The au­thor shares his jour­ney of gen­er­at­ing in­ter­est about Sikh sol­diers’ sac­ri­fice af­ter tak­ing part in the launch of an ex­hi­bi­tion of In­dian sol­diers, which was on dis­play at the Manek­shaw Cen­tre in the Delhi Can­ton­ment early No­vem­ber, com­mem­o­rat­ing a hun­dred years of World War I and II and his jour­ney of chron­i­cling the Sikh con­tri­bu­tion in the two wars. 

It was a priv­i­lege to par­tic­i­pate as a spe­cial in­vi­tee at the ‘In­dia and Bel­gium on the Cen­te­nary of Great War’ Ex­hi­bi­tion at Manek­shaw Cen­ter in­au­gu­rated by Their Majesties King Philippe and Queen Mathilde of Bel­gium on a spe­cial visit to In­dia in early No­vem­ber to com­mem­o­rate the sac­ri­fices made by In­dian sol­diers in de­fence of Bel­gium and other British al­lies in First World War.

Con­ceived and crafted by the Cen­tre for Armed Forces His­tor­i­cal Re­search and United Ser­vices In­sti­tu­tion, this unique ex­hi­bi­tion, on the pat­tern of the Flan­ders Fields Mu­seum in Ypres, Bel­gium,  in­spired more in­ter­est in the sub­ject as it had many rare pho­tos and mon­tages de­pict­ing Sikh sol­diers in var­i­ous parts of Eu­rope dur­ing the War.  The cof­fee table book ‘In­dia in Flan­ders Fields’  au­thored by mil­i­tary his­to­ri­ans Rana Tej Par­tap Singh Chhina and Do­miniek Den­dooven, re­leased on the oc­ca­sion, is a pic­to­r­ial jour­ney in nos­tal­gia.

It was a mo­men­tous oc­ca­sion to lis­ten to the Bel­gian so­cial­ist and pre­sent Min­is­ter-pres­i­dent of the French speak­ing com­mu­nity Rudy W. G. De­motte show­er­ing praise on the Sikh tur­ban and Sikh cul­ture. An ex­pert in this own right, the first sec­re­tary of the Bel­gian em­bassy in In­dia -Ar­naud Gas­part gladly ac­cepted two books on Sikh con­tri­bu­tion in World Wars I and II and promised to do more for gen­er­at­ing aware­ness about the sac­ri­fice of thou­sands of Sikh sol­diers.  

“It is a good feel­ing that there is re­newed in­ter­est in the con­tri­bu­tion of Sikh sol­diers dur­ing the two World Wars, than it was when I em­barked on this search 18 years ago, in 1999, ded­i­cated to the Tri-cen­ten­nial cel­e­bra­tions of the Birth of the Khalsa.”

Sikh mil­i­tary his­tory is no longer an un­ex­plored area, though still much work needs to be done. As the cen­ten­nial com­mem­o­ra­tions for World War I and II are afoot world­wide, es­pe­cially in Com­mon­wealth coun­tries, it is a good feel­ing that there is re­newed in­ter­est in the con­tri­bu­tion of Sikh sol­diers dur­ing the two World Wars, than it was  when I em­barked on this search 18 years ago in 1999, ded­i­cated to the Tri-cen­ten­nial cel­e­bra­tions of the Birth of the Khalsa. 

On dis­play at the ex­hi­bi­tion were pho­tos of first World War ace pi­lot Hardit Singh Ma­lik and erst­while king -Ma­haraja Bhupin­der Singh Pa­tiala but the cen­tre of at­trac­tion was the Sikh sol­diers dressed in war at­tire with their grace­ful and mar­tial per­son­al­i­ties.

Trav­el­ling world-wide and plung­ing into the archives of the Com­mon­wealth War Graves Com­mis­sion, I have painstak­ingly chron­i­cled thou­sands of names of Sikh sol­diers who sac­ri­ficed the lives as sol­diers of the British army, fight­ing for the de­fence of Great Britain, Bel­gium, France, Italy and other al­lies of Great Britain.

“Presently, I have 44 thou­sand names and I am still count­ing. My mis­sion con­tin­ues. ”

“In the last two world wars 83,005 tur­ban wear­ing Sikh sol­diers were killed and 109,045 were wounded. They all died or were wounded for the free­dom of Britain and the world, and dur­ing shell fire, with no other pro­tec­tion but the tur­ban, the sym­bol of their faith.” says Gen­eral Sir Frank Messervy K. C. S.I, K. B. E., C. B., D. S. O., in the fore­word of Colonel F T Brid­wood OBE book, “The Sikh Reg­i­ment in the Sec­ond World War.”

Meet­ing fam­ily mem­bers in Pun­jab of some of the World War vet­er­ans, es­pe­cially in the his­toric city of Sul­tan­wind, brings tears and there is a dif­fer­ent kind of hearty joy when sons and daugh­ters of Sikh sol­diers and their Eu­ro­pean of­fi­cers who died along­side Sikh sol­diers hug and em­brace you in grat­i­tude for enu­mer­at­ing their names and con­tri­bu­tion.  When Harpreet Singh Bhatti showed the medals of his great grand­fa­ther to mil­i­tary his­tory au­thor Do­miniek Den­dooven in April 2015, he not only made him­self happy by shar­ing his fore­fa­thers’ lau­rels, he in­stilled deep sat­is­fac­tion in me too.

Sikh sol­diers went to the World Wars as loyal im­pe­ri­al­ist forces. Many went to war to keep the Sikh mar­tial race tra­di­tion alive. Many oth­ers em­braced war as they felt that they had a role to play in the fight for jus­tice, peace and the Sikh spirit of  Sar­bat da Bhala -wel­fare of hu­mankind; there were oth­ers who thought that it would help high­light the cause of Sikh self-rule and many oth­ers joined for sim­ple pe­cu­niary rea­sons. Nev­er­the­less, what­ever their mo­ti­va­tion, to go to for­eign lands, fight in cli­mates they are not used to, un­der most try­ing cir­cum­stances and then do the ul­ti­mate sac­ri­fice re­quires grit and de­ter­mi­na­tion which prowess was abun­dantly dis­played dur­ing the two wars.

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Presently, I have 44 thou­sand names and I am still count­ing. I am now fo­cussing on Africa and Mid­dle East  and have found hun­dreds of Sikh sol­diers died for­got­ten by their fam­i­lies and the Sikh com­mu­nity.  To trace the un­trace­able is a daunt­ing task but it has to be done. My mis­sion con­tin­ues.