Clay statue in Amritsar commemorates sacrifice of 135 Sikh soldiers in WW-I

A clay sculpture by eminent Belgian artist Koen Vanmechelen of a crouching Sikh soldier wearing a turban, one of 6,00,000 soldiers killed during the First World War in Ypres, Belgium, was donated to Khalsa College Amritsar’s Sikh History Research Centre by a Belgian delegation in June.

The statue commemorates the sacrifice of 135 Sikh soldiers, all of whom hailed from Amritsar’s Sultanwind village.

The sacrifice of these Sikh soldiers remains largely unsung in India, despite recent efforts in excavating their story of incredible courage in the shadow of the British Empire. Till date, besides Sultanwind where a memorial to the 135 soldiers was recently erected, memorial services are held at Sarwali village in Batala, Gurdaspur, Hoshiarpur and in Baddowal, Moga.

The local community in Ypres created a small clay statue each for the soldiers killed in the war on their soil. These figures became part of a large installation at Palingbeek in Ypres, which had been turned into the killing fields of the war.

“It was important that one of these sculptures returned to Punjab, homeland of the Sikh soldiers who died while saving our people,” Dr Dominiek Dendooven, Belgian historian and author, told The Tribune. He said only a handful of these sculptures had found their way to the Belgian Embassy and the United Service Institution of India in New Delhi.

Dendooven worked closely with Sikh scholar Dr Bhupinder Singh Holland, who has written widely on the role of Sikh soldiers in the World Wars, to document these stories.

Holland told The Tribune that the “Sultanwind memorial took eight years in the making, largely with the voluntary efforts of individuals. Annual ceremonies are held, but many families did not know until recently about their ancestors’ contribution in saving Europe from Nazi forces.”

An estimated 83,005 Sikh soldiers were killed during both World Wars, Holland added. “Their martyrdom was overshadowed by colonial rule. Some of them fought fiercely, won Victoria Crosses and gallantry awards and stood against fascism. The perception that they have been shunned is due to a lack of active community and government engagement.”

The clay sculpture of the crouching Sikh symbolising vulnerability, now in the Khalsa College, is part of a larger community project called “Coming World Remember Me (CWRM)”, inaugurated by the Belgium Government in 2018 to mark 100 years of the end of the war. The Sikh sculpture has been created using clay from Ypres’ battlefields. To mark Armistice Day in November, a plaque will be unveiled at the Saint George’s memorial church in Ypres.

In the UK, the Sikh diaspora created digital archives of the audio and documented history of these soldiers, sourced originally from Lahore Museum. But here in Amritsar, the memory remains largely faded. A dedicated gallery at the Punjab State War Memorial and Museum has one small section that honours the role of Sikh and other Punjabi soldiers during World War-I and the government support is minimal.

Davinder Singh Chinna, president, Khalsa College Global Alumni Association, who handed over the sculpture to Rajinder Mohan Singh Chinna, Chairman, Khalsa College Governing Council, said, “There are over 10 memorials erected in the memory of the Sikh soldiers in Italy and France; and three in Belgium, the grandest of them all at Menin Gate. We do not even have proper records or archives of the sacrifices that Sikh soldiers made in the British Indian army at the time.”

On the other hand, Dendooven said, “In Belgium, the commemoration of WW-I is actively embraced by the local community and government, but in India, this is still lacking.”