ABSTRACT
Chapter 3 exposes the brutal extremities of the war effort. In a country overwhelmingly agrarian and steeped in poverty, the contributions to the British war effort soon began to weigh heavily on civilian society. Rising land revenue, coercive contributions to the Viceroys war fund and defence savings bonds, varied measures of taxation and even collections in kind became the normal order of the day. Surprisingly the financial targets fixed by the viceroys’ office for the war fund and defence bonds did not take into account the specificities of each region. In this context, the difficulties encountered by the Assam premier and British officials, in ensuring the mobilization of resources from a region totally unprepared for war, are highlighted in this chapter. The political fallout is also highlighted, such as the efforts launched by the provincial Congress party to step up the anti-war propaganda and the Individual Civil Disobedience Movement, announced by the Indian National Congress on October 17, 1940. The movement is discussed in relation to its impact in Assam.
