The Great War

by Rakhshanda Jalil

  No mention of the Indian response to the First World War is complete without a reference to the Khilafat Movement spearheaded by Maulana Mohamed Ali Jauhar that emerged as a direct consequence of Britain’s misadventures in the Middle East. Jailed in 15 May 1915 for writing a ‘seditious’ article titled ‘The Choice of the Turks’, the charismatic maulana sat out the war in prison from where he kept churning out a series of rousing poems and articles. As a result, the words Gandhi, Khilafat and Swaraj, and Mohamed Ali became ‘words that conjured up in the minds of the people a picture of bringing about a better world under the direction of better leaders’.24 The extracts from his autobiography included here reveal the impact of international politics on Indian Muslims, the spread of what Ali deemed Nai Raushni (New Light), and the Indian response to Europe’s temporal aggression.

  Possibly the first full-length novel written by an Indian on the First World War in the years between the two wars is Mulk Raj Anand’s Across the Black Waters.25 Sufficiently close in time, it reads virtually as an eyewitness account being the story of Lalu, dispossessed from his land, going off to an alien land to fight a war he has little comprehension of. The extract here, from Chapter Two, talks of Lalu’s first interactions with the French people, how he’s taken aback by their kindness and gratitude for saving their country, how he can’t get over the mem who offers him fruit and milk, his experiences at a French brothel and a bar (both equally bewildering), his reaction at seeing men and women interacting freely, the breaking of caste taboos in the camp kitchens, the easy mingling between sepoys of different religions, castes and ethnicities, his admiration for French cities and villages alike, and most of all, how different Frenchwomen seem compared to Englishwomen in India who were condescending and disdainful of any contact with Indian men.

  Oral literature played an important part in recounting the valour and sacrifice of fallen soldiers, in rustling support for battles in distant lands and primarily enlisting men and sourcing materials. Specially commissioned songs,26 written for the purpose of drawing the youth, were often relied upon to reach the nooks and crannies of the popular imagination such as this song used by enlisters in rural Punjab:

  The recruits are at your doorstep.

  Here you eat dried roti

  There you’ll eat fruit

  Here you are in tatters

  There you’ll wear a suit

  Here you wear worn out shoes

  There you’ll wear boot(s)

  Then, there was an alternative tradition of verses and songs, partly formed in reaction against men being called away to war, never to return. In some of the poems, there was not just lament and mourning but also a powerful critique of the war:

  Holi brought youth in the old age, Mr Seth is playing Holi with Mrs Seth

  Why should the nephew not be shocked, seeing Uncle play Holi with Aunty!

  Springs of blood are flowing in Europe, in what new colours have arrived the old Holi.

  And:

  Germany has been going on with its chaaein chaeein for four years

  Crows are teasing lions with kaeein kaeein

  We are facing inflation in the market where trading is slow

  Such wind is blowing from the West with saaein saaein

  While a separate section of this volume looks at the protest poetry in Urdu that emerged from the war, in the prose section we have two essays that deal with war poetry in Punjabi. Raman Singh Chhina draws our attention to a nearly forgotten genre of poetry, the jangnama — or poems about war. A tradition that began in the sixteenth century and through a series of wars fought under the British — namely the Anglo-Afghan and Anglo-Egyptian wars and the Boxer Rebellion in China — yielded a rich corpus of verse chronicles. It took a loyal British soldier, Havildar Nand Singh, to write Jangnama Europe depicting the sequence of events starting from the assassination of the Shehzada (the prince of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) to the German invasion of Belgium, the ‘compassion’ of the British government in coming to the aid of France and Belgium in the face of the ‘arrogance’ of Germany studded with local references to native wars and heroes. Redolent with the pluralism and syncretism of undivided Punjab, Jangnama Europe is both refreshing and invigorating despite the grimness of its subject.

  Amarjit Chandan’s research shows that an apparent amnesia around India’s involvement in the First World War among Indians does not mean a lack or an absence; sometimes a subterranean stream of memory needs to be tapped. Once unearthed, qissa kahanis, oral narratives, folk songs and ditties recover bits and pieces of a forgotten past and retrieve lost voices. Stories of enlistments, both forced and voluntary, provide vital clues about social forces and dynamics that are overlooked by historians and creative writers alike. Chandan not only records the immense contribution of Punjabis — Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims — but also the effect of this large-scale involvement. While there are hardly any folk songs on the Partition of 1947 in Punjabi (such, possibly, is the lingering guilt and trauma), there is a rich crop of folk songs on the two World Wars: on bereavement and mourning for the dead, the biraha or separation of the women from their men, the admiration and mocking of enlistment strategies, and so on.

  Taken together, the various segments in this volume show that the Indian response to the Great War was not uniform, monolithic or unvariegated. The direct experience of well over a million men and the indirect experiences of countless others deserves to be studied both individually and as the sum of their parts. It is hoped that a study such as this will spur greater interest in this hitherto neglected aspect of the history of the Indian peoples.

