SOAS Research Online

Abstract

Recent work on military logistics in India during World War II have focused on the mobilisation of supply for the war effort per se, the technical operations of the railways and their impact on training railway operating companies in India, and the effect of the mobilisation of Indian Railways for the war effort on everyday society. This chapter examines new approaches during the period to the movement of troops and supply in the 1930s and the implications of changing military logistics for Indian military operations in Iraq, Burma, and on the Bengal–Assam Railway in the 1940s. Ultimately, this new approach to the negotiation of space, time, and movement through military management would be tested by American logistical operators favoured by Lord Mountbatten. Nevertheless, ‘Movement Control’ as developed by Royal Engineers would remain a cornerstone of Indian transportation systems. This continued importance raises questions about the way the impact of the war has been assessed in the context of technology in India. It also raises questions about the hegemony given in more recent literature to American globalisation and its prewar roots and the neglect of a still influential anglobalisation as termed by Niall Ferguson.