THE GREAT WAR
Indian participation in the Great War- including some inter-faith perspectives
The Great War was sometimes portrayed as a Christian crusade, as in the musical Oh What
A Lovely War. ‘Your country needs you’ is assumed to be needs you as a combatant who
will fight for king and country, with God’s blessing. Many Christian chaplains reinforced this,
it seems, with prayers for victory over another Christian nation, Germany, as men went
over top to their deaths in the trenches. So-called Christian civilisation and progress looked
in retrospect rather sad, as all it had led to was the greatest war in history, and deaths by
the million, most of them Christian on either side.
In this context, it is challenging to look at the contribution of the Indian army to this story.
This meant almost entirely Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims. It meant also the participation, as it
turned out, of around one million troops from a subservient sub continent, fighting
alongside their white ‘masters’ for ‘king and country’! 62,000 at least are recorded as dying,
though this looks like a considerable underestimate. They were deployed in many places,
and especially on the western front, German East Africa, increasingly in Mesopotamia,
where they were part of the force engaged with Muslim Turkey. Could the British Raj any
longer claim to be a superior power, bringing civilisation to this most ancient of lands, with
all its cultures and faiths? This was to be a long term challenge of 1914-1918. And how was
Christianity to be seen, in relationship to these faiths which remained resilient, in spite of
imperial power, and the missionary movement, now at its peak?
Brighton - centre for treating the wounded
We turn first to an unlikely setting, Brighton, where many had their first experience of
encountering the Indian army. Brighton became the setting for one of the most significant
things to have happened to Indian troops in the Great War. It was the place where the
wounded were hospitalised in three converted buildings, and became part of the scenery as
the war progressed. It was where too Indians died, and burial rituals were carried out.
The Royal Pavilion was the most high profile of these places. It is a grandiose building near
the sea front, prominent to this day. This was given by the royal family 100 years ago, and
was stripped of its royal furnishings, and made into hospital wards for Indian troops injured
on active service. Here, Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims (and perhaps Indian Christians) came for
treatment and rehabilitation. And here considerable advances were made in cross-cultural
and cross-religious understanding. War is devastating, but can sometimes bring with it
social advances, as it did here. The Indian mutiny of 1857, known by Indians as the first war
of independence, had begun, amongst other reasons, because of the insistence that the top
of cartridges was bitten off by the troops, prior to firing, and it was found that they
contained pork fat by way of lubrication. The Muslims found this deeply offensive, hence the
mutiny. It has also been suggested, notably in William Dalrymple’s evocative study of the
mutiny (The Last Mughal, 2006), that there was a reaction too to the over-zealous
evangelical fervour of a key chaplain, who felt his mission as to convert the troops, hence a
mutiny.
But here in Brighton, rather remarkably, we discover a different world. Great sensitivity
and pre-planning meant that the injured were served by a range of kitchens, to suite
different castes and religions. A Sikh temple was erected in the garden, and the Muslims
were given a prayer room. Many toilets were provided. White women at first nursed
Indian men, with male orderlies supervising, though this was considered a step too far and
was stopped. In general, there was care to treat the injured well, but not to be too soft.
The Brighton population saw these soldiers as romantic visitors. The Brighton Herald
published a supplement with four pages of photographs. Locals asked them to tea, or go to
the beach. For some time white women and Indian soldiers mixed fairly freely, though this
was later stopped. There were guided tours, and official visits, for example by the Mayor of
Brighton. A contemporary comment in relationship to the tours was: ‘There is hardly a
piece of ground in the British Isles which appeals more strangely to the historic imagination.’
The Raj had come to Brighton!
Letters home by the soldiers reveal a generally happy stay for most, and how they felt loved
by the people of Brighton. They were the first Indians to come to the town, and when they
left they distributed their uniform buttons to the locals as souvenirs. The last left in January
1916, but their legacy has lived on, with around 5,000 British Indians living in Brighton today.
53 Hindus died in Brighton. 6 of them were cremated at a special place on the cliffs, and
their ashes scattered at sea. This place was shared with the more numerous Sikhs. There is
a memorial to them in Patcham. Muslims who died were buried in Woking, next to the
earliest mosque in the country, where a memorial was erected for them. It is to be noted
what care was taken to care for the dead religiously appropriately.
