10. The Prime Minister and the Indian Army’s Last War

This chapter sketches out to the degree to which Winston Churchill as the Prime Minister and Minister of Defense shaped - and at times distorted - the last great martial effort of the Raj . Churchill's relationship to India at war can be broken into two areas for consideration: his impact on Indian politics and governance during the war, and his strategic direction of the Indian war effort. The British ruling cadre in India had always been miniscule, as Churchill had noted in one of his early letters from India. The First World War had led not only to the acceleration of Indian participation in the political life of the Raj but to a commitment to 'Indianization'. The post-1918 changes in India - political advance and Indianization of the Raj 's administrative services - were until the late 1930s echoed only faintly in the Indian Army. Keywords:Indian Army; Indianization; Prime Minister; Raj ; Winston Churchill; World War