Although their role is underplayed in most World War II histories, tens of

thousands of Indian soldiers fought and died fighting for the British, against the
Germans and the Japanese. They did not exactly have a choice: after all, they were
subjects of the mighty British Empire. However, many of them were willing
conscripts and played an important – if unsung - role in British victories in
Burma, Malaya and Indonesia.

By and large, the Indian soldiers were treated fairly by their British superiors,
but there were lapses. One of the most serious was using them as human guinea pigs
by a British chemical warfare research organization, then the world’s largest, to
test the effects of mustard gas on humans. The tests on the Indi¬ans were part of
a deadly pro¬gram of identifying the exact amount of the gas that could prove
dead¬ly on the battlefield.

The trials started in the early 1930s and lasted till India gained independ¬ence
in 1947; and were part of a study by British sci¬entists to ascertain if the
poisonous gas inflicted greater damage on 'people of color' than on whites. The
sci¬entists had been posted to the In¬dian sub-continent to develop chem¬ical
warfare agents for use against the Japanese. Several hundred In¬dians were part of
the trials, ac¬cording to documents released by the UK's National Archives.

It is unclear if the Indians were told about the potentially serious medical
implications of the trials before they were sent to the gas chambers by scientists
from Porton Down, the UK's chemical war¬fare research laboratory; but it seems
highly unlikely. Remember, the tests were conducted during the days of Empire. It
is hard to believe if anyone would have agreed, if they knew before¬hand what was
going to happen.

Several of the Indians suffered so severely they had to be hospitalized, with

severe burns. Many of the In¬dian servicemen, who were sent into the gas chambers
wearing no more than drill shorts and open-necked khaki cotton shirts to gauge the
effect of mustard gas on the eyes, also had to be hospitalized after the
experiment.

Some British servicemen, recruited over time to take part in similar exper¬iments,
recently won compensation for being duped into being treated as guinea pigs. But
it is doubtful whether British author¬ities are willing to entertain com¬pensation
claims from the affected Indian soldiers or their heirs and successors. Officials
have been quot¬ed as saying that the trials took place in a different era and the
studies in India "included defensive research”. I suppose that is the way of all
conquerors.