The story of a Bengali soldier in World War II

It was only during my year-long undergraduate course on the history of World War II at the Australian National University (ANU) that I realized that 2.5 million Indians were under arms during the war. According to some estimates, 87,000 Indian troops lost their lives fighting in a war on foreign shores, far away from home. They lay buried in places as distant as Kandy and Haifa. It remains the largest volunteer army in the history of modern warfare. In the storied history of the British Empire, the contribution and sacrifices of the colonial troops remain largely in the margins. Amongst those 2.5 million men were both my grandfathers -- my nana and my dada -- who saw action in various theatres during the war. This is the story of one of them. This is the story of a young Bengali doctor from Pabna in East Bengal/present-day Bangladesh who volunteered to join the coveted Indian Medical Service (IMS) as war clouds were gathering over Europe. This is the story of my grandfather or dada as we call him, Major MM Hossain. Recently I discovered a rather grainy yet significant photo of my dada. The photo was possibly taken when he was deployed in Iraq as part of the PAI force/Iraq Command. It’s a photo of three men standing in front of a Jeep ambulance but it’s also a photo that tells us the story of one man and bears witness to the Indian army’s role in WWII. My dada passed away more than a decade before I was born. In his lifetime, he was a soldier, a physician, a social worker, and a devoted father, husband, and grandfather. Educated at the Calcutta Medical College where he studied with luminaries such as the legendary BC Roy, he emerged as the first Muslim medical graduate of the Pabna district. His time in the army was brief but eventful. As an army doctor, he was deployed in Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Libya, and as I recently learned, Turkey. In late ‘43, he was afflicted with gallstones in the era before laparoscopy, it could have very well been a fatal disease. He was brought to Karachi to undergo surgery and following which he was deployed mostly in India and briefly in present-day Myanmar. At the time of Partition, he was living in Calcutta with his family. Their Calcutta house still stands proudly at Syed Amir Ali Avenue. In the new nation of Pakistan, he transferred to the health service and served as a civil surgeon in various districts of East Pakistan. He also had a stint in the private sector as well as continuing his various social welfare activities. Upon retirement, he finally planted his roots in his native Pabna. The War for Liberation in 1971 took a heavy toll on him. Like most people, he and his family were constantly fleeing from one place to another. He was dealt a death blow when a marauding mob of Razakars looted all his belongings and set fire to his beloved home in the middle of ’71, due to his active sympathy and support for the liberation struggle. Their story is like countless others where they saw everything that they owned burned to a cinder but were grateful to be alive. One of his letters written to my aunt, who was then in a refugee camp in India, speaks volumes about his pain and suffering. His heart condition worsened as the war wore on and six days before the new nation of Bangladesh could emerge as a sovereign entity he tragically passed away. Ironically, despite being a doctor, he couldn’t access adequate medical care due to the severity of the nighttime curfew and incessant air raids. My father, a newly commissioned officer, was then facing an uncertain future interned in a concentration camp in Pakistan, along with thousands of Bengali servicemen who had served in the Pakistan armed forces. He would not return to the country for another two years. One cannot imagine the heart-wrenching anguish of a young man who couldn’t even bid a final farewell to his own father. I never had the opportunity to meet my dada, but, throughout my adult life, I have tried to piece together -- like blocks of a puzzle -- various stories from his life. His entire military records, medals, and all other accouterments were lost in 1971. With very little to rely on which includes a few letters, reminiscences of relatives, trips to places he lived in, and other bits and pieces such as this picture, I still continue to piece together his story. I hope someday my quest will be complete. My academic interest in the history of World War II is, in many ways, informed by the history of my own family. Precious little is written about the story of Bengali servicemen in the war. Thousands had joined from our parts of the world and thousands more died. Often their families didn’t know about their whereabouts for years. In the era of the telegraph, communication between continents was often an impossible affair. I have visited commonwealth war graves in various parts of the world and every time I look at the headstones, I try to imagine the life the person buried underneath had lived. Where he came from, what he experienced, how he died, and whether his family even knows that he’s buried in Taukkyan or Tobruk. Each headstone tells a story -- of conquest, war, greed, and suffering. But they also stand witness to their courage, valour, and their conviction to fight for an ideology. It is a poignant testament to the heroic sacrifice of the soldiers engaged in a global conflagration to preserve liberty and freedom. Each headstone also reminds me that my grandfather could have been one of these men and how lucky we were that they lived to tell the story. It is incumbent upon us to explore the lives and times of those countless heroes who bled and died on foreign shores. Their story is an indelible part of Bangladesh’s glorious military heritage. Shafqat Munir is a Senior Research Fellow at the Bangladesh Institute of Peace and Security Studies (BIPSS), a Dhaka-based think tank, and a military history enthusiast.
Published on: 2022-10-17 06:43:21.097727 +0200 CEST