Children as old as 10 fought among the million Indian soldiers for the colonial British in World War I, which served them no purpose. ANANYA BORGOHAIN talks to historian Shrabani Basu to understand the psychology of the war and how apologetic modern Britain is about its oppressive ancestors today
Indians in 1914, oppressed and overruled by the colonial forces, had little to no reason in assisting the imperial forces in World War I and yet, almost one and a half million of them fought for the British in the war. From the rural interiors of the Indian villages to the coldblooded trenches in France, 72,000 laid down their lives for a Government and kingdom that were neither their own nor were empathetic to their plight.
Historian and journalist Shrabani Basu’s new book, For King and Another Country (Bloomsbury, `599), provides an account of the personal predicaments of these soldiers involved in a battle that served them no purpose. Anecdotal and insightful accounts of these soldiers are furnished through massive research and documentary aid from the India Office Records at the British library and National Archives, newspapers of the era, preserved interviews etc.
Direct narratives from the Indian soldiers are few and far between since they were mostly illiterate and could not pen their own chronicles. Basu — who had earlier written the biography of Noor Inayat Khan, the Indian princess who was also a spy for the British during World War II — says: “I have assimilated data from the letters they wrote to their near and dear ones and the accounts they narrated to their families. It was like listening to the stories from the Mahabharata. Sure, they were largely illiterate but they managed to put forward their narrative of the war in their own innocent and poetic ways. Their concerns were mostly human, their yearnings were sentimental: like cattle that lie down in the month of bhaado, or like a Pathan soldier said, ‘All I want right now is a flute’.
These were mostly oral accounts and I followed letter trails to and from these soldiers, among of course, an immense amount of Government and library records. There were regimental documents, Comfort Committee data, hospital records from the time of the war, and much more. It took me two and half years to come up with the book.”
Racism was inescapably rampant at that point in time. In August 1917, the War Cabinet estimated that Indians would take 500 years to learn how to rule themselves. Even when they were fighting the same war, British soldiers would not share space (let alone food) with their Indian counterparts, even at the hospital. White nurses were not allowed to tend to the Indian soldiers, however badly wounded they might be. Segregation of the white and the brown was normative; on one hand, Indians were categorised into martial and non-martial races — Commander-in-Chief Frederick Sleigh Roberts distinguished “the warlike races of Northern India” from “the effeminate people of the South” — while on the other hand, both could not match up to the herculean power of the British soldiers.
Ironically, even among the Indians, casteism was as widespread. A very fascinating example to substantiate the same would be of Sukha, a lower caste soldier who died of pneumonia in 1915, and neither the Hindus nor the Muslims volunteered to help with his cremation or burial. Eventually, the St Nicholas Church in Brockenhurst offered to bury him at their graveyard.
Basu says, “It was indeed a sad reflection upon our own social arrangement at that time, but when it came to the honour of the country, they always joined forces. They did have separate diets but they fought together. During the freedom struggle Indians from all castes and communities fought against the colonial powers as one.”
A startling revelation that the book makes is that Indian children, as old as 10, were enlisted to fight in the war. The author mentions, “I found this reference by an English officer in a hospital. Sir Walter lawrence, who served in the Indian Civil Service under British India, wrote to Field Marshal Herbert Kitchener, a senior British Army officer, about minors participating in the war. They were mostly bellow blowers, kneaders of dough etc but I found evidence of a young Gurkha boy who had lost his brother in the war. He was 16, whereas the minimum age to be a part of the war was 18.”
The author says she was also surprised by her own unfamiliarity with the Indian contribution to World War I. But isn’t it World War II that people do not usually talk aboutIJ Basu tends to differ, “I think WWII was at a time when there were more channels of information, unlike WWI which was at such a technologically and socially inept time. I think people still know more about INA or Subhas Chandra Bose’s forces compared to the history of India Gate. I have spent a significant number of years in Delhi and always saw India Gate as a place where families go for picnics and to have ice cream, instead of the memorial that it is for the Indian soldiers who died in the war.”
Historian Yasmin Khan’s recent book, The Raj at War, had offered a glimpse into the social life of the soldiers: “Men in uniform filled local cinemas like the Regal and the Eros playing The Wizard of Oz, Casablanca and Gone With The Wind... men took every chance they could to go sightseeing, to visit shops and markets, cinemas, dances and bars… Chinese restaurants gained popularity… dances and parties promised ‘girls galore’ and ‘louis Jazz Band’ played in Delhi ‘in good old Yankee “Jumpin’ Jive” style’”.
On the other hand, WWI had a much simpler ambience. The requirements of the soldiers were as basic — condensed milk, coconut oil for hair, pickle, copies of Quran, Granth Sahib etc. Basu says, “They were really peasants and found solace in simple games like ping pong and kho kho.”
And what is the nature of the modern British sentiment towards colonial IndiaIJ “They are really ashamed of it, so much so that the British oppression of India is not even a part of Britain’s school syllabi. In fact, there is so much guilt that Britain, in spite of having so many landmarks, does not have any memorial marker at the East India Company headquarters or at the lloyd’s bank building. Of course, there’s Trafalgar Square, commemorating the British victory of the Napoleonic wars over France and Spain, but when it comes to colonialism in India, they are much apologetic.”
The principal narrative of World War I has been unarguably Euro-centric within which the Indian contribution is seen as a subordinate backing. With the release of this book, one can be hopeful of a paradigm shift that brings the unheard stories of the Indian soldiers to the forefront.
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