The Axis Powers: The Word Dominator that Almost Was

I have been blogging about Japan's advance through the south-east Asian region in the past few blogs, a military advance in which I lost my uncle. This is after reading Richard Flannagan's "The Narrow Road to the Deep North," which won the Man Booker Prize this year. This, unwittingly, set off a train of thought the narrative of which is as follows. I would like you to comment freely on what you think of my hi-falutin ideas (worth nothing, though they may be).

Now imagine if Japanese forces had succeeded in building the Death Railway and captured India and went on to East Asia and met up with Rommel's forces in Africa. India would have come under the oppressive rule of Japan, much like China and Korea. Then the history of the world would have been a whole lot different than it is now.

The Axis powers would have had the largest territory in the world and soon Russia and US would have been subdued and brought under it.

This would have resulted in our being subject to two extreme political ideologues the twentieth century has seen: Nazism and Nipponism. Both were oppressive, undemocratic, and dictatorial. We would have had no freedom though we were a free country and India would have suffered from the manufacturing dictates of great Japanese corporations.

The reason why Japan's ambitions have remained a secret is because they didn't permit the documenting of history even by their prisoners. Letters were either burnt or thrown into the sea. They may have kept some record in Japanese, which is uaccessible to researchers. Nippon's votaries were far more ambitious than Hitler himself. They wanted to subdue the world at any cost, and had grown drunk with their own spirit of greatness. They assumed a megalomania unseen in the civilised world.

Japanese bosses are known to strike their subordinates. We Indians would not have suffered this indignity and would have chafed at their power.

Such a behemoth political force as might have been created – nay, almost created – would have seen the downfall of all struggles for freedom.

So my question, which rankles my mind often, is: which was better? Western hegemony with its pretended democratic real politic, humaneness, and compassion or the Axis powers ruling the world. You answer.