The hubris of the Raj

Mukund Padmanabhan's elegantly written book seeks to reconstruct a 'narrative of events that have been neglected, of stories that have been lost'

The Great Flap of 1942: How the Raj Panicked over a Japanese Non-Invasion

Author: Mukund Padmanabhan

Publisher: Penguin

Pages: 245

Price: Rs 599

On December 7, 1941, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, Hawaii was not just a “day of infamy” for the US, as President Roosevelt emotionally described it, but the start of a period of deep ignominy for European colonialism too. By March 1942, the possibility that the sun could set on the British Empire sooner than expected rapidly dawned on many colonial subjects.
 

As Mukund Padmanabhan writes in The Great Flap of 1942, “Japan advanced with a speed that stunned the world,