We have many of the letters sent home from Brighton. One Sikh writes, ‘Do not be
anxious about me. We are well looked after. White soldiers are always beside our bed day
and night. We get very good food four times a day. We also get milk. Our hospital is in
the place where the King used to have his throne. Every man is washed in hot water. The
King has given a strict order that no trouble be given to any black man in hospital. Men in
hospital are tended like flowers, and the King and Queen sometimes come to visit them.’
Another wrote home, ‘Do not worry about me, for I am in paradise. The King came down
last week and shook hands with all Indians, and asked each one about his wounds and
sufferings.’ Another told of an outing to the aquarium: ‘Today I saw a museum in which all
the living fish of the world were kept in boxes of water.’ In general, and in keeping with the
Indian sense of respect for hierarchy and royalty, it was emphasised that they were fighting
for the King and for their honour, not for India. A royal postcard of the King was
distributed to all Indian troops personally at one point, and one Sikh soldier wrote, ‘May
God grant long life to the generous-hearted sovereign, who has deigned to think of his
humblest soldiers.’
Hindus and Muslims
Hindu Gurkhas were considered one of the martial races of India, and as today, their
participation in the army was great, second only to the Sikhs. Hindus remarked that to die
in battle in the service of the King would end the cycle of birth and rebirth.
The Indian Soldiers Fund supplied Qur’ans and Brahminical threads to those who asked for
them, and the practice of religious faith was encouraged.
Many Muslims also participated, mainly from the then united Punjab, both including Punjabis
and Pathans from the North West Frontier. Major Gordon Corrigan, historian, said, ‘The
Punjabi Muslim was regarded as the backbone of the old Indian army, and constituted about
one third of this army. They were known for their reliability, and they were steady men,
who could be depended upon to carry out any task in hand.’ Corrigan writes, of Eid 1917:
‘All of the Muslims of the division had their prayers together… We, as far as possible, gave
them food and tea. About 1,500 men assembled, and prayers were offered for the victory
of our King.’ But they faced great disappointments because of British foreign policy in the
Middle East – with the Balfour declaration, calling for the setting up of a Jewish homeland,
and the refusal to establish independent Syrian and Iraq states. They felt they were
‘forgotten Muslims.’ This has echoes, of course, in the contemporary political context, and
may have been one of the stimuli to call for a Muslim homeland in what was to become
Pakistan.
Sikhs in the Great War
In 14 months, early on, 34,252 Indians died or wounded or became prisoners on the
Western front, the majority Sikhs. The most active area was at Ypres – the Ypres Salient.
There fought battalions which were ethnically mixed, and also ethnically monochrome. The
British encouraged a spirit of competition between the different peoples. The British always
commanded the Indian officers. Usually the officers did not speak the Indian languages, and
so this limited relationships. First troops were sent to Marseille, which became their base.
This was a strange experience from both sides, with no prior understanding of the French
language and culture. But on the whole they were well received. They marched north, and
were billeted in a large monastery in France, and were well received by the monks. There
were statues of the 12 apostles there, and the Sikhs were curious. Finally, they accepted the
British officers’ explanation that these were Christian gurus!
From 26th October they entered battle. Many were annihilated, since the trenches were
little more than ditches then. Carnage followed, between then and late 1915, when those
who were left were moved to Mesopotamia. The two battles they participated in in a large
way were the Battle of Neuve Chapelle, and the 2nd Battle of Ypres. The Sikhs endured the
first successful gas attack in history. Their only defence at first was a handkerchief soaked in
urine. 78% of the Sikh battalion involved died – ‘We have arrived in hell’ was the cry of one
of the Sikh soldiers.
The commander of the Indian Corps was General Willcocks. He resigned in the end,
clashing much with Douglas Haig. Willcoks was fed up with the irrational censorship, the
fact that the Indian troops could not go on leave, and the public in India knew nothing of
what was going on.
The local population were confused by the Sikhs – ‘They bake those large pancakes. They
sit down on the ground with open legs, and when it gets dark, they sing songs in their own
peculiar manner!’
