‘Allah Might Provide the Fuel’: Muslim Sailors in British Colonial Navies, from the Second World War to Independence

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
Second World

Eurasians in British Asia during the Second World War

2011 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 485-505 ◽  
Author(s):  
FELICIA YAP
Keyword(s):  
Racial Politics ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Internment Camps ◽  
Critical Position ◽  
Japanese Occupation ◽  
Colonial Empire ◽  
History Of ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
Second World

One of the most important minorities in the British colonial empire in Asia consisted of those of mixed European and Asian parentage and/or ancestry, or Eurasians, as they were widely known. It is perhaps surprising that despite the voluminous literature written about British colonial communities in the East, relatively little scholarly attention has been paid to Eurasians and their histories. A closer examination of the members of this marginalised colonial category is nevertheless crucial as they stood at the problematic boundaries of racial politics and identity, and are therefore vital to our understanding of the tensions of empire. The few existing studies of Eurasians in British Asia have tended to focus on the experiences of Eurasians either before or after the Second World War, neglecting the period of Japanese occupation as a significant epoch in the evolution of these communities. In reality, if we intend to unravel the multi-layered history of Eurasians in this region, we must examine the critical position of these colonial communities during this tumultuous period. The nuances of their intriguing wartime relationships with both the British and the Japanese also merit serious attention. With these aims in mind, this article will investigate the compelling experiences of Eurasian communities in Japanese-occupied British Asia, with an especial focus on those who were incarcerated by the Japanese in civilian internment camps in Hong Kong and Singapore.

‘Alarmist stories and defeatist views’: Censorship and morale in India during the Second World War

2017 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 250-264
Author(s):  
Devika Sethi
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Second World War ◽  
The State ◽  
World War ◽  
Colonial India ◽  
The Press ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
Second World

This article identifies three loci of the British colonial state’s anxiety about communication of news and views in India during the Second World War: its own officials (and their families); the press (both English language and vernacular); and the Indian public. It explores war-time dilemmas of the state with regard to censorship of both news and rumour, and it discusses the central paradox of censorship in colonial India during war-time.

The Draft Development Plan of the Federation of Malaya 1950–55

1972 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Rudner
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Functional Integration ◽  
Geographic Region ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Uneven Development ◽  
World War ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
Colonial Government ◽  
Second World

Malaya's creditable economic performance prior to the Second World War was very much the product of growth without planning. It would be a mistake, to be sure, to attribute early Malayan economic growth solely to the initiative and enterprise of private individuals and firms acting independently of government. Certainly the British colonial administration, indirectly through fiscal measures and directly through the activities of an increasingly important public sector, had a significant role to play in determining the direction, and incidentally the magnitude, of pre-war economic expansion. Colonial government policy nevertheless remained compartmentalized and its objectives were defined narrowly. There was no idea of maximizing the development of Malaya's economy as a whole. Indeed, the Malayan economy during the decades before the War even lacked fundamental functional integration, for in the words of a World Bank mission, “… Malaya in many respects was rather a geographic region where capital and labor belonging to other economies found it convenient to carry on certain specialized operations, within the British monetary as well as political framework”. Whatever economic growth that did occur involved unplanned, and largely uneven, development.

scholarly journals Reimagining Asia: Indian and Australian women crossing borders

2018 ◽  
Vol 53 (04) ◽  
pp. 1183-1221
Author(s):  
HEATHER GOODALL ◽  
DEVLEENA GHOSH
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
Chinese Women ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Women's Movements ◽  
Colonial History ◽  
World War ◽  
Local Contexts ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Second World

