The issue of the Poles’ stay in India during World War II should be viewed in the broader context of contemporary and earlier Polish-Indian relations. We should start with the most obvious fact: India was not an independent state or states at that time, but an area under British rule. The British presence in India began with trade, when the English East India Company was established and arrived on the subcontinent in the 17th century. In the 18th century, trade gradually turned into total conquest. For many historians, the turning point here is 1757, when, after the Battle of Plassey, the Company single-handedly took over the entire first major province of India – Bengal. Until the mid-19th century, practically the entire subcontinent remained under the Company’s rule or influence. In 1858, after the Sepoy Mutiny, the East India Company was liquidated, and Great Britain took over control of India directly. The colonial government in India (in Calcutta, then in New Delhi) was therefore subordinate to the government of the United Kingdom in London, which was expressed in the very name of the highest official in India – he was the viceroy, and therefore the viceroy of the British monarchs. Ergo – India did not have its own foreign policy, it was dependent on the British raison d’état and decisions made in London. It was no different when deciding the fate of Poles leaving the Soviet Union in the 1940s. At the same time, however, it should be remembered that not all of India was under direct British rule. This was the case with 2/3 of the territory of the subcontinent (British India ) , however, the remaining part of the area consisted of the so-called princely states , i.e. states whose monarchs were subordinate to the Crown in key matters – such as foreign policy or defense – but they had a certain amount of autonomy, e.g. they collected taxes themselves, so they had their own funds. On the sidelines, it can be added that the term “prince” was in line with the British point of view and served to demonstrate the subordination of the Indian rulers to the Crown; the rulers themselves used traditional, pre-colonial titles, such as maharaja (“great king”), indicating that they considered themselves sovereign monarchs. The fact of the existence of “principalities”, seemingly irrelevant to the history of Poland, turned out to be of fundamental importance during the exodus of Poles from the “inhuman land”.

Therefore, if we talk about Polish-Indian relations before the liberation of India (which gained independence in 1947), then – apart from the period of hosting Polish exiles on the subcontinent – ​​they were mainly of a cultural and scientific nature.

Interest in Indian philosophy and literature had been growing in Europe since the 18th century and intensified in the decades preceding World War II. Poland was not a blank spot in this field – in 1820 Joachim Lelewel completed his History of Ancient India… The achievements of Indian philosophy, especially Buddhist philosophy, were brought to Europe’s attention in the 19th century by Arthur Schopenhauer and his successor, Edward von Hartmann. This resulted in the publication, also in Poland, of texts polemicizing with the assumptions of Buddhism and with Indian philosophy in general, which was then perceived on the Old Continent as encouraging inaction. This trend was manifested, among others, in the article and then the book by Władysław Michał Dębicki Filozofia nicości. Rzecz o być Budzdizmu from 1826. Similarly, in the 19th century, the foundations of the Polish academic discipline dealing with India – Indology or Indian studies – were laid. In Kraków, at the Jagiellonian University, the Department of Sanskrit was established in 1893, while at the University of Warsaw Sanskrit has been taught since 1918, and above all, at the Oriental Institute established there in 1932, the Indological Seminary has been operating from the very beginning. Outstanding Polish scientists dealing with India in this period include Andrzej Gawroński (1885-1927), author of the first Polish textbook for learning Sanskrit, and Stanisław Schayer (1899-1942), founder of the Oriental Institute in Warsaw . Unfortunately, the pre-war building of the Oriental Institute, together with its collection of books, was destroyed at the very beginning of World War II as a result of an air raid by German aircraft. Another aspect of Europe’s interest in the subcontinent is the translation of works of Indian literature. At the beginning of the 20th century, the poetry of the Bengali Nobel Prize winner Rabindranath Tagore (born Thakur) took almost the entire world by storm, including Poland, where his volume of Gitanjali was published under the title Pieśni dziadkne (Sacrificial Songs) . This was in 1918. In the following years, many of his other works were published in Poland. Moreover, while translations of Indian literary works in the 19th century were primarily translations into other European languages, in the 20th century the list of translations directly from Indian languages ​​grew. An example of this is the Hymns of the Rigveda translated by Stanisław Michalski.

