FORGOTTEN ARMIES: THE FALL OF BRITISH ASIA 1941-45 By Christopher Bayly and Tim Harper Allen Lane Price: £18 Pages: 555

The events of World War II are just about to pass from living memory and so, perhaps, this is an opportune moment to remind ourselves of the time when the Japanese flag flew on Indian soil, and Manipur and Assam were frontline states.

The "Forgotten Armies" of the title are less forgotten in India than in Britain where Dunkirk and battles closer to home are commemorated more than the historic victories at Kohima and Imphal which were won by the Indians in General Slim's 14th Army. In India the Burma campaign is still a point of cultural reference in the Northeast and battle honours earned there are cherished by the army. However, the 1940s are remembered more for the Freedom Movement than for World War II even though the timetable for independence was set by those six years of conflict. Over two and a half million Indians fought for the Allies in Europe, Africa and Asia and they inflicted the greatest ever military defeat on the Japanese army. Quite simply, the war could not have been won without them.

PICTURE SPEAK

THE INA FACTOR: Bose with Burmese leader Ba Maw in Rangoon in 1943

Memory, however, has also become fragmented along national boundaries. In contrast, Forgotten Armies demonstrates through a compelling narrative just how closely intertwined were the fates and histories of the people who lived in a great arc of land from Calcutta to Singapore. Despite using mainly western sources, this is a history of Asia, and particularly of the ambitions of Japan, bent on modernisation through imperialism, conquest and the creation of a Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere.

Authors Christopher Bayly and Tim Harper describe both the forces fighting against the Japanese and the armies allied to them, particularly the INA and the Burma Independence Army of Aung San, father of Aung San Suu Kyi. They also tell the stories of the people who were caught up in war. There were the doctors and nurses who brought compassion into conflict, the lakhs of Indian labourers and tribals who were thrust into helping either the Japanese or the British armies and the tens of thousands of refugees who poured into India from Burma in 1942, many dying in the high passes of Manipur and Assam. There were the estimated 1,00,000 women who were forced into sexual slavery either by the Japanese or because of want and famine.

The writers argue that Japan's initial defeat of the Allied forces as it overran Southeast Asia forever demolished the notion of white colonial supremacy. This not only led to the kind of pan-Asianism that Japan had in mind but also to the rise of different nationalisms and the swift demise of the British Empire in Asia after 1945. To win support, the Japanese wooed the Muslim ulema in Malaya and played the Buddhist card in Burma. But the future nation states were always suspicious of Japanese intentions and allied with it only to oppose colonial power. The INA's tactical alliance with the Japanese got difficult as Japan's position became desperate. The authors believe that though the INA was a potent symbol of free India during the war, it became more so after it.

On the other side, the hidebound British Empire underwent a "deathbed reformation" before it had a hope of victory. Winston Churchill despised viceroy Lord Wavell, disliked Indians more than anyone else except the Germans and had contempt for the Indian Army. Not surprisingly the viceroy's demands for food during the Bengal famine fell on deaf ears in London. The British cabinet took decisive action only when it became clear that India could not be used as a base to fight the Japanese if Bengal's economy collapsed.

To win the war the British government was compelled to lose its many prejudices and commit itself wholeheartedly to retraining and reequipping the Indian Army and raising its morale. The Indian forces responded so well that after the victories at Imphal and Kohima, the defining battles of the war in the East, the British began to use Indian troops to raise the morale of British units in certain circumstances, reversing a generations-old practice. The authors emphasise-lest we forget -that in the jungles of India's eastern frontier as much as in London's Whitehall or the Congress Working Committee, the Raj really came to an end.

AUTHORSPEAK: SUVER SARAN

Pan Indian In one of those plush Manhattan lofts, chef Suvir Saran throws three dried red chillies into the pan. As he shakes some cumin seeds into his palm, New York Times food critic Stephanie Lyness, who has been meticulously noting down the preparations, stops Saran, measures the cumin, finds it a quarter teaspoon and jots that down. Saran is searching for the pineapple rasam-"It wasn't a juice, it wasn't a soup."-that he tasted as a child, vacationing in Kerala. Ten minutes later the rasam and its recipe are ready-the first on a long list of dishes in their Indian Home Cooking (Potter). In the true tradition of mulligatawny, Saran's rasams also double as soups. "I wanted to show Americans that there was more to Indian cooking than dal makhni and tandoori chicken," says Saran, 32. And the book is creating quite a stir, making it to the Newsweek's top 10 cookbooks. Saran's journey to the frying pan began more than 10 years ago when as a student in Manhattan's School of Visual Arts, he felt the craving of every expat-for homecooked food. With recipes sent by his mother and grandmother in Delhi and the unforgotten flavours served by his family chef Pandit, every evening Saran cooked up a storm for himself and his friends. As they exclaimed at mustard and curry leaves crackling in the oil and as the quaint smell of asafoetida assaulted their senses, Saran was sure Big Apple was ready for some plain Indian cooking, without too much fuss or drama, copper vessels or tandoor. "Unlike French cooking, there is no ego in Indian cooking. It has mostly simple, straightforward recipes," says Saran. However, in the book he has substituted certain ingredients with those easily available in American supermarkets. Otherwise, his "salmon in traditional Kerala sauce" will have the entire coastal state looking in askance. Saran, "a vegetarian who tastes meat" as part of his job, is happy at the end of the day with rice, dal ("not the plain yellow one") and vegetables, and writing one chapter of his novel based on food. The days are spent at Devi, his new 90-seater Indian restaurant in Manhattan, where Saran is continuing what Madhur Jaffrey and Julie Sahani began. Centuries after the westerners loaded crates with peppercorns, ginger and cinnamon, the Gen Next Indian is ready to celebrate them, ladling their pungency and aroma in the original sauces and curries, pilafs and pickles. -By Charmy Harikrishnan