Saturday, October 17, 2009

WW2 Japanese Propaganda Leaflet against British India


First of all I would like to give my best wishes for Happy and Safe Deepawali to all of my readers. For those of you who don't know about it here is brief intro on it.

Diwali is a festival which is celebrated in India and Nepal. While it is particularly sacred to Hindus, practitioners of other Indian religions also celebrate Diwali, and Jainist, Hindu, and Sikh communities all over the world commemorate Diwali with smaller festivals of their own. The timing of this holiday varies, since it is based on the Hindu lunar calendar, but it is generally celebrated in the fall. Diwali festivities in India involve everyone, not just the religious faithful, and the holiday is a major event in the Indian year.

On this auspicious occasion, I decided to show Japanese world war two propaganda leaflets. I have very few of them in my collection. They are generally rare and very costly to acquire. But each of Japanese leaflets are gem on its own due to colorful delight and propaganda it offers.

Shown above is one of such propaganda leaflet. Again, I am going to take the text directly from Herbert Friedman's article (Axis Propaganda Aganist India) as he has described it very clearly.

This leaflet depicts the British piling onto the back of a truck in an attempt to escape the victorious Japanese military forces. A Japanese bomber is in the background. Some Indian colonial troops try to get into the truck along with the British, but they are kicked aside and knocked to the ground. One lies dead beneath the rear wheels. This clearly shows the regard the British have for their Indian colonial troops.

The leaflet has text in Hindi and Bengali. The translated version in English is:

The Englishmen are just not bothered about you.
You will see this scene wherever you look.

I am sure you would like the leaflet because of its message and colorful representation.

1 comment:

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