Interest in the Orient, and therefore in India, was also shown by artists of the Young Poland movement – ​​here we can mention Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer (and his work Hymn to Nirvana ), Jan Kasprowicz (and his There was no being, nor no being, as well as translations from English of the aforementioned Tagore – Mów do mnie, o mnie , Zakończ sobie pieśń ), Bolesław Leśmian (and his essay Ramayana ) and the poet’s cousin Antoni Lange (and his Vedic Sonnets , as well as the novel Miranda).

However, the fashion for India among Polish bohemia did not end there, for example, designed by Stanisław Wyspiański, and Karol Szymanowski’s residence in Zakopane, which still exists today, is called Willa Atma – from the Sanskrit word atman (“soul”).

Poles, although rarely and for very different reasons, also reached India itself. The first, although uncertain, mentions on this subject concern the 15th century. In the second half of that century, a Jew from Poznań, Caspar (Kacper) da Gama, is said to have reached the subcontinent. Having encountered the Portuguese there (present in India since its discovery for modern Europe by Vasco da Gama), he was accused by them of spying for the ruler of Goa, after which he went over to their side, Christianized (hence the surname da Gama, which may suggest that his godfather could have been the great traveler himself) and then, already in Portuguese service, accompanied Pedro Cabral’s sea expedition in the accidental discovery of Brazil. The second Pole in India could have been the Polish nobleman Mustafa Khan, who in 1531 was supposed to have successfully defended the town of Diu on the western coast of India from a Portuguese attack (although it is not certain whether he was not the same person as Caspar da Gama). The first certain source concerning Poles in the subcontinent is an extensive letter from India left in 1596 by Krzysztof Pawłowski – a sailor who was also in Portuguese service. He recalled not only Indian customs, but also the expedition to India itself, which turned out to be “more difficult and burdensome in itself”. This letter, containing some ethnographic observations, but not free from errors, is the first Polish record of the subcontinent. Other travellers to the subcontinent included Henryk Poser (in the 17th century), M. Wilkinski (in the 18th century), as well as Poles who often served in the Dutch East India Company. In the 18th century, Michał Dzierżanowski, a Bar confederate, who took part in the Anglo-French war on the subcontinent, on one side or the other, also made his way to India. In addition, in the same century, there was an entity in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth called the West and East India Company. Formally, it was a Polish company whose purpose was to trade with the aforementioned areas – such companies were created in the modern era by various European countries (there was also, among others, a French company, the aforementioned Dutch company and finally the most famous – the British company, which, as mentioned earlier, eventually conquered India). In reality, however, the ships of the Polish company, sailing under the flag with the coat of arms of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, were a cover for an Austro-Belgian trade enterprise – a cover against the Dutch and English who dominated Indian trade at that time. The plan failed.

Two “Polish” ships, the “Neptun” and the “Koń Polski”, which had sailed to India in 1729, were captured the following year by Anglo-Dutch forces in the mouths of the Ganges. The then ruler of Poland, King Augustus II the Strong, treated the incident as an insult to the Polish flag (in fact, nothing on the ships except the flag was Polish) and thus a diplomatic scandal erupted, but the Republic received no compensation.

