INDIA IN THE WAR

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXIX, Issue 13308, 7 April 1941, Page 3

INDIA IN THE WAR

EXPANDING ARMY AND MUNITIONS Indian troops were prominent in the campaign of Northern Africa, and they are engaged also in Eritrea, and East Africa. At the same time their countrymen at home are active in a mighty war effort. Diverse as India’s religious and political philosophies are (says Colin Wills, well-known broadcaster on Empire affairs) there is not one of them to which the Axis Powers’ creed of violence is not anathema. This accounts for the vigour with which Indians of all races are participating in their country’s great war effort —in active service, in war industry and in gifts of money to help the Allied cause. The Indian Army is being expanded from its peace-time strength of 160,000 to half a million, and its mechanical equipment is being increased from 5,000 vehicles to 62,000.

In the last war India sent abroad one and a half million men. In this war the demand has been for machines and for material rather than for manpower, but the number of volunteers that can be obtained in case of need is as great as ever. The soldiers in the armies of the Indian princes have shown the greatest enthusiasm at the decision of the princes to place their forces at the disposal of the King-Emperor. Guarding the Coast. Men of all races have volunteered for service in the Army, the Navy and the young Indian Air. Force —as well as in the R.A.F., where there are a number of Indian pilots. Sixty thousand Indian soldiers are already serving in the Middle East, in the Far East, in Malaya, in Aden and in Great Britain. The Indian Navy is doing splendid work in guarding the country’s vast coastline, and in patrolling the Empire’s sea routes in the Indian Ocean and in the Red Sea. Both Government and private factories are engaged on munition work; the country is already producing 20,000 out of about 40,000 items which the modern army requires. India can produce 90 per cent of her own requirements of war supplies. But her contribution to the arming of Democracy is not confined to her own forces. She is supplying enormous quantities •of war material to many other countries of the Empire—for instance. already 100,000,000 rounds of ammunition have been sent overseas from Indian factories and this is only one of thousands of items. India’s industry, both primary and secondary, is throwing a great weight also into the non-military side of the war effort. As a great supnlier of foodstuffs, textiles, and a variety of manufactured goods, she is a powerful factor in the Empire’s economic war.