HEADLINE = How Japan rolled up colonialism in Asia

STRAP = Two spectacular Japanese victories fired up nationalism among Asians and contributed to the
demise of the European empires.

It was a major European defeat that first fired up freedom fighters across Asia. The sinking of the
Russian fleet by the Japanese Navy at the Battle of Tsushima in May 1905 was seen as a turning point
because for the first time in modern history an Asian nation had defeated a great European power.
Sun Yat-sen, the founder of modern China, wrote: Since the day of Japans victory over Russia, the
peoples of Asia have cherished the hope of shaking off the yoke of European oppression, a hope which
has given rise to a series of independence movements in Egypt, Persia, Turkey, Afghanistan and finally
in India. Therefore, Japans defeat of Russia gave rise to a great hope for the independence of Asia.
In Jawaharlal Nehrus view, the Japanese victory lessened the feeling of inferiority besieging Asians. A
great European power had been defeated, thus Asia could still defeat Europe as it had done in the past,
he wrote.
Remarkably for a time when communications were slow and patchy, the news travelled like a tsunami to
the Indian hinterlands. Decades before they would hear of Mohandas Gandhi, Indians in remote villages
were excitedly talking about how Japan had humbled a gora country.
Japan became a magnet for Indian freedom fighters. Large numbers of Indian students joined Japanese
universities in order to be close to this new hub of Indian revolutionaries. Rash Bihari Bose, who tried to
incite a mutiny in the Indian Army during World War I, escaped to Japan after the attempt failed.
Despite its alliance with Britain, Tokyo refused to hand over Indian revolutionaries to the British.
Bose married a Japanese woman, took Japanese citizenship, and founded the Indian Independence
League. In 1942 at the Leagues Bangkok conference, he invited Subhash Chandra Bose to take
command of the Indian National Army (INA).
Battle of Singapore
If the Battle of Tsushima was the spark that lit the flame of hope, it was the Battle of Singapore in 1942
that dropped the atomic bomb of nationalism in Asia.
Located at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, Singapore was considered an impregnable fortress
designed to stop a Japanese attack on Britains Asian possessions. Garrisoned by 100,000 British, Indian
and Australian troops, Singapore was Britains Gibraltar in the Far East.
As the cries of Banzai drew nearer, the British War Office was confident it could deter the little yellow
men. Colin Smith writes in Singapore Burning that the Japanese were portrayed as comical figures who
could not see well enough to shoot straight or fly modern aircraft with skill. In fact, some Australian
officers expressed their disappointment they would not be meeting more worthy opponents.
On December 8, 1941 Japan called their bluff. Tokyo sent in a well-trained force of 25,000 which
established overwhelming air and naval superiority over Malaya and Singapore within a week. Two
massive battleships were sunk by precision air strikes with the loss of over 800 sailors. Among the dead
was Admiral Tom Phillips, their naval commander. The loss of these capital ships had a devastating
impact on morale back home. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill wrote in his memoirs: I put the
telephone down. I was thankful to be alone. In all the war I never received a more direct shock.
Shock and awe were in store aplenty for the British. On February 15, 1942, Japanese General Tomoyuki
Yamashita asked Lt-General Arthur Percival of the British Army in Singapore, Do you wish to surrender
unconditionally?" Without wasting a second, Percival blurted out: Yes we do.
It was a brief exchange but the surrender would prove to be a turning point in the history of the world.
The myth of the invincibility of the West was punctured. For the British, the French and the Dutch, the
fall of Singapore and the advance of the Japanese across the region destroyed the myth of imperial
supremacy. The capitulation of so many British empire troops before a Japanese army a fourth of that,
showed doubting Asians that the British could be beaten.
Look whos yellow
Chinese, Indians, Malays and Burmese had front seats to this British tragi-comedy. They were witness to
the cowardice and racism of British and Australian troops; and they were shocked by the uninspiring
leadership of British officers who were more interested in manicuring their golf courses and munching
on cucumber sandwiches rather than digging in for a fight. Coming less than two years after the
Germans defeated and trapped a large British force of 338,000 soldiers in France, the rout in Singapore
exposed the fragile foundations of the British empire.
N.S. Rajaram, a NASA mathematician and Indologist, remembers talking to Indian soldiers of the British
imperial army. In an article for Folks magazine he quotes one of them, now settled in Penang, Malaysia:
When the Japanese attacked, the British ran away. They were very clever. They had a wonderful life
with bungalows and butlers and cooks and all that, but as soon as the Japanese came, they ran away.
And once they got back to India, they sent Gurkhas, Sikhs, Marathas and other Indians to fight the
Japanese. They knew it was too dangerous for them. That is how we got independence in Malaya.
Rajaram says not one of these World War II veterans remembers the British fighting the Japanese only
running away.
