”   Britain is not fully aware of the fact that thousands of Indian soldiers were used as cannon fodder in this war and sent to various parts of the world to fight the Germans and their Turkish allies ”

“Why do hearts break
And minds bend?
Why isn’t there a stick
With only one end?

Why does day break
The sun set
And the moon wax and wane?

—For heaven’s sake
What was the debt
That Abel owed to Cain?”

From Booch Sakhat Booch (A Parsi Discourse on Stoppers) by Bachchoo

Britain has been commemorating the end of the First World War this last week. The Queen and other Royals laid wreaths at the cenotaph in Whitehall, London, marking the memory of the war dead and in the war cemeteries in Belgium. The populace buys and wears red paper poppies on their left lapels or their blouses.

This is the last ceremony of remembrance before the 100th anniversary of the war. Next year will see a tsunami of books, TV dramas, stage plays, songs and services about the First World War. I hereby confess that I’ve been commissioned to write a stage play about it — but from a slightly unexplored angle.

With the commission in hand I began to explore this angularity. The play is to be about the soldiers from Imperial India who were recruited to fight this “Sahib’s War”. Britain is not fully aware of the fact that thousands of Indian soldiers were used as cannon fodder in this war and sent to various parts of the world — the Western Front in Europe, Africa, Malaya and West Asia — to fight the Germans and their Turkish allies. What Britain can recall if it will was that several hundred of these Indian wounded were hospitalised during the war in the Brighton Pavilion, a building or folly conceived it would seem for a film set of Ali Baba. Some bright spark thought its oriental structure with domes and frills would make the Indians feel at home.

Several Indians who displayed bravery in the field were rewarded with the Victoria Cross and other decorations.

One story that sticks in my memory is what our family cook Hukam Ali told me when I was a child. When he was a teenager he used to be a ball-boy on the tennis courts of the Poona Club. A British officer took a shine to him and offered him employment in his house. Hukam Ali took it on and by his own account gave good service. The officer was then summoned with his regiment, which consisted of “native” companies and British officers to war and suggested to Hukam Ali that he enlist as an infantryman, which Hukam Ali did.

He recalled his experience in this war — a British war against other “goras”. I was too young to appreciate then which war this was or who was fighting whom, but “Hukams” said he went on a long voyage by ship and then by train and his regiment was joined by Australians and South Africans, all “goras”. The Indians were bivouacked separately from the whites for a few days.

Then the fighting began and in Hukam Ali’s words the cry went up “Kaaley ko aagey dhaklo! Kaaley ko aagey dhaklo! (Shove the blacks forward)”. At the tender age at which I heard the story I didn’t think of querying the fact that the British officers were shouting this command or slogan in Hindustani. The import of Hukams’ story was clear and the end of it tragic. He said hundreds of his regiment, thrown on the enemy lines died. He survived and must have been in his sixties when he found employment in our household which helps me date his war.

My play begins with the memory of this story. I have discovered that long before Subhas Chandra Bose’s Indian National Army fell on the tactic of recruiting Indian Prisoners of War in Japanese camps to fight for Indian Independence by siding with the Nazis and Japanese, a similar initiative was attempted in the 1914-18 War. The Germans set out to persuade Muslim soldiers of the Raj whom they had captured to switch sides.

Their argument was that Germany was allied with Turkey and the Ottoman Emperor was the Caliph, the leader of world Islam. No Muslim should be fighting him and his forces. The other argument was, of course, that the British had manifestly used Indian troops as cannon fodder and thrown badly trained, badly equipped and badly led Indians against superior German forces, which proved how little the Raj cared for Indian lives. No doubt some argument about a victorious Germany granting India its political and economic Independence was dragged in.

Though several Muslim soldiers are reported to have been persuaded to switch sides, no such force was consolidated or ever put into the field by the Germans. Perhaps there were too few of recruits to this cause or perhaps the Germans didn’t trust their conversion.

Nevertheless, my researches have thrown up a story that’s not very well known. Britain is, despite all the trumpeting about heroism, deeply ambivalent about this centenary. Yes, the British and their allies defeated Willhelm’s troops in the end but can a victory which cost both sides millions of deaths be “celebrated”? Will the centennial be dedicated to the utter futility and meaninglessness of this slaughter?

Historians repeatedly claim that they can’t conclusively say why the assassination of the Archduke of Austria by a Balkan patriot in Sarajevo should lead to millions of men fighting each other in the soggy trenches of Belgium.

Their confusion is confusing. The usual answer to the causes of the First World War is that all the participant nations were obliged by treaty to join battle with and against each other. This explanation may satisfy addicted domino players but anyone with any sense ought to know that treaties are pieces of paper.

That war was Germany’s attempt to eliminate all the other Imperial powers and become the only one. If it had succeeded, with or without the help of its Indian Muslim PoW converts, would it have ended the colonial exploitation of India — or taken it a step further?

source: http://www.asianage.com / The Asian Age / Home> Opinion> Columnist / by Farrukh Dhondy / November 16th, 2013