As a proud de­scen­dant of a fam­ily of Sikh sol­diers who served in the British In­dian army dur­ing the World Wars, Jagdeesh Singh ex­presses his joy at the un­veil­ing of the statue at Smeth­wick, but at the same time urges the de­bate to go be­yond memo­ri­als and look into the in­volve­ment of Sikhs, Pan­jaabis, Gorkhas and oth­ers for a full and in­clu­sive dis­cus­sion, de­bate and di­a­logue be­yond British im­pe­r­ial pol­i­tics. 

T he 10 feet-high mon­u­ment of a smil­ing Sikh sol­dier with his ri­fle stands tall pay­ing trib­utes to the thou­sands of In­dian troops who died fight­ing for Britain from 1914 to 1918. The in­au­gu­ra­tion of the ‘Li­ons of the Great War’ mon­u­ment in Birm­ing­ham, UK is both com­mend­able and a no­tably long over­due trib­ute to the mam­moth sac­ri­fice of Sikh sol­diers in Britain’s World War I.

The young pres­i­dent of the Gur­d­wara Sahib Jatin­der Singh and Edg­bas­ton MP Preet Kaur Gill were vis­i­bly happy at this ex­tremely ho­n­ourable mo­ment for the lo­cal com­mu­nity as well as for the whole com­mu­nity in the UK. 

Com­ing from a fam­ily of three con­sec­u­tive gen­er­a­tions who served in the British In­dian army (Sube­dar Bas­san Singh in the 1st Sikh In­fantry from 1850 through to Maghar Singh in the Cen­tral In­dia Horse up to 1944), I have a per­sonal and col­lec­tive affin­ity and con­nec­tion to these se­ri­ous and emo­tive mat­ters of recog­ni­tion and in­clu­sion.

The mon­u­ment, funded by the Smeth­wick Sikh Gur­d­wara, is a gi­gan­tic, vis­i­ble 10 feet tall Sikh sol­dier statue of World War I; im­mac­u­lately crafted by world renowned sculp­tor Luke Perry oc­cu­pies prime place cre­ated by the Sandwell Coun­cil. It has been launched in the last sev­eral days, with due ac­claim and cer­e­mony with the back­ing of the lo­cal pub­lic au­thor­ity for that spe­cific area of Birm­ing­ham city, in the fore­ground of the promi­nent Guru Nanak Gur­d­wara in Smeth­wick, UK.

A small num­ber of sim­i­lar mon­u­ments al­ready ex­ist in var­i­ous lo­ca­tions across the UK, as set up by lo­cal Sikh com­mu­ni­ties – in Gravesend, Coven­try, etc. These mon­u­ments con­vey to the British pop­u­la­tion and me­dia about the acutely un­recog­nised role of Sikhs, Pan­jaabis, Pathans, Gurkhas and more from the In­dian con­ti­nent, whose role and con­tri­bu­tion in British mil­i­tary his­tory de­serves main­stream aware­ness and qual­i­ta­tive ap­pre­ci­a­tion.

These mon­u­ments are a long-over­due pub­lic step, which the Sikh he­roes of World War I and II, would, un­for­tu­nately never have been able to see. It has been a painfully long time of 100 years, to fi­nally be­gin to see such mon­u­ments emerg­ing in the UK. There are now a scat­ter­ing of small to medium Sikh sol­dier mon­u­ments in­stalled in var­i­ous places across the UK. Hope­fully, this will grow and ac­cel­er­ate, com­bined with a pub­lic aware­ness rais­ing of the un­qiue role of peo­ple like the Sikhs and fel­low peo­ples from South Asia in the de­fence and mil­i­tary his­tory of Britain, through the rig­ors and sac­ri­fices of bat­tle.

It must be stated that, the com­ing of such mon­u­ments is due to the sus­tained voices within the British Sikh com­mu­nity, which have var­i­ously and col­lec­tively been push­ing over many decades for recog­ni­tion of the piv­otal role of Sikhs, Pan­jaabis and wider South Asian con­tri­bu­tions in Britain’s wars. Trag­i­cally, this role and sac­ri­fice has been all too much ex­cluded from pub­lic me­dia in­for­ma­tion and UK gov­ern­ment pub­lic an­nounce­ments and de­c­la­ra­tions.

“Com­ing from a fam­ily of three con­sec­u­tive gen­er­a­tions who served in the British In­dian army (Sube­dar Bas­san Singh in the 1st Sikh In­fantry from 1850 through to Maghar Singh in the Cen­tral In­dia Horse up to 1944), I have a per­sonal and col­lec­tive affin­ity and con­nec­tion to these se­ri­ous and emo­tive mat­ters of recog­ni­tion and in­clu­sion. ”

Slough Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment Tan­man­jeet Singh Dhesi has rightly re­marked, “It’s won­der­ful to see a statue of a tur­baned Sikh sol­dier be­ing un­veiled in Smeth­wick and I con­grat­u­late every­one who was in­volved in mak­ing it a re­al­ity.  Sikhs are very proud of their dis­tinct iden­tity and their rich mil­i­tary tra­di­tion dat­ing back cen­turies. Memo­ri­als such as this, along with the one we in­stalled in Gravesend (Kent) in 2014, and the Na­tional Sikh War Memo­r­ial be­ing worked upon for cen­tral Lon­don, are a fit­ting trib­ute to the hun­dreds of thou­sands of tur­baned Sikh sol­diers who fought and made (or were will­ing to make) the ul­ti­mate sac­ri­fice for our col­lec­tive fu­ture. We are ex­tremely in­debted to them. Such stat­ues also help in our coun­try’s in­te­gra­tion and com­mu­nity co­he­sion, while coun­ter­ing the far-right pol­i­tics of hate and di­vi­sion, since it makes every­one aware that peo­ple from dif­fer­ent faiths/​back­grounds all made an im­mense con­tri­bu­tion to the coun­try.”

