Shadows in the Trenches: The Unremembered Indian Soldiers of World War I

– Vani Mishra

History tends to best illuminate emperors, generals, and treaties while relegating the hundreds of thousands of plain men who carried the burden of empires to relative darkness. Among the twentieth century’s big silences is the tale of over a million Indian soldiers who traversed seas and deserts to die fighting another man’s war. The First World War is recalled in the trenches of France and Flanders, in the bombardments of the Somme, and in the mud of Gallipoli. But it was also borne in the wake of men of Punjab, Bengal, Madras, and Garhwal hills, who were uprooted from their fields and villages and forced into a war that remapped the new world. Their histories are not just of wars waged but of fractured identities, of loyalty and treason, of sacrifice and obscurity. To recall them is to bring human face to history, to see through the abstractions of empire and war and to recognize the lives that supported them.

India and the Call to Arms

As soon as Britain declared war on Germany in August 1914, India, the British Empire’s crowning jewel, was automatically caught up in the war. Viceroy Lord Hardinge was to offer the imperial war effort complete support. Unprecedented developments followed: India contributed more than 1.3 million men to war service, a figure greater than the then-existing standing armies of most countries in Europe.

These soldiers had diverse backgrounds. The British recruitment policy preferred what it termed “martial races” Sikhs, Rajputs, Gurkhas, and Pathans—groups that were thought to be better equipped for war. But the magnitude of the war required recruitment far wider than this. Peasants, factory workers, craftsmen, and students went out in khaki uniforms, many for the first time in their lives with rifles that would take them far from the cycles of their homeland.

The Western Front: Indians in the Trenches

The first Indian soldiers arrived in Marseilles in September 1914. They were among the Indian Corps deployed to shore up the shattered British Expeditionary Force. They were fighting in the icy mud of Flanders by October, subjected to conditions as bizarre as they were brutal. Letters home tell of men dazed by the frost, turbans sodden through, fingers frozen by guns made for temperate regions.

But they struggled on with determination. Indian troops were engaged during the First Battle of Ypres, where they defended trenches against incredible odds. They charged at Neuve Chapelle in 1915, where their courage was hailed even as their casualties increased. The casualty rates were appalling. Thousands were killed, not just by enemy fire but by exposure to the harsh European winter for which they were completely unprepared.

The trenches were also places of dislocation culturally. Food taboos were occasionally broken, religious rituals compromised. Smuggled letters, frequently censored by British officers, indicate the hanker for familiar fare, the dread of dishonour, and the hanker for news from home. In these shards, one hears voices smothered by distance and by empire, yet still keenly human.

Beyond Europe: Mesopotamia and Gallipoli

Though the Western Front has had priority in memory, Indian troops were fighting in multiple theatres. In Mesopotamia, modern-day Iraq, they were the backbone of the British-Indian Army. They sweltered through heat and disease as they advanced against Ottoman troops. The Siege of Kut in 1916 is a black spot, where thousands of Indian troops were taken prisoner and marched into terrible captivity.

Indian mountain gunners and mule drivers assisted the doomed Allied landings at Gallipoli. These men carried heavy weights up exposed and steep slopes under fire. These individuals, frequently not mentioned in popular histories of Gallipoli, were an essential component of the campaign. Indian troops also walked through arduous terrain in East Africa, fighting not only the enemy but also malaria and fatigue

Wherever the empire required manpower, Indian soldiers were sent there. They were world-wide in extent, but their fame was minimal.

Home Front and Sacrifice

The burden of the war was not undertaken by soldiers. Families at home suffered years of absence, doubt, and bereavement. Remittances provided money that could never be a replacement for sons’ and fathers’ absence. There were alterations in farm patterns in rural India as young men were pulled away. Women, children, and older people carried the weight of keeping households going.

Communities too bore the bruising of loss. Memorials in villages and cantonments, those mute stones, bear names, usually in silence, of men who did not come back. But the larger narrative of Indian contribution was muted, subsumed in the greater imperial tale.

Loyalty and Disillusionment

Indian soldiers’ service was offered by Britain as proof of the unity of the empire. Medals were given, parades conducted, and fidelity honored. But disillusionment followed hard on the heels of celebration. War promises of increased Indian self-government were kept only in part. The soldiers came back at a time when nationalist feelings were building up. Veterans who had served under the empire found themselves part of movements calling for liberation from it.

The irony was not lost on Indian leaders. Mahatma Gandhi advocated for recruitment in the expectation that faithful service would lead to concessions, but by the 1920s it had become obvious that the war only amplified the disparities of empire. Veterans, frequently forgotten and overlooked, became part of the growing number of discontented.

The Erasure of Memory

Why are these soldiers so frequently left out of mainstream histories of the war? One reason has to do with the Eurocentric perspective that has prevailed in World War I remembrance. The figure of the British Tommy on the trenches has become iconic, obliterating the sepoy from Punjab or the mule driver from Bengal. A second reason is the politics of postcolonial memory. Free India wanted to leave the history of imperial wars behind and concentrate on freedom struggles. The sacrifices of people who fought under the British banner sat ill with the history of freedom. Remembering them was thus scattered, limited to regimental histories, memorial plaques, and isolated family testimonies.

Recovering Their Voice

Over the last few decades, researchers and authors have started to bring to light the voices of these lost soldiers. Collections of letters, oral testimonies, and regimental documents have enlightened us about their lives. Poetry written in Punjabi and Urdu, the atrocities of the trenches, tell of the deep cultural shock of men who encountered Europe’s destruction firsthand. Memorials, too, are being revisited. The India Gate in Delhi, originally built to honour those who died in the Great War, has been reinterpreted as a broader symbol of national sacrifice. In France and Belgium, cemeteries maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission preserve the memory of thousands of Indian soldiers, their names etched in stone on foreign soil.

Remembering Humanity Amid Empire

The history of the Indian war veterans of World War I is one of tragedy and courage. They fought an unwanted war under a banner that refused them complete citizenship, in distant lands far away from their own. They fought bravely, suffered with courage, and left behind a heritage worth remembering. To humanise their tale is to transcend the figures of battalions and dead. It is to visualize a young Sikh soldier shivering in Flanders snow, penning a censored letter to his kin in Amritsar. It is to visualize a Gurkha hauling ammunition up the Gallipoli cliffs, his lungs groaning under the exertion. It is to listen to the silence of Bengal families who never saw their sons come back. History cannot erase their anonymity, but it can recognize their humanity. In remembering them, we commemorate not empire but the human lives that kept and endured it. Their shadows still haunt the trenches of memory, a reminder that the Great War was not just European but deeply global—and deeply Indian too.