India’s War: World War II and the Making of Modern South Asia

India’s role in World War II has long been overlooked. But as Srinath Raghavan shows in this authoritative account, India did not fight the war as merely an appendage of the British Empire. From the start, India defended its own sub-empire from Imperial Japan and assisted its allies in battles in Italy, East Africa, and the Pacific.
The war also brought great changes to the subcontinent. By the war’s end, the Indian Army had become the largest volunteer force in history, while many millions more Indians had worked in their nation’s rapidly expanding industry and agriculture.