How Japan’s Victory in the 1907 War Against Russia Strengthened India’s Resolve for Freedom

In 1907, two years after the conclusion of the Russo-Japanese War, the Indian anticolonial leader Aurobindo Ghose drew attention to the geopolitical connections between India and Asia that rendered the political freedom of India from British rule an essential precondition of Asiatic freedom as a whole. We believe that … the Time-Spirit is at work to bring about a mighty movement … that movement is the resurgence of Asia, and that the resurgence of India is not only a necessary part of the larger movement but its central need. … The position of India makes her the key of Asia. … Her freedom is necessary to the unity of Asia. Geographically, she occupies an impregnable position of strength commanding the East of Asia as well as the West, from which as from a secure fortress, she can strike the nations of the Persian or the Chinese world. Such a position held by a European Power means a perpetual menace to the safety of Asia. It will therefore be the first great enterprise of a Chino-Japanese alliance to eject the English from India, and hold her in the interests of Asiatic freedom and Asiatic unity. In stark contrast to civilisational Asianists who had emphasised the cultural unity of India and Asia, Ghose highlights here the geopolitical alliances between India and other major Asian countries. The language Ghose uses is one of military strikes, geographical strength, secure fortresses, and strategic alliances that must be formed between Asian countries to “eject” the British from India and thereby ensure the freedom of Asia itself from European empires. Ghose’s statement reflects the emergence of geopolitics as a new discursive domain in India. Japan’s victory marked an epistemological break that created the conditions for Indians to see the world through a geopolitical lens. Eager to understand the reasons for Japan’s victory, Indian thinkers closely studied the role of geography, specifically terrain, location, natural resources, buffer zones, and sea routes, in international power relations. They researched and wrote on the two major dimensions of geopolitics: first, the dimension of military and naval warfare, including military and naval strategies and weapons (guns, bombs, explosives), and second, the dimension of military power and the systems of international alliances that undergirded the world order of the time. Electrified by Japan’s victory in the Russo-Japanese War of 1905, Indian anticolonial revolutionaries began to organise and prepare for a war against the British Empire. Since India, unlike Japan, was not an independent country, her anticolonial war would have to take the form of a national revolt, much like the one fought in 1857. In the aftermath of the suppression of the revolt, the discourse of war as a path to military and political sovereignty had gone underground and existed furtively within secret societies. Indian intellectuals constructed a discourse of India’s civilisational sovereignty in its place, which emphasised the cultural unity of India with Asian countries like Japan. Japan’s triumph rekindled the smouldering memory of 1857 and turned it into a revolutionary fire. The military-political route to sovereignty that had been closed by the defeat of the Revolt of 1857 was opened once again, and in the discursive horizon revealed by this new geopolitical imagination, the primary questions were: How had India lost its political and military sovereignty? And through what military strategies, manoeuvres, and alliances could that sovereignty be recovered? In this discourse, the colonisation of India was not attributed to civilizational weaknesses; it was seen as a geopolitical event that could only be ended by geopolitical means, including military and political strategies and alliances that would result in the empire’s violent end. This chapter explores the origins and nature of a geopolitical discourse of Asianism in India in the wake of the 1905 Russo-Japanese War. It looks at both national and transnational efforts made by Indian geopolitical Asianists to start an anticolonial revolution in India on the one hand, and to form alliances with other Asian and European powers who would help India achieve national sovereignty on the other. It also examines the contradictions and continuities between the discourse of geopolitical Asianism and the discourse of civilisational Asianism that found a new voice in Rabindranath Tagore in the years following the Russo-Japanese War. In many ways, the birth of Indian nationalism in the twentieth century was the direct product of the Russo–Japanese War. The news of the defeat of imperial Russia by Japan in the war sent a wave of exhilaration through Indians, who envisioned their own future freedom from the British Empire in the image of a free Japan. Thus, it was Japan’s victory, an event that occurred outside the territorial boundaries of India, that inspired the rise of the discourse and practice of Indian nationalism, an extraordinary fact whose significance has been completely overlooked by historians. Also, what was distinctive about this nationalism was that in being connected at its birth with a discourse of Asianism, it was inspired by, and derivative of, a vision of the freedom of Asia as a whole. No sooner did the news of the Russo-Japanese War arrive in India than the Indian press declared Japan’s victory as symbolic of the rise of Asia or the rise of the East as a whole, rather than the victory of a single country. The Hind Vijaya wrote: “One can discern in the fall of Port Arthur signs of the rise of Asiatic nations. The sun of Europe’s glory is about to set, while that of Asia is gradually rising.” Similarly, for a writer in the Bengalee, the Japanese success was indicative of a “great Eastern revival.” Mohandas Gandhi, too, wrote in the Indian Opinion in 1905, “So far and wide have the roots of Japanese victory spread that we cannot now visualise all the fruit it will put forth. The people of the East seem to be waking up from their lethargy.” Moreover, Japan’s victory demonstrated for Indian writers not her unique military capabilities as a nation but “Asiatic values” and Asian military abilities that had been denigrated for over a century by the British discourse of the civilising mission. Newspapers like Deshbhakti emphasised that “Japan’s admirable qualities … are peculiarly Asiatic … fearlessness of death, … abstinence and self-control, tenderness and humanity,” in contrast to Western nations that were characterised by “aggressiveness, greed, and disregard for other people’s rights in the name of progress.” At the same time, they argued, Japan’s military successes had overturned a key claim of British discourse that Asians were weak and incapable of leading organised campaigns on the battlefield. The Kesari, for example, asserted that the Japanese victory at the Battle of Mukden proved the military capabilities of “Asiatics” as a whole. There was never any question about the personal courage and endurance of Asiatic troops. But they were told that they were deficient in leadership and organisation and could not therefore hope for victory without being led on the battlefield by European generals. The Asiatics have given an effective reply to this allegation on the battlefield of Mukden. Russia, which occupies the foremost position among the European nations, has been completely worsted by Japan. … It is impossible yet to estimate fully the consequences of the victory of Mukden. It has undoubtedly served to bring the sun of Asia’s glory on the horizon, and there are signs that it will gradually rise to the meridian and spread its refulgent rays far and wide throughout Asia. Thus, in a single stroke, Japan’s triumph brought the importance of warfare, battles, resistance, and struggle against imperialism to the forefront of Indian public discourse. Editorials expounded on the transformative impact that this demonstration of the military capabilities of Asians had on Indian consciousness. An editorial in the Bengalee, for example, asserted: “We feel that we are not the same people as we were before the Japanese successes. … For the first time in modern history Asia has triumphed over Europe and has vindicated its equality in the knowledge of those arts which have their cradle in Europe.” Japan’s victory also proved for many writers that mighty European military empires that seemed invincible could be defeated. And if imperial Russia could be defeated, the same fate, they felt, could befall the British Empire. A writer in Kal asserted that “Japan, by her brilliant achievement, has produced the conviction in the breast of every Asiatic that all European Powers are bound to crumble before an energetic onslaught. … The Russo-Japanese War has taught men how intrinsically weak large Empires are and how vastly powerful small states might be.” Echoing the same sentiment, a writer in the Kesari stated, “Japan has shown that an Asiatic power can more than hold its own against a European rival. …” Significantly, newspaper writers saw in Japan’s victory a sign of the future freedom of India. Because of historical relations between the two “Asiatic” countries, they asserted, “the magnificent qualities which the Japanese have exhibited in the epoch-making war” were ones that Indians also possessed. It was natural, then, for Indians to feel joy at Japan’s success. In the words of a writer for the Kesari: “Japan is today winning the same distinction which India won in olden times. As both India and Japan have been instrumental in raising the prestige of Asia, it is but natural that they should be proud of each other. The new victory gained by Japan in capturing Port Arthur has spread joy throughout India.” If Indians were to win freedom from the British Empire, these writers argued, they would have to emulate Japan. What distinguished the Japanese was that they were united as a people, whereas Indians were not, they contended. The most important task, then, was to build a sense of unity among all Indians. A writer in Hind Vijaya observed, “Japan owes her victories entirely to the unity prevailing among her people. Indians, if they desire to bring about the rise of their country, should meditate upon and take a lesson from the example set by Japan.” An observer writing for the Spectator for his audience in England noted the constant emphasis in Indian newspapers on the need to emulate Japan as “the first example of a wholly Asiatic defeating a Western Power. In pointing to the moral of the Japanese victories [native] newspapers continually proclaim a parallel between Japan and the various provinces of India. Japan, they say, rose suddenly from obscurity, entirely through the development of a national sentiment. Only let the people of India unite, let them foster the growth of a national sentiment, and no man can say where they will stop. The popular reactions of Indians to Japan’s victory in the war were summed up by the same observer in the Spectator: “In India, the native feeling is practically universally in favour of Japan. Everywhere it is apparent, from the larger towns with their native prints down to the small townships of the mofussil, where the daily news is read with eagerness. Articles laudatory of Japan constantly appear. … Native feeling in India is enthusiastically pro-Japanese.” CF Andrews, a close friend of Gandhi and Tagore, endorsed this view. Even in remote villages, he found that the men “talked over the victories of Japan as they sat in their circles and passed around the huqqa at night.” Indians demonstrated their pride at Japan’s victory and their support of the Japanese cause in several tangible ways. A Japanese Widows and Orphans Fund was set up to which “India … contributed nearly a lakh of rupees,” wrote the Gujarati. In addition, an Indo-Japanese Association was formed to “promote friendly relations between India and Japan, and to make literary, religious, educational and industrial investigations.” When news of the fall of Port Arthur reached India, a writer in the Shri Fattesingh Gazette wrote: “In recognition of this brilliant achievement of Japan, some of our townsmen … [gave] expression to their feeling of joy by distributing sweets.” Excerpted with permission from Asianism and the Fall of Empire: India’s Road to Freedom, Mithi Mukherjee, HarperCollins India.