  Rakhshanda Jalil

  New Delhi

  September 2018

  1 Jawaharlal Nehru, An Autobiography, London, John Lane, 1936, p.16.

  2 Tilak formed the Home Rule League in 1916 to attain the goal of Swaraj. His slogan, ‘Swaraj is my birthright and I shall have it’, inspired millions of Indians. He, along with Bipin Chandra Pal from Bengal and Lala Lajpat Rai from Punjab, formed the core group of extremists within the Congress who called for radical action, especially after the British had played the communal card in the Partition of Bengal. The trio was called the Lal-Bal-Pal triumvirate.

  3 The British had promised reforms and greater Indian participation in systems of governance as well as greater Muslim representation. They did indeed introduce the much-awaited reforms. However, if the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms of 1919 were a benign form of these pre-War promises, the Rowlatt Act passed in the same year showed the ugly side of British rule in India.

  4 For details, read Khizar Humayun Ansari, The Emergence of Socialist Thought Among North Indian Muslims (1917-1947), Book Traders, Lahore, 1990.

  5 Culled from a variety of sources such as Urdu Mein Qaumi Shaeri Ke Sau Saal and Nawai Azadi, compiled by Abdur Razzaq Qureshi, and Hindustan Hamara, edited by Jan Nisar Akhtar. Other such compilations include Azadi Ki Nazmein by Sibte Hasan and a selection of proscribed poems called Zabt Shudah Nazmen. Many were written by writers who had to go underground to evade the colonial government. All translations in this section are mine except, of course, for the first poem by Sarojini Naidu, which was written in English. I must confess my inability to access any poems from other languages, especially from Bengali. I have, however, included two essays that deal exclusively with the Punjabi poetry written directly on the First World War.

  6 The Shah of Jilan refers to the great Sufi master Abdul Qadir Jilani, whose shrine is in Baghdad and who is regarded as the founder of the Qadiriyah silsilah or chain of Sufis.

  7 These, and many other examples of proscribed poetry in the years leading up to Independence, can be read in N. Gerald Barrier, Banned: Controversial Literature and Political Control in British India 1907-1947, New Delhi: Manohar, 1978.

  8 Indian Writers in Conference: The Sixth PEN All India Writers’ Conference, Mysore, edited by Nissim Ezekiel, p. 212.

  9 Rakhshanda Jalil, The Absent Presence: The Partition in Modern Urdu Poetry in Looking Back: The
1947 Partition of India 70 Years On, edited by Rakhshanda Jalil, Tarun K. Saint and Debjani Sengupta, Orient Blackswan, New Delhi, 2017, pp. 114–138.

  10 The online page, Indian Soldiers in World Wars of the British Library, says: ‘During the First World War, over 130,000 Indian soldiers served in France. Their major military contribution on the Western Front took place in the first year of the War. At the end of 1915, the majority of infantry brigades were withdrawn and sent to the Middle East. A small number of cavalry brigades (who fought as infantry) remained in France for the duration of the war, and were later supplemented by a Labour Corps.’

  11 David Omissi, ‘Europe through Indian Eyes: Indian Soldiers Encounter England and France,’ The English Historical Review, Vol. 122, No. 496 (April 2007): 371–396.

  12 Regrettably, the letters themselves have not survived the ravages of time and circumstance; we only have access to translated excerpts from the censor’s reports. The originals, we can only assume, were written in poor Hindi or Urdu, either by the soldiers themselves or by friends who were more adept.

  13 All excerpts are from the files of the Censor of Indian Mails [IOR: L/MIL/5/828] available online.

  14 An estimated 14,514 wounded men were transported to British hospitals, initially in Southampton; later the Royal Pavilion and Dome at Brighton was converted into a hospital with 722 beds as the first Indian patients began to arrive by December 1914. The Brighton Workhouse was converted into Kitchener’s Indian Hospital in February 1915 and a third hospital in the city was converted from schools in York Place and Pelham Street. The kitchens at these hospitals did not serve pork and beef and separate areas were set aside for Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus to pray.

  15 Omissi, ‘Europe Through Indian Eyes,’ p. 374.

  16 A report in The Guardian puts the number to 1.27 million. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/feb/21/found-translation-indias-first-world-war

  17 Novels and books have celebrated the roles and sacrifices of Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians and South Africans, especially in Gallipoli.

  18 A victory parade was taken out by the Indian contingent through the streets of London in July 1919 as an acknowledgement of the vital role of the Indian Armed Forces during the war. The contingent consisted of a British detachment of eleven officers and 270 men, an Indian Army detachment of twenty-seven British officers, 465 Indian officers and 985 Indian other ranks, and thirty-four Imperial Service troops of the Indian Native States.

