Forgotten Wars_ Freedom and Revolution in Southeast Asia - Christopher Bayly [0]
BY THE SAME AUTHORS
Forgotten Armies: Britain’s Asian empire and the war with Japan
CHRISTOPHER BAYLY AND TIM HARPER
Forgotten Wars
The End of Britain’s Asian Empire
ALLEN LANE
an imprint of
PENGUIN BOOKS
ALLEN LANE
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2y3
(a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland
(a division of Penguin Books Ltd)
Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia
(a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)
Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India
Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Mairangi Bay, Auckland 1310, New Zealand
(a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
www.penguin.com
First published 2007
1
Copyright © Christopher Bayly and Tim Harper, 2007
The moral right of the authors has been asserted
All rights reserved.
Without limiting the rights under copyright
reserved above, no part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior
written permission of both the copyright owner and
the above publisher of this book
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-0-14-190980-6
Contents
List of Illustrations
Maps
Some Key Characters
Preface
Prologue: An Unending War
1. 1945: Interregnum
The New Asia
The last journey of Subhas Chandra Bose
Nations without states
Three weeks in Malaya
The fall of Syonan
2. 1945: The Pains of Victory
Burma intransigent
India: the key
Bengal on the brink
The reckoning
3. 1945: A Second Colonial Conquest
‘Black Market Administration’
A world upside down
Liberal imperialism and New Democracy
‘Malaya for the Malays, not the Malayans’
4. 1945: The First Wars of Peace
The crescent regained
Britain’s forgotten war in Vietnam
Britain and the birth of Indonesia
Freedom or death in Surabaya
5. 1946: Freedom without Borders
The passing of the Malayan Spring
Hang Tuah and Hang Jebat
British and Indian mutinies
Dorman-Smith’s Waterloo
A new world order?
6. 1946: One Empire Unravels, Another Is Born
The killing begins
Britain’s terminal crisis in Burma
The burial of the dead
Business as usual in Malaya
7. 1947: At Freedom’s Gate
The last days of the Raj
The crescent fragments: Bengal divided
Tragedy in Rangoon
Disaster approaches
8. 1947: Malaya on the Brink
The crescent fragments: orphans of empire
Malaya’s forgotten regiments
The strange disappearance of Mr Wright
‘Beware, the danger from the mountain’
A people’s constitution
9. 1948: A Bloody Dawn
Boys’ Day in Burma
The genesis of communist rebellion
A summer of anarchy
Karens and Britons
India recedes, India reborn
10. 1948: The Malayan Revolution
A third world war?
The frontier erupts
Calls to arms
Sten guns and stengahs
The road to Batang Kali
11. 1949: The Centre Barely Holds
Britain, India and the coming of the Cold War
The centre barely holds
The battle for the ulu
Freedom and revolution
The generation of 1950
Epilogue: The End of Britain’s Asian Empire
Freedom, slowly and gently
Freedom from fear?
Flawed memories
A flawed inheritance
Notes
Bibliography
Index
List of Illustrations
1. Surrendered Japanese troops in Burma, August 1945 (Imperial War Museum)
2. Japanese troops clearing the Singapore Padang before the surrender ceremony, 12 September 1945 (Imperial War Museum)
3. Lt General Seishiro Itagaki signing the surrender, Singapore, 12 September 1945 (Empics)