This was a comment of a Sikh soldier at Neuve Chapelle, writing to his uncle in Punjab:
‘Thousands of soldiers lost their lives. If you go the fields of battle, you will see corpses
piled upon corpses so that there is no place to put hand or foot. Men have died from the
stench. No one has any hope of survival, for back to Punjab will go only those who have
lost a leg or an arm or an eye. The whole world has been brought to destruction.’ Overall,
for Sikhs, death in battle was martyrdom. Hence this comment, from Indar Singh who
wrote home in September 1916, ‘It is quite impossible that I should return alive. But don’t
be grieved at my death, because I shall die arms in hand, wearing the warrior’s clothes. This
is the most happy death anyone can die.’
The aftermath in Punjab – 1919
The Sikh contribution both in men and material was greater than that of any other Indian
community. They won 14 of the 22 military crosses won by Indians. Gajjan Singh, leader of
the Sikh Council, said, ‘My community has supplied recruits in almost every Sikh district,
much larger in number as compared with the sister communities of the Muhammadans and
Hindus… We, the Sikhs are proud of this record. If we were proud of our loyalty and
devotion to the government, we are prouder today.’ But there were additional pressures in
the last two years of the war, with more men needed with the collapse of Russia. ‘Pressure
and persuasion’ was a new policy to back voluntary recruitment, and the raising of funds.
Tensions rose, and to combat dissent, the Rowlatt measures became law in March 1919 –
‘no argument, no lawyer, no appeal’ – aimed at all areas of agitation and nationalist fervour.
Gandhi became involved in agitation about these measures, and called for a complete
cessation of work. He was arrested. Violence broke out, several agitators were killed, and
five Englishmen and an English missionary severely assaulted. This led to the protests which
were followed by the great massacre in Amritsar in 1919.
A great boost to the independence movement came in 1919, with the Jallianwala Bagh
massacre in Amritsar, forever associated with the name of General Dyer, who gave the
order to fire at the crowds, to kill and not just to create fear. The Sikhs had been the
greatest contributors to the army in the Great War, and it seemed that this was their
reward. I visited the scene of the massacre in March, and it has with every justification
become a shrine to the Indian independence movement, the bravery of Sikhs involved, and
to the 379 shot dead, without warning, and the 2,000 wounded and beyond medical help,
since there was an immediate curfew imposed, and no-one could go in and out of the only
entrance to the garden where the massacre took place. Hundreds more died in the coming
weeks in the Punjab, as martial law was imposed. The British authorities had succeeded in
alienating at a stroke the most loyal of their subjects. In addition, local British officials
tended to treat Sikhs as ‘common rustics, rather than heroes.’ News had come through,
too, of how early Sikh immigrants had been treated badly in Canada and the USA.
The aftermath led to much polarisation of opinion. Winston Churchill was highly vocal in
his horror of what had happened. He said in parliament, that this incident was ‘an episode
which appeared to be without parallel in the modern history of the Empire… an
extraordinary event, a monstrous event, an event which stood in singular and sinister
isolation.’ But General Dyer also had his supporters. The Morning Post had a special fund for
him. He was presented with a golden sword as ‘Defender of the Empire’, and a sum of
£26,317 (an enormous amount in those days) from his English admirers. The historian of
Sikh history, Kushwant Singh, comments (vol 2, p.166, Oxford India Paperback, 1991): ‘The
effect that Jallianwala and the martial law administration had on the people of the Punjab can
hardly be exaggerated. Racial tension, reminiscent of the most savage days of the mutiny
when every white man looked upon the coloured as the enemy, was recreated. Even
people of tried loyalty, including those who had served in the forces, were victimised. Sir
Michael O’Dwyer, who claimed that he had saved the empire, had in fact dealt it a most
grievous blow by alienating almost all Indians, including its staunchest supporters, the Sikhs.’