Lee Kuan Yew, the former Prime Minister of Singapore, corroborates that statement. In his memoirs,
The Singapore Story, Lee Kuan Yew, describes the Japanese invasion of Malaya and Singapore, which he
had experienced as a youngster. In 70 days of surprises, upsets and stupidities, British colonial society
was shattered, and with it all the assumptions of the Englishman's superiority, writes Lee Kuan Yew.
The Asiatics were supposed to panic when the firing started, yet they were the stoical ones who took
the casualties and died without hysteria. It was the British civilian bosses who ducked under tables when
the bombs and shells fell. It was the British civilians and government officers in Penang who, on
December 16, 1941, in the quiet of the night, fled the island for the safety of Singapore, abandoning
the Asiatics to their fate. The British had proved as frightened and at a loss as to what to do as the
Asiatics, if not more so.
Singapore caused a rift between Australia and Britain. On the 50th anniversary of the fall of the fortress,
then prime minister Paul Keating provoked a controversy by accusing the British of betraying Australia
and allowing a defeat that consigned thousands of Australian POWs to Japanese labour camps.
Not to be outdone, the British quietly released War Office records. The papers contained explosive
allegations by the British commander of Allied forces, General Archibald Wavell, that mass desertions by
Australian troops had been largely responsible for the Japanese victory. They quoted accusations by
senior British officials that members of the Australias 8th Division were guilty of looting, rape,
drunkenness, insubordination and even murder.
One document said an entire battalion of Australian troops assigned to guard the coast had simply fled,
allowing the Japanese to walk through the gap. The Australians are known as daffodils: beautiful to
look at, but yellow all through, said the document.
Road to perdition
Britains Asian nightmare was a long time coming. Unclassified files from Britains Colonial Office show
British administration of Asia in an unflattering light. One of the files contains the war diary of Vice-
Admiral Geoffrey Layton, acting Commander-in-Chief of Britains Eastern Fleet. He wrote: Man for man,
our men were inferior to the Japanese in training and in the moral qualities of audacity, tenacity,
discipline and devotion.
In fact, the German Blitzkrieg in France had revealed the sloth and corruption that flourished in the
British Army. Theft of stores, fuel and even trucks by soldiers was common, writes military historian Max
Hastings.
Britains Prime Minister Winston Churchill pressed his generals to overcome their fears of the enemy,
but a perception was growing that Britain was too yellow to fight.
Things didnt get any better when in August 1941 Churchill sent his man Alfred Duff Cooper to Singapore
to report on the preparations for the Japanese attack. In a letter to Churchill he complained that the
governor of the region, Shenton Thomas, had cancelled Coopers order that European women and
children should be evacuated first from the area.
Heres Thomas version of the row: I stood for no racial discrimination. He (Cooper) said in council that
he considered a European ought to get preference over an Asiatic.
The scenes of exodus from Malaya were nothing less than disgraceful. While British families were
evacuated, Asian families were left behind. No arrangements were made for their evacuation.
It was perhaps poetic justice that when the Japanese seized the Penang radio station, one of the chief
anti-British broadcasters was a former Indian civil servant.
Surrender spectacle
Author James Leasor says in Singapore: The Battle that Changed the World that the British treated
Asians to an "unprecedented exhibition of their own humiliation and ineptitude".
Never in all imperial history had such a spectacle been staged before nor watched by so vast and
attentive an audience. Subject peoples had watched the British destroy their own myth. Now
nationalism, which had been either nascent or non-existent, surged to maturity. If one Asiatic power
could so humble the greatest imperial power in the world, then other countries suffering under imperial
jackboots could rise and fight.
The Japanese treated the surrender as a major spectacle. As the British and Australian POWs were
marched off, the Japanese guards told the locals: Look at your proud masters now.
The Australians, who had indulged in rioting and rape of Singapore civilians (the people they were
supposed to protect) were treated most harshly. More than 15,000 of them were hauled off in chains
like animals to work on Myanmar rail lines during which beating and torture were common. Attrition
was high; over 8,000 died.
Japans atomic bomb
Eighteen months after World War II, the New York Times published an editorial that said Japan had
dropped an atomic bomb of nationalism in Asia.
When the Japanese came they made three important changes. First, they exploded the myth of military
and social invulnerability of the pukkah sahibs. They overwhelmed their military forces in short order
and then subjected white prisoners to every form of indignity and encouraged former servants of the
white man to do likewise.
Second, they inaugurated a propaganda campaign that has been eagerly continued by nationalist
leaders. Knowing the people could not read, the Japanese set up radio stations and established outdoor
radio receiving units in practically every village. Thus millions who could not be reached through the eye
were reached through the ear.
That the colonial peoples of the Far East intend to have their freedom, and that they eventually will win
it, there is little doubt. Their numbers are many times those of the white man. And for the first time in
their history thanks largely to the Japanese they have modern arms with which to fight.
Whatever the outcome of these present days of turmoil and transition, the Far East in all probability
will never again be the happy hunting ground of European imperialists and the predatory white
businessman.