Since Christianity has a much longer tradition in India than in Poland, and its presence in the subcontinent also strengthened during colonial times, clergy from various corners of Europe had been coming to India for a long time. The first Polish missionary there was the Jesuit Gabriel Łętowski, who reached the subcontinent in the 17th century. The next ones, who stayed in India longer or only temporarily, were: Andrzej Rudomino, Wojciech Męciński, Jan Mikołaj Smogulecki, Michał Boym, Mikołaj Stoszak. It is worth emphasizing that according to the recommendations of church and religious offices, missionaries were obliged to send detailed reports characterizing both the conditions of work, its results, and the cultural reality surrounding them. Until the 18th century, among others, Władysław Doroszewicz and Hieronim Drzewiecki, the superior of the Jesuit convent in Goa, were still in missionary service in India. In that century, it is worth noting that the then written Polish sources concerning India also emerged as a result of interest in Persia as a potential ally in the fight against Turkey, and the missionaries working there were also diplomats of the Republic. The missionary interests at the beginning of that century gave rise to Michał Wieczorkowski’s travel notes concerning Persia (from 1935 – Iran), although this missionary also travelled in Turkey and India, which is of most interest to us here. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries and in the first decades of the latter, another Pole became the apostolic delegate to the East Indies – Archbishop Władysław Zaleski (1852-1925). He stayed on the subcontinent for thirty years (1886-1916) and although the area of ​​his official activity covered lands from Afghanistan and the Himalayas in the north to Ceylon and the neighboring Pacific Islands in the south, he also traveled to neighboring countries of the Far East, staying in China, the Philippines, Japan and Java, and Indochina. He spoke Tamil and Sinhalese fluently, as well as eight European languages. On his route as a papal delegate, he made many interesting observations of a clear ethnographic nature. Getting to know these vast areas was a history lesson for him and broadened his knowledge of complex cultural problems. In his books, one can clearly see the didactic value of these journeys.

They carefully record the socio-economic, political and national reality, landscape and architecture. relics of history, customs and habits. Such is the scope of works published in Polish: Podróż po Indyach in 1896 and Podróż po Indo-China, Java and the Chinese coasts in 1897 and 1898 , both published in Krakow in 1898. He also left a two-volume work, in the nature of a diary, entitled Trzydzieści lat w India i Azji Południowa (Thirty years in India and South Asia ), published in Rome (1917-1921). But he also published in English and French, and a universally appreciated scientific work was History of Ceylon , published in India in 1913. It is also worth mentioning our other travelers in these areas. They included Zygmunt Skórzewski, who was in India in 1897. The final years of the 19th century also saw Adam Sierakowski travelling around India and Java, from where he sent descriptions published by “Dziennik Poznański”, “Biblioteka Warszawska” and “Kłosy” to Poland. In the interwar period, a dozen or so Polish clergymen were active in India, including Leon Piasecki and August Dehlert.

The interest in travel and ethnography that developed in Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries also extended to Poland and resulted in organizing trips to places as exotic as the Malay Archipelago or the Indian subcontinent. Examples of travelers, and even female travelers, to India in the interwar decades, who left publications after these journeys, include Hanna Skarbek-Peretiatkowicz ( Indje bez retuszu ) or Ewa Dzieduszycka ( Indje i Himalaya. Wstawia z podróży ). In addition to sailors, clergymen and travelers, in the period preceding World War II, Poles seeking success in business also came to India. The Polish consulate in the economic capital of India – Bombay – was supposed to provide them with assistance. However, the most exotic thread is probably that of Wanda Dynowska and Maurycy Frydman. Interested in Indian mysticism and culture, Dynowska (1888-1971) joined the Theosophical Society operating on the subcontinent and organized its Polish branch; she was also a Freemason. In 1935 she left for India, where she became a close associate of the fighter for Indian self-government, and eventually independence – Mahatma (real name Mohandas) Gandhi. She also eventually acquired an Indian name – Uma Devi. With the outbreak of World War II, Dynowska set off on a journey that was the opposite of many Polish refugees – she tried to get to her homeland and reached as far as Romania, but ultimately had to return to the subcontinent from there. In 1944, she became one of the editors of the Polish-Indian Library, which published a series of books on Indian philosophy and mysticism into Polish, as well as translations of Polish works into English, which were in turn published in India.

