In a letter addressed to US President Franklin Roosevelt, dated 4 March 1942, Winston Churchill wrote, ‘We must not on any account break with the Moslems, who represent a hundred million people, and the main army elements on which we must rely for the immediate fighting’ (The Second World War, Volume IV, page 185, authored by Winston S. Churchill) Churchill relied on the Muslim community due to its large proportion of martial races!

During the Second World War the Indian Army expanded from a force of 200,000 in 1939 to 2,500,000 in 1945. The army was an entirely volunteer force and conscription was never imposed. According to Marston, the Indian Army ‘ended the war as the largest all-volunteer force the world had ever seen….’. Over a period of five years, 617,353 Muslims volunteered. The vast majority were recruited from modern day Pakistan, particularly the Punjab and the North West Frontier, home to some of the world’s most formidable martial traditions: the Pashtun, Rajput, Awan and Jat. Ian Sumner suggests that ‘Muslim regiments provided 65 per cent of Indian troops fighting in North Africa, Italy and Burma..............click here for futher reading