Winston Churchill is having a wonderful afterlife, though during his lifetime contemporaries were not afraid to mock him. His first World War book, World in Crisis, was dubbed Winston in Crisis. The first volume of his second World War magnus opus, The Gathering Storm, was described by Emanuel Shinwell as a novel where Churchill was the main character, while Michael Foot wrote that although the book was “vastly more enjoyable and instructive than Hitler’s Mein Kampf”, when it came to “personal conceit and arrogance there is some likeness between the two”. But today Churchill is so venerated that such comments would be considered blasphemous.
In Fighting Retreat, Walter Reid concentrates on Churchill’s moral black hole regarding India. The greatest Briton publicly called Indians primitive and worked hard for years to deny them freedom. His real anger was directed at Hindus; he called their religion beastly, and said he wished Arthur Harris, head of Bomber Command, had surplus bombers to destroy all Hindus.
Reid does not use this last, most incendiary, comment, but provides plenty of evidence that Churchill was a racist who could not abide Hindus. In contrast, he liked the Muslims, seeing them as a war-like race who would always overwhelm the Hindus.
Reid also does not shy away from the fact that the British never thought of giving India self-government, using weasel words such as “responsible government”, which was very far from the sort of self-government they had given the white dominions of Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa. However, as if aware of the dangerous path he is treading, Reid takes care to balance his devastating indictment by almost bending over backwards to show how, away from India, Churchill could be a kind, generous man and often ahead of his contemporaries in his thinking. At times he gives the impression of being a touch too keen.
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Nevertheless, this is a fine read from a historian with an excellent grasp of his subject, although this may not be enough to appease the Churchill lobby.
Mihir Bose’s Thank You Mr Crombie: Lessons in Guilt and Gratitude to Britain will be published in May
