation. One often wonders about the complete disinterestedness of the people of (mainland) India regarding the fate of the people of the Andaman islands during the Japanese occupation. There is neither any record of any political leader having publicly inquired about their fate although the fact of the occupation must have been known. The later Subhash Chandra Bose connection notwithstanding, this collective indifference is incomprehensible and inexcusable. Things might have been different had the jail still housed a substantial number of revolutionaries as political prisoners. The subsequent acts of the Japanese on this island also might have been tempered by this fact.

Dasgupta puts the ascertainable facts on the table while walking carefully over the mine field of explosive opinions, controversies and conflicting facts.

The ingredients for a good historian are all there. As we said in the first paragraph of this review, this book is not (yet) the long awaited standard work to describe the Japanese occupation of the islands. It is merely a good start towards that goal. Perhaps Dasgupta can be persuaded to polish and expand this present volume, add the Nicobars to his field of view to justify the title and perhaps draw in Japanese and British specialists for the period in a cooperation. And get himself a good editor.

George Weber
The Andaman Association  

 

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