80th Anniversary of Victory in Europe and Victory over Japan

Lord Parekh Excerpts

Friday 9th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parekh (Lab)]

My Lords, as we celebrate the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, it is important to remember what it actually signifies. Every act of memorialisation or celebration is also a re-enactment. In remembering those who died, we should also remember their sacrifices and commit ourselves to a world in which such sacrifices will no longer be necessary. We do not celebrate or memorialise the past for its own sake; we do that in order to learn lessons, and for inspiration. I very much hope that we will do so in this context, given the violence and injustice we see all over the world.

The Second World War was one of the most vicious wars, far more so than the First World War, with far more casualties, military and civilian. Different countries played different roles, and the important thing is, how was that role interpreted? There, I think we made a serious mistake, to which I want to alert your Lordships—not that this is something new, but it is an important point to bear in mind. People began to interpret the Second World War as a war in which the Americans played the crucial role: they were Europe’s saviours, and they helped us win the war. This is just not true.

The Americans did supply us with weapons and soldiers, but the major role was played by the Soviet Union, which sacrificed the largest number of people—27 million. Of the 15 republics which constituted the Soviet Union, the Russian Republic suffered 87,000 casualties. In short, the Soviet Union played a decisive military role.

After the war, I would have expected us to organise things in such a way that the Soviet role was integrated into the Atlantic Charter and the role that we assigned to a new world body. We did not do that, and we ended up creating the bipolar world in which we were the West, and on the other side were the Soviets. That was a serious mistake, and if we are not careful, we are in danger of doing something similar, because the bipolar world we created is crumbling in front of us. What will we replace it with? A multipolar world? For that world, again, we do not quite know how to get our bearings. This was one mistake, one failing, of the treaty that ended the Second World War.

The other issue that is quite important—and I say this as an Indian—is how India and the role of the Commonwealth were grossly underestimated in the course of the Second World War. India contributed a very large number of people and large amount of money, in lots of ways. Some were voluntary recruits; others had to be compelled. Whatever the reason and whatever the cause, a large number of people were assembled. What did we do to remember their role in the Second World War? Nothing. It is not that we wanted to show any kind of discrimination; it is simply that we forgot—partly because we were in the business of reconstructing the world and partly because we were remembering our own past—what the Indians and others had contributed. It never occurred to us. But the fact remains that we did not play fair by them. For their part, they were caught up in a world that was destroyed by the partition and the enormous amount of bloodshed it caused. Therefore, they could not press for it and we did not think of it, and the result was that, for years and years, India’s and the Commonwealth’s role went unrecognised.

There was another way in which it went unrecognised. The Second World War was supposed to be about giving freedom and fostering democracy. Mahatma Gandhi asked that, before India joins the war, the British should make a commitment to give India independence—would Britain do that? Britain hesitated, and no such commitment was made, with the result that the Indian contribution to the Second World War was far less than it could have been and far more half-hearted.

I end by saying that, if one analyses the Second World War and its consequences objectively and dispassionately and asks oneself what the lessons are to learn from it—not just immediate but long term—one sees that they are only just being learned.