A Plural Army Liberates A Plural Society
For those of our readers interested in historical cameos you may be interested in the following pieces. They are taken from one of the best, recent books on Myanmar. That country was the scene of some of the most terrible jungle fighting of World War II.
So, for all amateur historians of WWII, we reproduce the following:
The last hurrah for Burma's plural society was, appropriately enough, the reconquest of Burma itself, for General Slim's 700,000--strong 14th Army was as dazzlingly multi-ethnic as pre-war Burma had cone been. One historian has speculated that the 17th Army must have "contained more diverse races than any other perhaps in history", and at its core were the Indians: Rajputs, Dogras, Sikhs, Jats, Punjabis, Ahirs, Amirs, Chamars, Rawats, Minas, Mahars, Coorgs, Assamese, Adivasis, Kumaonis, Pathans, Brahuis, Mers, Tamils, Telegus, Paraiyahs, Brahmans, Hindustani, Mussulmans, Punjabi Mussulmans, Madrassi Mussulmans and Gurkhas, from Nepal.We have had the privilege of visiting the Commonwealth War Graves cemetery. It remains a sober, yet awe inspiring place.
They were joined by a wide variety of soliders from east and West Africa, including Hausas, Ibos and Yorubas from Nigeria, Mandis and Timminis from Sierra Leone, Baganda and Achole from Uganda and Womalis from Somaliland--as well as white New Zealanders, Australians, Canadians and South Africans, to say nothing of the Scots, Welsh, Irish and English.
The large and beautifully maintained Commonwealth War Graves cemetery at Kaukkyan on the outskirts of today's Yangon bears silent witness to the sacrifice of the 14th Army in the reconquest of Burma. But the long lists of names from almost every part of the globe carved on plain white stone also testify to the pluralism of the army, even if the very society that those soldiers fought to preserve had all but disappeared by the time they reached Rangoon in August 1945. Even so, it was, quite appropriately, an Indian solider, Mohammed Munsif Khan, who finally raised the Union Jack over the "liberated" city. [Richard Cockett, Blood, Dreams and Gold: The Changing Face of Burma (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015), p. 53.]