  19 The Great War literally bled India dry. Apart from the soldiers, India’s contribution ranged from minerals (iron, mica and manganese), military hardware and transport equipment to grains, cotton, jute, wool and hide to 185,000 animals, including horses, camels and mules. The statute governing India’s relationship to Great Britain was amended so that India could ‘share in the heavy financial burden’. There was a free lump sum gift of 100 million pounds to His Majesty’s government as a ‘special contribution’ by India towards expenses of war, which was partly raised through war bonds; and in the five years ending 1918–1919, its total net military expenditure, excluding the special contribution and costs of special services, amounted to a whopping 121.5 million pounds. https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/responses_to_the_war_india

  20 A Hindi film was made on it in 1960, produced by Bimal Roy starring Sunil Dutt and Nanda.

  21 https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/responses_to_the_war_india

  22 M.B.L. Bhargava, India’s Services in the War, Allahabad, 1919, p. 51.

  23 Joining as a sepoy, he was eventually promoted to lance-naik during his three-year stint in the army.

  24 Mohamed Ali, My Life: A Fragment, edited by Mushirul Hasan, Manohar, Delhi, 1999, p. 22.

  25 Other novels, such as John Master’s The Ravi Lancers, show the Indian presence in the war arenas from the British point of view. Across the Black Waters is remarkable because it seems to be the only novel written by an Indian showing the subaltern view of the war.

  26 Aggressive recruitment also led to resistance from wives, mothers and daughters. Women would sometimes trail their freshly recruited men for miles, trying to win them back. In the play Bengal Platoon, the mother of a new recruit curses the ‘red-faced monkeys’, that is, the British recruiter for stealing her son.

  Prose

  The Roots of War1

  Rabindranath Tagore

  The November issue of Sabuj Patra carried a ripe bunch of arguments by its editor: the words were both full of substance and juice. There is nothing one can say more than that; therefore, I am emboldened to write a few things down.

  The editor has explained succinctly that the present war is a battle between soldiers and merchants, between Kshatriyas and Vaishyas.2 In society, the warriors had always held an innate contempt for those who earned their livelihoods from trade and commerce: the Kshatriyas had never tolerated the power of the traders, the Vaishyas. Therefore Germany, in the pride of its martial past, has contemptuously begun this war.

  Among the four varnas that exist in Europe, the Brahmins or priests have long left their livelihoods and taken a back seat. During Europe’s infancy, the Christian Church had been a formidable teacher, sitting at a high place with a cane in hand, laying down the law. It is now reduced to loiter at the doorstep of its adult pupil: without a cane, bereft of a high place and fed a few morsels owing to its past glories. Now it has to follow every command of its pupil. Therefore, the Church has never reprimanded Europe in all its wrongdoings committed through wars, or in the course of its relationship to other races; instead, it has tempered the dish by choicest religious doctrines and enhanced its taste.

  On the other hand, the sword of the soldier was melted down to make the plough; therefore, the soldiers are now sitting idle, waxing their moustaches and looking after the warehouses of the merchants. The Vaishyas or the merchants, in turn, began to wield power and prestige. The two adversaries are currently engaged in war: the Kshatriyas are up against the Vaishyas.

  In the Dwapar age,3 the ploughman Balaram did not join the Kurukshetra4 war, but in Kaliyuga, as soon as his stock of wine has been touched, he is ready to fight. Now, in this Kurukshetra war, the main protagonist is not Krishna, it is Balaram. He has no taste for blood: all this while he was drinking and enjoying his alcohol-induced torpor, but this sudden onslaught may break his dreamy state, though there is still hope he may go back to his past-times.

  After this, another war is getting ready to be waged: between the trader and the worker, between the labourer and the merchant. Preparations are afoot for that war and it will usher in another new age; a world of deprivation and famine.

  At present, the war is on between the soldier and the merchant, and the question is, what are its root causes? In ancient history, we saw that the mercantile class had always been protected and pandered to by the monarch, sometimes even attacked and insulted, but they did not get down to fight anyone. In those days, wealth and prestige were kept separate, so traders were never seen as important people; rather, they were looked down upon. That is because the worth of humans cannot be judged with things, it can only be judged through human ties. As long as the Kshatriyas remained powerful and the merchants rich, they left each other alone. At that point of time, the antagonism was between the Brahmins and the Kshatriyas because the Brahmins were not simply interested in prayer and worship, scholarship and learning, they had extended mastery over people. So, the powerful Brahmin and the dominant soldier jostled against each other for authority. In Europe, the quarrels between monarchs and popes were long and fulsome.

  Trade is based on give and take: the buyer and the seller both try to see each other’s point of view. Mastery is just its opposite because only one is powerful. One side rules over the other, and the master-slave relationship is unequal. Mastery weighs a load and it creates obstacles in the freedom of human relationships. Therefore, the desire to dominate is the root of all the wars that have been fought, big or small. If we cannot throw away a bu
rden, then we at least try to resist it. The men who carry the palanquin change shoulders from time to time as they carry its weight. Human society too tries to shift the weight of this burden of dominance because it creates pressure from outside. The burden is dead weight, so man’s innate humanity tries to gather strength to throw it off or at least shift it around.