It is good to fi­nally see the emer­gence of such pub­lic mon­u­ments, al­though 100 years very late and much over­due. Much agony has been caused by the British es­tab­lish­ments’ and British main­stream me­di­a’s gross and crass ex­clu­sion of the mon­u­men­tal role of Sikhs, Pan­jaabis and wider South Asian sol­diers in British global wars. This has been a ma­jor, en­dur­ing omis­sion for 100 years, lead­ing to not just a cruel non-recog­ni­tion, but to racial hos­til­ity and ten­sion to­wards us mi­grant ‘for­eign­ers’ in the UK.

We are not ‘for­eign­ers’. Our fore­fa­thers cre­ated a solid place in British his­tory through their un­for­tu­nately con­cealed and un-high­lighted sac­ri­fices. It is very much long over­due for these in­deli­ble sac­ri­fices – which made the piv­otal dif­fer­ence be­tween de­feat and vic­tory for the British – to be main­streamed into British schools, British me­dia and British cel­e­bra­tions and pub­lic de­c­la­ra­tions about these wars and sac­ri­fices. We are not there yet, but hope­fully his mon­u­ment will add to that mo­men­tum.

Ace trav­eller Har­jin­der Singh Kukreja from Lud­hi­ana who paid trib­utes to Sikh sol­diers at Gal­lipoli in Turkey last month says, “As a keen trav­eller to Sikh his­tor­i­cal sites for World War I and II Sikh vet­er­ans, I would say that this is a proud mo­ment that this beau­ti­ful statue has been es­tab­lished by the British Sikhs. Now they should fo­cus on build­ing such memo­ri­als in dis­tant lands of Eu­rope, about which lo­cal pop­u­la­tion don’t know much.”

Fur­ther­more, it is im­por­tant to stress that, the sub­ject of Sikh sol­diers be­ing recog­nised, is not just about stat­ues and cer­e­mo­nial events and speeches. It equally in­volves the need for a full and in­clu­sive dis­cus­sion, de­bate and di­a­logue about the use of Sikh, Pan­jaabi, Gurkha, Pathan and wider sol­diers from the In­dian con­ti­nent (South Asia) by the British Em­pire for its global wars; and whether this was fair, ex­ploita­tive and/​or dig­ni­fied. For ex­am­ple, why did Sikh sol­diers mutiny in the 1915 Sin­ga­pore Mutiny and Bom­bay 1944 Mutiny?  

“It’s won­der­ful to see a statue of a tur­baned Sikh sol­dier be­ing un­veiled in Smeth­wick. Sikhs are very proud of their dis­tinct iden­tity and their rich mil­i­tary tra­di­tion dat­ing back cen­turies.  ”

Slough MP Tan­man­jeet Singh Dhesi

Hope­fully, as part of pub­lic de­bate in the UK, we can progress to­wards that ex­plo­ration and scrutiny, against the over­whelm­ingly of­fi­cial para­pher­na­lia which in­duces us to un­crit­i­cally ap­plaud, cel­e­brate and par­tic­i­pate in the en­dur­ing one-sided prais­ing and pos­tur­ing on such mat­ters. The un­told story of the Sikh sol­dier when un­rav­elled, in­volves war, sac­ri­fice, bat­tle­field courage, British im­pe­r­ial pol­i­tics, ex­ploita­tion, dis-recog­ni­tion and aban­don­ment to this very day.

“This is a proud mo­ment that this beau­ti­ful statue has been es­tab­lished…it is now time to shift fo­cus to build­ing memo­ri­als in dis­tant lands where Sikh sol­diers died un­sung.  ”

Har­jin­der Singh Kukreja, ace trav­eller and so­cial ac­tivist

The uniquely ex­pres­sive words of Colonel Lan­den Saras­field, from his mag­num opus ‘Be­trayal of the Sikhs’, (La­hore 1946), “Wher­ever in the East, and very of­ten in the West, a British sol­dier has been in ac­tion, there also were to be found his Sikh com­rades, ever loyal, ever coura­geous and ever ready to give their life’s blood in the Com­mon Cause. From those days in 1857 when nearly all In­dia rose against us and mas­sa­cred as many Eu­ro­peans as were de­fence­less, the Sikhs have al­ways been on our side. Whether at Dheli or on the plains of Flan­ders, in Sa­lonika or in the Is­lands of the Pa­cific, they have cov­ered them­selves with im­mor­tal­ity in our ser­vice” pay im­pas­sioned trib­ute to the in­deli­ble role of the Sikh sol­diers and the Sikhs shall re­main grate­ful to him for his early, hon­est and sin­cere recog­ni­tion.

“..with their backs to the wall, the Khalsa fought and died as men. ”

Colonel Lan­den Saras­field, Be­trayal of the Sikhs

This au­thor hopes that the im­mor­tal words of Colonel Saras­field fil­ter through into the main­stream British me­dia, es­tab­lish­ment and be­yond to gen­er­ate qual­i­ta­tive con­sid­er­a­tions of these un­recog­nised he­roes and their cur­rent com­mu­ni­ties in the UK and Pan­jaab.

The mon­u­ment at Smeth­wick reads that the Sikhs and other South Asian sol­diers fought for a coun­try which was not theirs, but as the Sikhs and the lo­cal pop­u­la­tion view the statue in awe, re­spect and ado­ra­tion, they will do well to re­flect on the golden words of Colonel Lan­den Saras­field, who says, “..with their backs to the wall, the Khalsa fought and died as men.”