Sepoys and sowars fighting and dying for the alien colonial regime do not go well with the dominant discourse, which emphasises the anti-colonial struggle

Amongst A body of cinema buffs there is a view that of the films made after World War I, All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), adapted from a novel by Erich Maria Remarque, and Paths of Glory (1957) adapted from Humphrey Cobb’s novel by the same name, are generally held to be accurate, realistic depictions of the Great War. All Quiet on the Western Front, directed by Lewis Milestone, speaks of the horrors of war from the German perspective, while Paths of Glory by Stanley Kubrick, depicts the events leading up to and following the refusal of a regiment of the French army to continue a suicidal attack on the Germans.

Considering our inadequacies of knowledge about the role, range and magnitude of participation by troops from the Indian subcontinent in the First World War, the enormous interest generated on this subject in Europe has touched us deeply. Several Indian publications have brought out extensive coverages in the anniversary year of the commencement of the Great War, as it was known when it unfolded. Amongst those, one by Outlook stands out. Despite the valiant attempts, however, one sees an acute paucity of authorship from the Indian sub-continent on the subject, although several historians and scholars of Indian origin as part of academia abroad have contributed. In this backdrop, one is distressed to observe that the role and contribution of India is often forgotten, although India contributed immensely to the war efforts in terms of both men and material. Indian soldiers served with credit and honour in numerous battlefields around the globe: in France and Belgium; in Aden, Arabia; East Africa; Gallipoli; Egypt; Mesopotamia; Palestine; Persia; Salonica; Russia; and even in China. They earned over 9,200 decorations for gallantry, including 11 Victoria Crosses. These figures include the contribution of over 26,000 Imperial Service troops who were part of the Indian State Forces.

We in India are, thus, blameworthy of ignoring the contribution of our kin and forefathers, albeit as part of the British Army, towards the sustenance of the British Empire and for the perpetuation of the British Raj in India. We chose not to remember that from the Indian population of 325 million people, about 1.7 million which included 1.1 million combatants and 6,00,000 labour, had sailed to fight in the war. Nearly 62,000 of them did not return and died, and another 67,000 were wounded. In total, at least 74,187 Indian soldiers died during the war. In hindsight, scholars have attempted to explain this gross act of omission by India’s intellectual milieu. Let me present a few extracts from the Collector’s edition published by the Outlook magazine on this issue.

Eugene Rogan, Associate Professor of Modern History of the Middle East; and Fellow of the Middle East Centre, St Anthony’s College, Oxford University, goes on to say: “Given the very great number of Indian men who served as soldiers, noncombatants and labourers in the First World War, it is all the more surprising how little we know about their war experiences. Unlike soldiers in Europe and the Middle East, there have been very few diaries, journals or memoirs published by Indian soldiers and officers. Scholars are working actively to fill this gap. Santanu Das in the University of London, and David Omissi in Hull, have each contributed new sources, including letters and diaries, written by Indian soldiers. Yet the quantity of material correctly available represents an insignificant proportion of the Indian men who lived, fought, suffered and in many cases died in the Great War. In this season of remembrance of the Great War, given their numbers, the fronts on which they fought, and the hardship they suffered, no account of the Great War is complete that neglects the role of the Indian forces.”

Kaushik Roy, Professor of History in Jadavpur University, Kolkata, and Global Fellow Peace Research, Oslo, Norway writes: “However, historians have been unkind to Indian army’s role. British and American scholars consider the Indian army as minor footnote in their account of the gargantuan struggles between the Allied and German armies in Europe. For them, the Indian army was a colonial police force not suited for conducting large scale attrition warfare. And Indian civilian historians have never shown much interest in matters military. Sepoys and sowars fighting and dying for the alien colonial regime do not go well with the dominant discourse which emphasises the anticolonial struggle. Higher educational institutions are also not willing to sponsor military history of the First World War for fear of militarising India’s culture. India still lacks an official history of the First World War. The Indian army’s histories usually utilised retired military historians to write “drums and button” narratives, which are not taken seriously by professional historians.”

Much of the curtain over Indian contribution is seemingly lifting as enthusiastic Indian researchers are pitched into the fray. It is believed that “The media (source of information) worked under heavy censorship since the freedom of the Press was largely an alien concept at the time of World War I. The Press was often used therefore, as a tool of propaganda. Each nation employed its media to generate a positive image of the state. The Press played a very crucial role in motivating innocent, virginal men, with a misguided sense of patriotism, to join the war. Between 1914 and 1919 there were three categories of journalists — the official reporters, the ‘free press’ and the amateur journos or the soldiers reporting from the trenches. The official reporters were the only ones allowed access to a battle-field and the official photographs were the primary source of images from the battle-fields”.

Margaret L Pachuau, Associate Professor, Department of English, Mizoram University, further brings to light a virtually unrecorded historical reality that, “The Great War had had tremendous impact upon the Mizos who were inhabitants of what was then known as the Lushai hills. Despite belonging to a predominantly tribal ethos that was bereft of literacy and decidedly under the impact of colonial umbrella, the Mizos were active participants in the war, having voyaged even in the farflung horizons of France during the war. With as many as over 2,000 Mizos participating in the war, sent as they were under the colonial rule, the Great War became the genesis of the formulation of a more coherent global identity for an inherently tribal community.”

The story of a motley group of four valiant Indian men who had participated in the British air campaigns as members of the Royal Flying Corps is exhilarating. They were Indra Lal Roy — the first Indian Combat pilot to win the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC); Hardit Singh Malik (eminent golfer and diplomat, subsequently); S C Welinkar; and E S C Sen. Somnath Sapru’s extremely engaging narrative about the verve and joie-de-vivre of these pioneers of Indian combat aviation in his book Sky Hawks would be most rewarding to the readers.