Of Indians who fought the war

New Delhi, November 11

What did it really mean to be an Indian soldier of the World War of 1914-18?

It could be said that it was a life of honour, duty and valour with the British providing the curries, clothing and medical care respectful of the Hindu, Muslim and Sikh religions, while the Indian ranks stoically suffered the rain and mud, cruelly catapulted by the fates into a war far from home that was never their own yet winning their fair share of Victoria Crosses, says a new book.

In ‘The Indian Empire At War: From Jihad to Victory, The Untold Story of the Indian Army in the First World War’, British historian George Morton-Jack re-traces the Indian soldiers’ footsteps across the continents, their dangerous missions as secret agents, their discoveries of foreign cultures and their heart-breaking ordeals as prisoners of war.

According to Morton-Jack, the Indian soldiers were “seasoned professionals and cold-blooded killers, more travelled, politically aware and militarily skilled than they have been given credit for”.

The Indian Army of 1914-18 was uniquely multicultural, combining such a variety of humankind into a single brotherhood-in-arms that it was really a modern wonder of the world, says the book.

The majority of the Indian recruits — some 1.28 million or 85 per cent — came from British India’s provinces, above all Punjab. The other 15 per cent were immigrants to British India, slightly over half of whom, or around 11,15,000 recruits, came from the princely states.

“They were a mix of Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians and pagans, and they spoke not just Hindustani, the army’s official vernacular blending Hindi and Urdu, but also their separate home languages,” the book says. — PTI