The Letters of Indian Soldiers during WW1
Some of the letters written by the Indian soldiers involved in World War 1:
“I have been wounded twice. And now this is the third time that I am being sent to the trenches… The English say that it is all right. How can it be all right! As long as one is unhurt, so long they will not let one off. If Parmeshwar allows, I will escape but the butcher does not let the goat escape.”
Mall Singh was an Indian prisoner of war in the ‘Half-moon Camp’ at Wu ̈nsdorf outside Berlin. On 11 December, 1916, he was forced to stand in front of a phonograph machine held before him by his German captors and instructed to speak. This is what we spoke, referring to himself in the third person:
There was a man who would have butter back in India He would also have two sers of milk.
He served for the British.
He joined the European War.
He was captured by the Germans.
He wants to go back to India.
If he goes back to India then he will get that same food. Three years have already passed.
There’s no news as to when there will be peace.
Only if he goes back to India will he get that food.
If he stays here for two more years then he will die.
By God’s grace, if they declare peace then we’ll go back.
A wounded Sikh to his father
18th January 1915, written in Gurumukhi:
“Tell my mother not to go wandering madly because her son, my brother, is dead. To be born and to die is God’s order. Some day we must die, sooner or later, and if I die here, who will remember me? It is a fine thing to die far from home. A saint said this, and, as he was a good man, it must be true.”
https://caravanmagazine.in/vantage/what-indian-soldiers-first-world-war-wrote-home-about
An Indian Lieutenant writes during the Allied invasion of Italy:
“Here I am penning this to you in the middle of one of the biggest nights in the history of this war. Love, I am sure by the time you receive this letter you will guess correctly as to where I am. … You would feel that the whole world were shaking with an earthquake or probably the sky were falling over you…Yet in the midst of this commotion, I sit here, on my own kit-bag and scribble these few lines to my love for I do not really know when I will get the next opportunity to write to you.”
On 14 January 1915, an Indian soldier serving in France, wrote to his father in his native Garhwali:
“It is very hard to endure the bombs, father. It will be difficult for anyone to survive & come back safe & sound from the war. The son who is very lucky will see his father & mother, otherwise who can do this? There is no confidence of survival. The bullets & cannon-balls come down like snow. The mud is up to a man’s middle. The distance between us & the enemy is fifty paces. Since I have been here the enemy has remained in his trenches & we in ours. Neither side has advanced at all. The Germans are very cunning. The numbers that have fallen cannot be counted”.
https://blogs.bl.uk/untoldlives/2015/01/letter-from-an-indian-soldier-to-his-father.html
Poem by Sant Singh to his wife in Gurumukhi on 18th September 1915:
We perish in the deserts,
you wash yourself and lie in bed.
We are trapped in a net of woe,
while you go free.
Our life is a living death.
For what great sin are we being punished?
Kill us, Oh God, but free us from our pain.
We move in agony,
but never rest.
We are slaves of masters
who can show us no mercy.
The bullets fall on us like rain,
but dry are our bodies.
So we have spent a full year.
We cannot write a word.
Lice feed on our flesh,
we cannot wait to pick them out.
For days we have washed our faces.
We do not change our clothes.
Many sons of mothers lie dead.
No one takes any heed.
It is God’s will that this is so,
and what is written is true.
God The Omnipotent, plays a game, and men die.
Death here is dreadful,
But of life there is not briefest hope.
http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=ior!l!mil!5!825!6_f001r#