With 17 million dead and 20 million wounded, the First World War was arguably the first tragedy of modern history. A bloodier sequel followed two decades later. Among the Allied powers, soldiers from across the empire fought on behalf of their imperial governors. This is the tale of the 1.3 million Indian troops who fought on behalf of the British Empire.
India provided the largest force, of which 70,000 died. Great War historiography has been monopolised by Western pens; Sharabani Basu’s work, therefore, is a breath of fresh air and a contribution to post-colonial studies.
This book focuses on the 1,38,000 Indians who fought in Belgium and France. Indian jawans were instrumental in stalling the German offensive at Ypres in late 1914 at a time when the British were still training their own forces. Basu liberally uses letters penned by troops in the trenches, describing their despair, desire, anxiety and their loyalty to king and empire. A Sikh soldier wrote: “The cannon roar like thunder, the bullets fall like rain.... And only the hurt, the maimed and blind will ever see home again.”
The troops represented the ethnic, religious and linguistic diversity of India. Indian princes who depended on the British for their livelihood offered troops, services and funding. The maharajas of Bikaner, Patiala and Cooch Behar, and the regent of Jodhpur also left for the frontline. Basu recounts a moving story of a cleaner, Sukha, a low caste ‘untouchable’ who died in a hospital in Brockenhurst and still rests there.
The level of detail that Basu unearths is impressive. One example relates to the remarkable logistics of having to organise separate kitchens to meet dietary requirements of Muslim and Hindu troops. Interesting details are shed on the relationship between Indian soldiers and British officers. Here, Basu’s writing is complemented by striking photographs that capture the diversity in the trenches. A photograph of Manta Singh and George Henderson, for example, shows turbaned sepoy and Tommie side by side.
Describing her visit to the Indian memorial at Neuve Chapelle (France), Basu finds a single poppy wreath left a month earlier by a British foreign office minister: “Our shared future is built on our shared past. We will remember them.” There are telling instances of prevalent racist attitudes: for example, wounded Indian soldiers cared for in Brighton were not allowed to receive direct care from English nurses.
Even more problematic, Basu notes, is the insincere promise of progressive self-rule at the end of the war that the British made to Indians. One wonders if this was part of Indian soldiers’ motivation to join the efforts. Yet, the post-war period is notable for repressive acts and violent episodes, from the Rowlatt Act to the Jallianwalla Bagh massacre of 1919. Self-rule and independence just fell off the British agenda.
False promises and colonial mischief were in vogue elsewhere as well. The ‘Arab state’ (McMahon-Hussein correspondence), promised in return for siding with the British against their Ottoman overlords (not to mention co-religionists), during the war was not forthcoming. Instead, they were confronted with the post-war reality of the 1917 secret Sykes-Picot “line in the sand” agreement, which divided the Arab world against itself into a dysfunctional mandatory system and produced decades of tumult, most of which still resonate today. Similarly, the 1917 Balfour Declaration, which promised the Jewish people a homeland in Palestine, contradicted the aforementioned McMahon-Hussein correspondence of 1916, which agreed to recognise Arab independence after World War I “in the limits and boundaries proposed by the Sheriff of Mecca”. Not surprisingly, it took decades—not to mention a second world war—before independence in India became a reality.
Basu’s book should be widely read as a true reminder of the ‘worldliness’ of the Great War. It is no minor feat that, by Armistice Day, soldiers from the subcontinent had won 11 Victoria Crosses. These were real actors who had a true impact on the course of history.
(Puri, former permanent representative of India to the UN, is a student of history.)
