Harking back: The forgotten Punjabi ‘martyrs’ in lands faraway

Just over 50 years ago when my oldest childhood friend Asad and I hitchhiked from Lahore to London and back on a six-month crazy adventure, our stop in Belgium was, probably, the most memorable. Wherever we went Lahore, and the Punjab, glared us in the face.

In Belgium we visited the Ypres Salient, a set of trenches that have been conserved as a ‘museum’. Among these trenches was a Punjab Trench Museum, which is near the Menin Gate (Menenstraat) memorial. This piece will deal with the trench museum, the Menin Gate Monument, and, lastly, how it relates to the old walled city of Lahore. It was a memory that strongly remains in my mind.

As we climbed down into the trench, one could feel like we were entering a narrow dark world. The thought came to our minds just how could humans remain here for over a year, fighting an “entrenched” battle. The age of the sniper was born.

Down in Turkey the Turks had pinned down Australian and New Zealander invaders in a battle over possession of Gallipoli, a war to control the Dardanelles to re-establish control over sea routes to Russia that led to the end of the Ottoman Empire. The current war in Ukraine is somewhat similar in objectives with the biggest power now being the invisible villain.

In the Punjab Trench we read hundreds of postcards (brown ones of those days) in which Punjabi soldiers had written back home, trying to describe the battle situation. The British colonialists had, naturally, imposed a strict censorship on information flow (you might wonder what has changed), so our soldiers used their own version. One card stood out. “Over the last few days the chillies have become hotter,” wrote this soldier from Jhelum. His letter was deemed as letting out too much detail. To the wall it ended up.

But then there was a Pritam Singh from Lohari Bazaar of Lahore who wrote: “We cannot waste a single bullet to kill a dog, let alone a German, for one does not feel like killing a ‘goora’”. What a laugh we had then on this letter, which was understandable. For three long hours we read scores of such letters. One read: “It’s so cold even my real gun is dead,” said Mian Bakhtiar of Baghbanpura, Lahore. Trust an Arain to get his gun correct. His letter was censored for being rude. Imagine.

But colourful that most descriptions were, the sadness was clear. We walked over to the Menin Gate War Memorial and on the walls names such as Muhammad, Abdul, Khan, Mian, Singh, and other such sub-continental names glared out. We made a note of many of them. A few historic plaques informed that Indian soldiers were led by the 24th Punjab Infantry, which had served their ‘masters’ in Cyprus, Egypt, China, the Persian Gulf, Africa, Burma and Afghanistan, as well as in Tibet and Abyssinia. It seems the Punjabis served the British with immense honour.

The most soldiers in the half a million fighting soldiers were Punjabi Muslims, followed by Punjabi Sikhs, then come the Pathans, the Dogras, Indian Muslims and Jats. One does not wish to classify them on communal grounds, for a bullet of an enemy does not seek religious targets. When WW1 started the then British Indian Army had 152,496 combat soldiers, of which over 100,000 were from the Punjab.

By the time the November 1918 Armistice was signed, these numbers of combat Indian soldiers had risen to 563,091, of which over 400,000 were Punjabi combat soldiers. Of the non-combatants were porters, sweepers, ‘bhishtis’ and ‘syces’, with the majority from the United Provinces (UP). One research breaks down the combat soldiers as being 190,078 Muslims, 97,016 Punjabi Sikhs, and 83,515 Hindu Jats.

In terms of origin of the Punjabi soldiers the Rawalpindi Division of Pakistan supplied the most soldiers, followed by Jullunder, Ambala and the Lahore Division. Here we see the Lahore supplied the most officers, with the lowest being Bengalis a mere 7,117 combat soldiers. Apparently the British had doubts about the fighting abilities of Bengalis.

We see that three Punjabis out of 16 soldiers won the Victoria Cross, 22 out of 99 the Military Cross and 125 Punjabis won the Order of British India. Nearly 200 Punjabis received land as ‘jagirs’, with officers getting 50 acres and soldiers 25 acres each. The class segregation was well in place.

But then in WW1 we see over 36,000 Indian soldiers were killed which comes to 2.6 per cent of the total, mostly in the initial phase of the war in 1915 when fierce hand-to-hand fighting took place. The Germans labelled Punjabis as ‘mad fighters’. A Sikh soldier classified the feeling as if it was a “war which Hanuman made”. The details of this war can fill up many a book that is if we are interested in our collective non-communal past.

Now on to how on our return from a crazy, but highly-educating six-month trek, I set about using my notes to track down the ancestors of the martyrs of Ypres, let alone a few hundred other battlefields. It makes one sad just how our brave soldiers of years past are ignored. In past columns one has advocated Monuments to Unknown Soldiers in Lahore, and other relevant places, but to no effect.

If we go back just 165 years when during the 1857 Uprising, nearly 1,600 persons, soldiers included, were blown up by cannons placed outside the Lahore Fort, outside Lohari Gate, Delhi Gate and Taxali Gate for the slightest whim of opposition. For example a poor man carrying a long staff was caught in Old Anarkali Bazaar, and on pleading that it was a walking stick, the soldiers dragged him to a nearby cannon and he was blown up. The record says: ‘He made a good example’.

But then the WW1 and WW2 soldiers were ‘recruited’ martyrs, and they deserve to be remembered. The British certainly did a reasonable job looking after them, and in many a way still do recall them in monuments and special occasions. But what went wrong with a highly communal sub-continent? It is time we all woke up and look at our history.

Imagine in India the name of Tipu Sultan is also being erased. In Pakistan our history starts once the Afghan invader Mahmud murdered thousands of local people and sold as slaves over 200,000 women from Lahore and surroundings in faraway markets.

Surely our combat soldiers deserve to be shown some respect. Life for senior officers is now the most sought position people dream of. Will this dream ever end? One has serious doubts.