Remembrance Day is marked annually on 11 November to commemorate the end of the First World War on 11 November, 1918. The day, also known as Poppy Day, is also observed to remember all those who sacrificed their lives in the war, and other conflicts that followed it. However, today we are remembering those who have been forgotten throughout the decades.The records of 320,000 troops from the Punjab who fought in the first world war, left unread in a basement for 97 years, have been disclosed by UK-based historians to offer new insight into the contribution of Indian soldiers to the allied war effort.Files found in the depths of the Lahore Museum in Pakistan have been digitised and uploaded on to a website in time for Armistice Day on Thursday.Whereas historians and the descendants of British and Irish soldiers could search public databases of service records, until now no such facility existed for the families of Indian soldiers.Some UK citizens of Punjabi origin have already been invited to search for their ancestors in the database. They have discovered that their family’s villages provided soldiers who served in France, the Middle East, Gallipoli, Aden and east Africa, as well as in other parts of British India during the first world war. Punjab was split between India and Pakistan in 1947.Amandeep Madra, the chair of the UK Punjab Heritage Association who worked with the University of Greenwich to digitise the files, said: “Punjab was the main recruiting ground for the Indian army during world war one. And yet the contribution of the individuals has largely been unrecognised. In most cases we didn’t even know their names.”Punjabis of all faiths – including Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs – made up about a third of the Indian army, and about one sixth of all the empire’s overseas forces.Victorian racial ideology mythologised the qualities of soldiers from the region. In 1879, the Eden Commission report noted that “the Punjab is the home of the most martial races of India and is the nursery of our best soldiers”.For more information: https://www.theguardian.com/…/records-of-320000-punjab…
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