“It is not enough to say we must not wage war. It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it.”: Martin Luther King Jr.
"War is an invention of the human mind. The human mind can invent peace.": Norman Cousins
Today, when wars are raging across the various theatres, it is timely to remember and relearn our lessons from the Second Great War that ended 81 years ago on 8/9 May 1945. Europe, the former Soviet Union (Russia is the successor State), India, and many others participated, but have very different understandings and memories of the Second World War. There are different estimates, but between 70 and 85 million people died (roughly 3 per cent of the 1940 world population), of which nearly three-quarters were civilians. Incidentally, 30 per cent of these were Soviet citizens, the highest in the World.
India’s forgotten war
About 2.5 million Indians served in WWII, making the British Indian Army the largest volunteer force of its time. Indian troops fought in North Africa, Italy, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. The Burma campaign redefined India’s security. Unfortunately, Indian contributions are under-remembered in mainstream global war narratives. Indian divisions witnessed jungle warfare, disease, monsoon, supply shortages, and Japanese invasion. The resolute response stopped the Japanese advance in North East India and began the Allied push back into Southeast Asia. Kohima is often called one of Britain’s greatest battles, yet in India it is much less celebrated. The Indians fought at El Alamein, Monte Cassino, and other major campaigns. They endured wartime shortages, inflation, policy failure, and the manmade Bengal famine, leading to the deaths of three million people, along with nearly 90,000 soldiers, 1,00,000 wounded and over 67, 000 taken as Prisoners of War. Field Marshal Claude Auchinleck, who was the Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army during World War II (1941 and 1943–1947), acknowledged the India's contribution, saying, “Britain couldn't have made it through both World Wars [I and II] without the Indian Army.”
The irony is that while Indian soldiers fought for freedom against fascism, the country was denied self-government at home. Moreover, the war was overshadowed by the independence struggle, partition, and the creation of modern India and Pakistan. Hence, WWII occupies an uneasy place in Indian public memory.
One history, many memories
Pierre Nora, a French historian, distinguished between history (an objective analysis) and memory (a living, emotional connection to the past). Individuals and communities connect with and perceive shared, recorded facts of the past in unique, emotional ways. The WW II is celebrated and understood differently in different spaces and times.
Western Europe and the US emphasise ‘Victory in Europe Day’ (8 May), focusing on liberation from Nazi occupation and democratic renewal. In subsequent years, they focused on reconstruction (through the Marshall Plan), containment of communism and Soviet influence (through the creation of NATO), and European integration. Eastern Europe’s memory is more complex: Nazi occupation was followed by Soviet domination for more than four decades till the end of Communist rule at the end of 1980s. Because many European nations suffered directly, each has its own local memory of loss and resistance.
While the Holocaust is central to European memory, remembrance has shifted from a post-1945 silence to broader issues, such as human rights, democracy, and tolerance, under the “never again” framework. Parades, memorials, monuments, books, and stories shape how each society explains the war.
Russia marks Victory Day after the German surrender came into force by Moscow time (9 May) as a poignant and sacred memory of sacrifice and national unity. Victory Day is Russia’s most important secular commemoration. Almost every Russian family can connect to loss, service, siege, and resistance. For them, WWII is not remote history; it is the story of national survival, and the idea of a shared historical and nationalist memory.
Tension arises because some European memories emphasise liberation from the Nazis but later domination by the USSR. Russians, meanwhile, stress that the USSR bore the main burden of defeating Nazi Germany. Russian President Putin has complained about European attempts to rewrite WW II history by undermining the Soviet/ Russian contribution. Changes in collective memory narratives in the past few decades give credence to the view that the US has influenced accounts in countries around the world, with the exception of Russia. According to a survey conducted by IFOP between 1945 and 2015, in 1945, nearly 57 per cent of French citizens credited the Soviet Union with having contributed the most to the Nazis’ defeat—the figure now is 15 per cent; while 54 per cent now credit the USA with having contributed the most.
Russians are better informed about the war on an objective test than people from most other countries. They mostly focused on events on the Soviet side of the war when recalling the 10 most important events, e.g. Battle of Stalingrad and the Battle of Kursk. However, participants from 10 other countries remembered events consistent with an American view of the war, e.g. Pearl Harbor and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Lest we forget
One should keep in mind that the disagreement over WWII memory is not only ignorance; it reflects genuinely different historical experiences. A very apt observation in this regard was made by none other than Soviet leader Stalin in 1945: “The war was not only a military event. It became a memory test: who is remembered, who is forgotten, and who writes the story.” One is also reminded of Norman Cousins, who said, "War is an invention of the human mind. The human mind can invent peace". And lest we forget, Benjamin Franklin asserted, "There never was a good war or a bad peace".
(The writer is a professor with the department of School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University.)
(The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of THE WEEK.)
