Another book, At ‘Home and the World’ in Iraq 1915-17 Kalyan Pradeep, by the Bengali author Mokkhoda Debi, published in 1928, recounts the life of her grandson Kalyan Mukherji. Based on his own diary, which he hid in his boots, the book describes the tribulations of the British Indian forces in Mesopotamia, Syria, Turkey and the Levant. According to the Bengali writer Amitav Ghosh, Sisir Sarbadhikari’s book Abhi Le Baghdad (On to Baghdad) (1958) is one of the most remarkable wartime memoirs of the 20th century. Hundreds of sepoys (Indian soldiers) fell in Neuve Chapelle (northern France), and more than a thousand, including many Muslims, in Gallipoli in the Dardanelles between February 1915 and January 1916, fighting against Germany’s Ottoman ally.Īlthough relatively few of the Asian soldiers were literate, many left behind personal accounts. The India Gate, a war memorial on Rajpath Boulevard in central New Delhi, stands as a reminder of the sacrifice made by the 74,000 soldiers who died in the war, out of a total of 1.3 to 1.5 million Indian fighters and workers: “To the dead of the Indian Armies who fell and are honoured in France and Flanders, Mesopotamia and Persia, East Africa, Gallipoli and elsewhere in the Near and the Far-East…” It was Indian troops who halted the German advance in Ypres (Belgium) in the autumn of 1914. They also aroused suspicion among French workers, who already saw Vietnamese and Chinese labourers, requisitioned because of their military status, as competitors or strikebreakers. The arrival of Indian troops in Marseille (southeastern France) in 1914 sparked the curiosity of the locals, who were impressed by the appearance of the Sikhs, who in turn were amazed by everything they saw of the French cities and their inhabitants. Discovering the everyday life of the societies that colonised them, witnessing their political and social movements, and seeing the colonial powers weakened by warfare among themselves had an impact on these men once they returned to their homeland.Īfter an arduous journey, often under abject sanitary conditions and without adequate clothing for the European climate, the Asian troops landing in European ports discovered a totally new cultural and social reality, including people of all socioeconomic backgrounds, many of whom much different from the colonial masters they had known. Under these circumstances, transcontinental mobility could change their individual-and perhaps even collective-destiny. In the colonies, any movement, especially to the ruling countries, was closely regulated. Newfound mobility and opportunitiesīeyond the Eurocentric vision of them as mere subordinate auxiliary forces serving the colonial powers, these workers and soldiers were also men of action, who took an exceptional opportunity to travel very long distances. These sources make it possible to trace the individual stories of soldiers, workers, diplomats and students, revealing their discoveries and amazements, hopes and disappointments, day by day. But what are the sources for writing a history from their point of view, for describing their first encounter with Europe and Europeans in an unfamiliar cultural environment and a difficult context, whether in the trenches or the munitions factories? Beyond the locals’ curiosity for these newly-arrived “exotic” populations, letters seized by military censors, diaries and written and visual archives offer insights into the experience of these Asians in Europe.
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