She did this work with Maurycy Frydman (1901-1976), whose life was in many ways parallel. Frydman, a Polish Jew, worked in India in the 1930s. Like Dynowska, fascinated by Indian thought, he converted to Hinduism, taking the name Swami Bharatananda. Like Dynowska, he was also a long-time collaborator of Mahatma Gandhi, an acquaintance of great local mystics and thinkers (such as Jiddu Krishnamurti) and a translator of their works. When during World War II centers for Poles who had left the Soviet Union began to be established in India, Dynowska and Frydman provided significant support for the entire initiative. This was not their last such noble activity. They both remained in India, and in the years after World War II – when China annexed Tibet (in 1950) and then suppressed the uprising there (in 1959) – they began to help Tibetan refugees, just as they had previously helped Polish refugees.

The Second Polish Republic maintained its consulates not only in independent countries, but also in various colonial territories. Thus, Polish diplomatic missions were established, for example, in Capetown and Beirut, as well as in Bombay (there were also honorary consulates on the subcontinent – in Calcutta and Colombo). Bombay was the economic capital of India, and therefore one of the main reasons for the existence of the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland there were trade issues. The Polish mission, established in 1933, was located at 15/17 Nepean Sea Road and was to play a key role in the “Indian” fate of Poles during World War II. The above-mentioned Wanda Dynowska also worked at this consulate, however, in those dramatic months when Poles were evacuated from Soviet territory, the most important role among the staff of the consulate was played by consul Eugeniusz Banasiński and his wife – Kira, as well as vice-consul Tadeusz Lisiecki, who contributed the most to the idea of ​​accepting compatriots in India, organizing transport there and the stay of Poles on the subcontinent.

Obviously, the interest in Poland in India was even smaller than the interest in India in Poland. This is understandable especially when one considers the size of the then Polish Republic (although it exceeded the area of ​​the contemporary Polish state) on the world map, its distance from India and its practically no significance for the history of the subcontinent. But this lack of interest did not concern the Old Continent as a whole, because the long-standing influence of colonialism in India aroused interest in Europe in certain local circles. The place where the Indians primarily ended up was, of course, London – the metropolis of the British Empire – and then other major cities of the British Isles.

There are several reasons why people from India went there. The first was work – men mainly came to the UK as members of sailing crews, and women as nannies. The second reason was study. Although work and education were mainly done in England, some Indians did not study in the UK, but on the continent, e.g. Mohammad Iqbal (1877-1938) – one of the most important poets of both India and Pakistan – was educated in Munich and Heidelberg. Scientific contacts between Europe and India also had a Polish accent in terms of education. The development of oriental scientific centres in pre-war Poland, mentioned above, meant the emergence of a demand for lecturers from India . Hence, in the 1930s, Hiranmoy Ghoshal began teaching Bengali, and then Hindi, at the University of Warsaw. He married a Polish woman, with whom he made it to India during World War II, where, working in the Polish consulate in Bombay, he helped with the cause of refugees from the Soviet Union. In 1957, he returned to Poland, where he spent the rest of his days. He translated some of the works of Henryk Sienkiewicz, Bolesław Prus and Władysław Reymont into his native Bengali, and also wrote two books in Bengali about the Republic of Poland – both as memoirs of his stay in Poland, covering the period from 1935 to March 1940, and thus also the beginning of World War II. They were published together in a volume entitled Księga Walhalli by the Vistula River . Hiranmoy Ghoshal died in 1969 and was buried in Powązki. Currently, one of the rooms in the Department of South Asia at the University of Warsaw bears his name.

In the 19th century, and even more so in the 20th century, Indians also began to travel to Europe for health reasons (primarily to Switzerland), but also for political reasons. For the latter purpose, they went to England, among other things, to assert their rights in striving for self-government and then independence for their country. However, there were also those who remained supporters of armed struggle, not dialogue with the colonial British government. In the first three decades of the 20th century, these Indian revolutionaries had their cells not only in London, but also in Berlin and Stockholm. Since it was known that they maintained extensive contacts with all kinds of European revolutionaries – from Ireland to Russia – it is not impossible that they also came into contact with Polish activists conspiring against the occupiers of the Republic. As far as the Indian right is concerned, there is a Polish accent, or rather a shadow of an accent, in the ideology of Hindu nationalism (which ideology identifies a member of the Indian nation with a follower of Hinduism).