Gandhi and the Great War
Gandhi had developed his non-violent strategy in South Africa long before the Great War,
and before he returned to India. But he had organised a medical corps, at the time of the
Boer War, at the beginning of the century. In 1914, he was in the UK, but he returned to
India, and organised recruitment of a medical corps again. He was now of increasing
influence, and was known as Mahatmaji, the Great Soul. He founded his famous ashram in
Ahmedabad, the Ashram Satyagraha, where the Anglican priest and great friend CF Andrews
stayed also, and Gandhi insisted that they include a family of ‘untouchables’ as they were
called then, until he renamed them as Harijans (those blessed by God), and now known as
Dalits. He went further, and journey around India, mainly on foot, recruiting men for the
British Army for the war. At this time, he said that he was utterly loyal to the British
constitution, and to the crown. Some questioned, how could someone whose philosophy
was based on ahimsa, non-violence, encourage the taking up of arms? But the seeds of the
end of the Raj were sown in these years. There were to be few if any rewards for the
loyalty of Indians in the Great War; the seeds of the independence movement, already
begun with the formation of the Indian National Congress in 1885, now began to blossom in
the post-war period. There was a general feeling of being let down. The Indian army had
made a major contribution to the war effort, and the reward seemed to be almost nil, as
there were no significant moves towards self-government, yet alone independence. Gandhi
somewhat flippantly remarked, ‘Seek ye first the recruiting office, and then all things will be
added unto you!’ More revolutionary elements had attempted to join with Irish dissidents,
and groups in the USA, and others to plan a mutiny in 1915. This movement was vigorously
suppressed, but the more moderate and constitutional members of the Indian National
Congress felt they had gained little through their backing of the war effort. As they were
more and more deployed against Turkey, some Muslims deserted rather than fight their
fellow believers.
Rudyard Kipling, The Fumes of the Heart
I end with a reference to this very evocative short story, which sums up some what I have
referred to, in terms of the effects of the war on the thinking of, here, the major writer of
the Raj.
Rudyard Kipling was deeply affected by the death of his only son on the Western front, and
had a great affinity to the Indian soldiers, and was involved with the establishment of the
Chattri memorial to those who had died, in Patcham. He wrote a very powerful short story
called The fumes of the heart in 1915, and this is set in the Pavilion hospital at Brighton. A
wounded Sikh soldier engages a ‘Sahib’ to be his letter writer. He bargains for the price of
the service – ‘We Sikhs always bargain’, and they agree on a fee of one anna – ‘I will give a
bond to pay for it out of my wound-pension when I get home.’ The story is the letter as
composed, and it is a powerful testimony to a Sikh writing far from home in an alien land.
He reflects on his time in France: ‘It is said that the French worship idols… I have spoken
of this with a guru priest. There are certainly images in their local shrines, to whom they
present petitions as we do at home, but the prayer of the heart goes to God Himself…
The French men uncover the head, but do not take off their shoes at prayer. They do not
speak of their religion to strangers, and they do not go about to make converts. The old
priest in the village where I was billeted so long said that all roads, at such times as these,
return to God. Our Guru at home says that himself so he cannot be surprised that others
think it. The old priest gave me a little medal which he wished me to wear round my neck.
Such medals are reckoned holy among the French. He was a very holy man, and it averts
the Evil Eye. The women also carry holy beads to help keep count of their prayers.’
He goes on powerfully, ‘This war is not a war. It is a world-destroying battle. All that has
gone before this war in this world till now has been only boys throwing coloured powder at
each other… this is a world where the very hills are turned upside down, with the cities
upon them. He who comes out of this business alive will live forever as a giant.’ You know
the saying, “A soldier’s life is for his family, his death is for his country, his discomforts are
for himself alone”… God alone is true, everything else is but a shadow.’
Postscript - two links with Leicester
Resham Singh Sandhu has long been a prominent Sikh leader in Leicester. He was a
distinguished Chair of the Council of Faiths, and became a Deputy Lord-Lieutenant, as well
as being awarded the MBE. Less well known is that his father fought in the Great War, in
the 51st Sikh regiment, and received three medals for distinguished service in Mesopotamia.
He was granted lands by the colonial government, as were other distinguished officers, but
these were lost with partition, since they lay on the Pakistan side of the border. Resham
was re-presented with the medals in 2005 by Brigadier Andrew Jackson. Resham
commented in the Leicester Mercury: ‘My father Suhel Singh brought an injured brigadier
back on his shoulders from the front to the medical corps. He walked seven miles, and a
bullet went through his ear and his turban. He had a narrow escape. I will cherish the
medals for the rest of my life and pass them on to my sons and grandchildren.’
And, from a memorial stone near the war memorial in Victoria Park: ‘To the memory of all
the people from the Indian sub-continent, who died defending this land’, followed by a
quotation from The Gift of India by Sarojini Naidu, a Hindu woman, written in 1915:
‘And your love shall offer memorial thanks, to the comrades who fought in your dauntless ranks.
And you honour the deaths of the deathless ones. Remember the blood of thy martyred souls.’
Canon Andrew Wingate