34,000 Indians died in world war 1.

[kakatiya]

under the command of colonial masters who repaid their bravery and sacrifices with brutality and prejudice.

More Indians fought with the British from 1914 to 1918 than the combined total of Australian, New Zealand, Canadian and South African troops. Some 34,000 Indian soldiers were killed on battlefields in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. But the part they played in the war has been largely whitewashed from history.

Now, just before the 11 November armistice centenary, the last testimonies of the British Empire’s first world war Indian servicemen – 1,000 pages of veteran interview transcripts – have been offered to the British Library.

The first-hand accounts paint a picture of racial segregation and discrimination alongside extraordinary bravery and an awakening hunger for civil rights and independence.

 

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Oral histories were taken from Indian veterans in the 1970s by a team led by DeWitt Ellinwood, an American historian and anthropologist. Transcripts of the recordings have been offered to the British Library by George Morton-Jack, a British historian who traced the material to Ellinwood’s house in upstate New York where it had been stored for decades.

 

Many of the Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs who served under British command came from poor villages in colonial Punjab and other rural areas. Until now, the best known source on their service has been the letters home from a small proportion of Indian soldiers on the western front, translations of which are held in the British Library and are available online.

The letters – mostly dictated to scribes by illiterate Indian soldiers – were composed in the knowledge that they would be read by censors. “They were careful about what they said. They knew dissent could be punished by the British as their colonial masters. So they habitually held back their true feelings,” said Morton-Jack, the author of The Indian Empire at War.

“But the interviews show they had a strong sense of the racial discrimination they suffered under the British, and their growing belief that they should have civil rights, they shouldn’t be subject to colonial domination, and they should live in their own free country. They describe how those feelings developed through the war,” he said.

 

 Indian troops are welcomed in Flanders in 1915. 
Photograph: Universal History Archive/Getty

Sujan Singh, who was 80 when he was interviewed, said: “We were slaves.” Nand Singh spoke of a “curtain of fear” separating the Indian and white soldiers. They were subject to floggings and other inhumane physical punishment, paid less than their white counterparts, segregated in camps and on trains and ships, denied home leave, and barred from positions of command.

[kakatiya]

100 years

[aakathaai]

Evaru vaaru vaari perlu emiti

[LuciferMorningStar]

Racism gurinchi neethulu vallinche American paccha media ki idhi kanapadadu....As usual aaa Chirchill l@NZ @  c0duKuni pogadatam tappa WW1 lo Indian soldiers ni recognize cheyala....Thooo vella bathukulu cheda

[kakatiya]

7 hours ago, aakathaai said:

Evaru vaaru vaari perlu emiti

India gate

 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0f/India-gate-names.jpg 

[Sachin200]

Nakka sir participate chesara ? 

 

[uttermost]

6 hours ago, LuciferMorningStar said:

Racism gurinchi neethulu vallinche American paccha media ki idhi kanapadadu....As usual aaa Chirchill l@NZ @  c0duKuni pogadatam tappa WW1 lo Indian soldiers ni recognize cheyala....Thooo vella bathukulu cheda

Churchill was pm during world war 2. created a famine in Bengal to fund that war. india should never forgive that monster.

Indian leaders, thankfully, haven't been asked to commemorate his legacy by the UK. 

[kakatiya]

2 hours ago, uttermost said:

Churchill was pm during world war 2. created a famine in Bengal to fund that war. india should never forgive that monster.

Indian leaders, thankfully, haven't been asked to commemorate his legacy by the UK. 

https://www.amazon.in/Era-Darkness-British-Empire-India/dp/938306465X/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1541957878&sr=1-2&pi=AC_SX118_SY170_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=shashi+tharoor&dpPl=1&dpID=518uWCOXgxL&ref=plSrch

[Hector8]

Kavali ani poyi em involve ayi undaru 

It was forced by Britain 

[MiryalgudaMaruthiRao]

I’m one of them

[uttermost]

4 minutes ago, Hector8 said:

Kavali ani poyi em involve ayi undaru 

It was forced by Britain 

Gandhi actually encouraged Indians to fight for the British, hoping in exchange Britain will let India go after its victory. It was all for nothing. To some extent, some participated voluntarily.

[Android_Halwa]

Just now, uttermost said:

Gandhi actually encouraged Indians to fight for the British, hoping in exchange Britain will let India go after its victory. It was all for nothing. To some extent, some participated voluntarily.

That was for the WW-2 which happened two decades later.

but for WW-1, I don't think this was the reason.

[Sachin200]

14 minutes ago, uttermost said:

Gandhi actually encouraged Indians to fight for the British, hoping in exchange Britain will let India go after its victory. It was all for nothing. To some extent, some participated voluntarily.

Ee idea  nakka sir Gandhi ki cheperu

[uttermost]

2 minutes ago, Android_Halwa said:

That was for the WW-2 which happened two decades later.

but for WW-1, I don't think this was the reason.

No. It was for ww1. He refused to participate in anti-British agitations, and urged Indians to go fight for the British, with a leaflet bearing his name. 

the reasons may be many. one of the reasons was the hope that British would let India go.

gandhi learnt his lesson by the ww2, and campaigned against Indians participation in ww 2.