Namely, Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar (1906-1973, pronounced Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar), the second leader of the largest organization of Hindu nationalism (and its theoretician) – Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (pronounced Rashtriya Slewamsevak Sangh, “National Volunteer Union”) was inspired not only by German theories of nation and Nazism, but also took a short definition of nation as a “civilizational community” from the works of Ludwik Gumplowicz, a Polish Jew. However, this participation of Indians in the political life of the world at that time had another aspect, which later turned out to be the most important for Poland. Namely, the Maharaja of the principality of Nawanagar, the legendary cricketer Ranjitsinhji (pronounced Ranjitsinhji) represented India in the League of Nations (the pre-war predecessor of the United Nations, founded in 1945) and therefore during one of his trips to Europe he took with him his adopted son and future heir to the throne, Digvijayasinhaji, to whom he introduced his friend Ignacy Paderewski – a great composer, pianist, but also a dynamic political activist who contributed significantly to the work of regaining Poland’s independence and later became its prime minister. The Maharaja’s adopted son became fascinated with the figure of Paderewski, and through him with Poland itself, which was of great importance when the fate of Polish children in the Soviet Union was being decided.

Importantly, in the pre-war years, Indian public opinion was rather unfavourable towards both Nazism and fascism. Jawaharlal Nehru, a socialist and one of the most important politicians fighting for Indian independence, while in Italy in 1936, effectively avoided meeting its leader Benito Mussolini. In turn, when Khushwant Singh, later one of the most famous Indian journalists and prose writers, visited Germany with a hockey team in the 1930s, and saw separate benches for Jews in the stands of the sports arena, he decided to sit there to demonstrate his views on Nazism. With the German attack on the Republic in September 1939, the aforementioned Mahatma Gandhi publicly expressed his sympathy for the Polish cause, stating in a special appeal: “Their [Poles’] cause is just and victory is certain.”

The first Poles, among the refugees to India during World War II, reached the subcontinent immediately after the German and Soviet invasions. Hundreds of people found themselves in India by going through Romania, Turkey and Iraq, and then by sea to Bombay. Subsequent Polish groups came to India from the Far East when, with Japan’s entry into the war (in December 1941), they had to flee the Japanese onslaught from Malaya and Singapore.

In Bombay, a group of about 300 Poles was formed, supported as much as possible by the Polish consulate. One of the escapees at the time, Stefan Norblin, a descendant of the famous French artist who worked in Poland – Jan Piotr Norblin, decorated the interiors of the Umaid Bhavan palace, belonging to the Maharaja of Jodhpur, with paintings in 1944-1946 (these paintings were renovated by experts from Poland in 2009). The extraordinary stories of Polish escapes to India include the fate of Lieutenant Sławomir Rawicz, described in the novel Długi marsz (filmed in Hollywood by Peter Weier as The Way Back ), presenting the fates of the author, as well as Captain Zygmunt Makowski, Sergeant Antoni Paluchowicz and Krystyna Polańska, who, together with companions from other nations, escaped from a Siberian gulag in Yakutia in 1941, and after a year of wandering, reached the subcontinent through Mongolia and Tibet (although of the Polish members of the group, only Sławomir Rawicz himself was to survive until the end of the journey). Rawicz’s revelations were, however, questioned by Witold Gliński, who stated that the late Rawicz had stolen his own life story…

The largest wave of refugees in India, however, were those Poles who were evacuated from Soviet territory in 1942. On the eve of their appearance on the subcontinent, the political atmosphere in India was not favorable to Polish refugees. Indo-Polish relations before the war, although positive, were too marginal for the Indian side (and also for the Polish side) to translate into an improvement in the situation of Polish refugees from the Soviet Union seeking asylum in India. And yet, mainly due to the dynamically changing international situation at that time and effective efforts by Polish diplomacy, they found shelter there for many years…