AbstractThe decades from the 1940s to the 1960s were ones of increasing contacts between women of India and Australia. These were not built on a shared British colonial history, but on commitments to visions circulating globally of equality between races, sexes, and classes. Kapila Khandvala from Bombay and Lucy Woodcock from Sydney were two women who met during such campaigns. Interacting roughly on an equal footing, they were aware of each other's activism in the Second World War and the emerging Cold War. Khandvala and Woodcock both made major contributions to the women's movements of their countries, yet have been largely forgotten in recent histories, as have links between their countries. We analyse their interactions, views, and practices on issues to which they devoted their lives: women's rights, progressive education, and peace. Their beliefs and practices on each were shaped by their respective local contexts, although they shared ideologies that were circulating internationally. These kept them in contact over many years, during which Kapila built networks that brought Australians into the sphere of Indian women's awareness, while Lucy, in addition to her continuing contacts with Kapila, travelled to China and consolidated links between Australian and Chinese women in Sydney. Their activist world was centred not in Western Europe, but in a new Asia that linked Australia and India. Our comparative study of the work and interactions of these two activist women offers strategies for working on global histories, where collaborative research and analysis is conducted in both colonizing and colonized countries.

The ‘Rod of Empire’: The Debate Over Corporal Punishment in the British African Colonial Forces, 1888–1946

1994 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 201-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Killingray
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Racial Discrimination ◽  
Corporal Punishment ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Military Officers ◽  
World War ◽  
Active Service ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
Second World ◽  
Colonial Office

Throughout the twentieth century the British Colonial Office sought to limit the severity of corporal punishment and to regulate more closely its use in the colonies. This article has looked at one aspect of that policy involving the African Colonial Forces. Most military officers argued that corporal punishment was essential to maintain discipline, especially in times of war or active service. The Colonial Office sought to limit severely the circumstances in which corporal punishment could be administered but accepted that its use should be retained or revived during the two World Wars.In the Second World War the arguments for retaining corporal punishment for African soldiers were increasingly denounced by officials and various humanitarian lobbies. African Colonial Forces had come under direct War Office control in September 1939 and during the war many African soldiers served overseas alongside British and other units; they also constituted part of an imperial order which, so propaganda increasingly proclaimed after the fall of Singapore, was opposed to racial discrimination. Corporal punishment based on racial terms was out of kilter in the war and was maintained only at the insistence of senior military men. Once the war was over the Colonial Office ordered that this ‘relic of discrimination’ should be ended.

THE MARTIAL SPIRIT: YAO SOLDIERS IN BRITISH SERVICE IN NYASALAND (MALAWI), 1895–1939

2003 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 413-432 ◽  
Author(s):  
RISTO MARJOMAA
Keyword(s):  
Military Service ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
World War ◽  
Simple Fact ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
Martial Race ◽  
Second World

During the colonial period, the Yao formed the main source of recruits for the King's African Rifles Nyasaland (Malawi) battalions. Originally, the main reason for the large number of Yao volunteers was probably the simple fact that the recruitment office was near Yao areas. However, due to prevailing racial ideals the British colonial military interpreted this as a sign of a ‘martial spirit’. This led to active encouragement to enlist the Yao, which in turn made military service ever more attractive among this group. They became the ‘martial race’ of Nyasaland, a concept which continued to affect British recruitment policies until the Second World War.

Fascism in the Middle East and North Africa

2015 ◽  
pp. 179-194
Author(s):  
Gilbert Achcar
Keyword(s):  
North Africa ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Arab Countries ◽  
World War ◽  
Mena Region ◽  
Nationalist Party ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Second World

This chapter regards as “fascist” attempts to build mass movements on the basis of three elements: paramilitary organization, ultranationalism and totalitarianism. Most discussions of fascism in the MENA region seek to pin the fascist label on Arab movements opposed to British and French colonialism and/or to Zionism. The claim that fascist movements were present in Arab countries from the 1930s until the end of the Second World War is based on the assumption that “the Arabs” were sympathetic to the Axis powers. However, only three organizations and a less formal political current in the Arab world were truly inspired by European fascism: the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP); the Lebanese Phalangist Party (al-Kata’ib); the Young Egypt movement (Misr al-Fatat); and the Arab nationalist current in Iraq whose key figures belonged to Al-Muthanna Club circles. Despite animosity toward British colonial domination and Zionism, it is striking how limited the impact of fascism and Nazism in the Arab world remained.

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