Posted on: 9 October 2016

Essay:
Why the Indian soldiers of WW1 were forgotten
By Shashi Tharoor
BBC News - 2 July 2015

Approximately 1.3 million Indian soldiers served in World War One, and over 74,000 of them lost their lives. But history has mostly forgotten these sacrifices, which were rewarded with broken promises of Indian independence from the British government, writes Shashi Tharoor.

Exactly 100 years after the "guns of August" boomed across the European continent, the world has been extensively commemorating that seminal event. The Great War, as it was called then, was described at the time as "the war to end all wars". Ironically, the eruption of an even more destructive conflict 20 years after the end of this one meant that it is now known as the First World War. Those who fought and died in the First World War would have had little idea that there would so soon be a Second.

But while the war took the flower of Europe's youth to its premature grave, snuffing out the lives of a generation of talented poets, artists, cricketers and others whose genius bled into the trenches, it also involved soldiers from faraway lands that had little to do with Europe's bitter traditional hatreds.

The role and sacrifices of Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians and South Africans have been celebrated for some time in books and novels, and even rendered immortal on celluloid in award-winning films like Gallipoli. Of the 1.3 million Indian troops who served in the conflict, however, you hear very little.

As many as 74,187 Indian soldiers died during the war and a comparable number were wounded. Their stories, and their heroism, have long been omitted from popular histories of the war, or relegated to the footnotes.

India contributed a number of divisions and brigades to the European, Mediterranean, Mesopotamian, North African and East African theatres of war. In Europe, Indian soldiers were among the first victims who suffered the horrors of the trenches. They were killed in droves before the war was into its second year and bore the brunt of many a German offensive.

It was Indian jawans (junior soldiers) who stopped the German advance at Ypres in the autumn of 1914, soon after the war broke out, while the British were still recruiting and training their own forces. Hundreds were killed in a gallant but futile engagement at Neuve Chappelle. More than 1,000 of them died at Gallipoli, thanks to Churchill's folly. Nearly 700,000 Indian sepoys (infantry privates) fought in Mesopotamia against the Ottoman Empire, Germany's ally, many of them Indian Muslims taking up arms against their co-religionists in defence of the British Empire.

The most painful experiences were those of soldiers fighting in the trenches of Europe. Letters sent by Indian soldiers in France and Belgium to their family members in their villages back home speak an evocative language of cultural dislocation and tragedy. "The shells are pouring like rain in the monsoon," declared one. "The corpses cover the country, like sheaves of harvested corn," wrote another.

These men were undoubtedly heroes - pitchforked into battle in unfamiliar lands, in harsh and cold climatic conditions they were neither used to nor prepared for, fighting an enemy of whom they had no knowledge, risking their lives every day for little more than pride. Yet they were destined to remain largely unknown once the war was over: neglected by the British, for whom they fought, and ignored by their own country, from which they came.

Read more:

http://bbc.in/2dBqczx


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A typically pompous and dogmatic article from the BBC - the final sentence of which reads : " Yet [Indian military personnel] were destined to remain largely unknown once the war was over : neglected by the British, for whom they fought, and ignored by their own country, from which they came. " Hardly a definitive statement - and certainly not accurate in a British context. Far from being ' neglected ' the absolutely crucial Indian contribution in both world wars - 1 million volunteers in the first, 2.5 million in the second - is widely acknowledged and commemorated in the UK ( just as it was at the time). It is very sad (indeed, it is nothing short of a scandal) that in India itself the courage and sacrifice of so many brave soldiers has been quite deliberately airbrushed from the post-colonial, a-historical, ' patriotic ' political narrative that has been busily under construction there since 1947.

No, their sacrifice did not go waste. Because of their sacrifice we are enjoying freedom now

Just in case anyone forgets our Conjoined Indian history and sacrifices made by millions

Gd article.

Any link related to Mysore Lancers in WW II please?

www.empirefaithwar.com

Great Warriors proud of them!

Timely posting ! Thanks.

Great , salute !!

Sad

Good

Ungrateful people of India

The Indian Force , comprising of one infantry corps and one cavalry corps arrived in Marseilles by late October 1914. They were deployed to the battle sector of what was to become the Ypres Salient. In those early weeks of the war the Indian Force took part in the First Battle of Ypres from October to November 1914. In the early spring of 1915 the Indian Force provided the lead division in the Allied offensive in French Flanders against the German Army and continued to do so in various other battles across Flanders.

Julian Craig, this an excerpt from a lengthier article, which I haven't read. But I did read this excerpt. Never did the author say that it's only Britain that has forgotten these brave hearts. The coming paragraphs may have mentioned how Indians, too, have not been grateful enough. So, a faulty premise. Another thing. I think it is historiography that you must object to. This is indeed a patriotic narrative, there being no political sentiment behind it. None that is evident in the tone of the text. Why shouldn't it be a patriotic narrative! Even British historians fudge the reality in the name of history. Grow up, please, and accept that history is what we are being told. It is a set of lies agreed upon. Aristotle and Napoleon would laud you for understanding this much.

Head gears of British India Army. During the two wars, the sepoys were mostly volunteers, but why were they not provided with combat helmets ?

A medal awarded to sepoy Gurung

near the city where I live in north of France, I think of those soldiers every time I pass by http://www.cwgc.org/find-a-cemetery/cemetery/144000/NEUVE-CHAPELLE%20MEMORIAL

A book commemorating these heroes by Mulgaonkar was very informative about the bitter fights and bravery of these lionheart's.

All nationalities have a tendency to forget their Heroes....sad but universal truth

Not everyone in India is ignorant about those sacrifices though.

One of the biggest problems with so-called ' modern ' posturing, pandering ' super-power ' India is that it has absolutely no idea of what it means to toss away an entire generation of its most brilliant people into a catastrophic pit of warfare - and how destructive that can be in the longer term. 1914 was Armageddon for Imperial Britain -- and that horror shaped the future of everybody on the planet then, and to some extent, even now. The men who served in the pre-47 Indian army were well versed in such dangers - unfortunately - their counsel was largely ignored by your post independence political caste.

Muft me marva diye Indians

Magnificent soldiers.

Gr8 salute