Between 1939 and 1945 India underwent extraordinary and irreversible change Hundreds of thousands of Indians suddenly found themselves in uniform fighting in the Middle East North and East Africa Europe and something simply never imagined against a Japanese army poised to invade eastern India. By the war s end the Indian Army had become the largest volunteer force in the conflict consisting of 2.5 million men while many millions more had offered their industrial agricultural and military labour. In India s War historian Srinath Raghavan paints a compelling picture of battles abroad and of life on the home front arguing that World War II is crucial to explaining how and why colonial rule ended in South Asia. The war forever altered the country s social landscape and when the dust settled India had emerged as a major Asian power with her feet set firmly on the path toward Independence.From Gandhi s early support of Britain s war efforts to the crucial Burma Campaign Raghavan s authoritative and vivid account shows how India s economy politics and people were forever transformed laying the groundwork for the emergence of modern South Asia. About the AuthorSrinath Raghavan is Senior Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research New Delhi. A former infantry officer in the Indian Army he has studied and taught at King s College London. He is the author of two highly praised books War and Peace in Modern India A Strategic History of the Nehru Years 2010 and 1971 A Global History of the Creation of Bangladesh 2013 . He is a recipient of the 2015 Infosys Prize Social Sciences . - from Amzon