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As Britain declared war on Germany on 4 August 1914, Lord Hardinge, the Viceroy of India, announced that India too was at war, without consulting Indian political leaders. Yet, the responses to the war within India, both from the native princes and the political elite, were largely enthusiastic. The feudal princes, who still ruled one-third of India, were overwhelmingly supportive. Both the Indian National Congress and the All India Muslim League supported the war effort, and nationalist leaders backed the Allied effort.
Of all the colonies in the British, French and German empires of the time, British India (comprising present-day India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Burma) contributed the highest number of men. Of them, over a million served overseas between August 1914 and December 1919. This book is about these men: it is a visual record of their lives in Europe—in trenches, fields, farms, billets, markets, towns, cities, railway-stations, hospitals, prisoner-of-camps—as well as the world they had left behind in India, the relentless routine of travel and the way we remember them.
The year 2014 marks the centenary of the start of the First World War and this book is a part of the series of commemorative events to be held over the coming four years to remember and honour those who served their countries with distinction, bravery and pride. This volume documents this prominent contribution of the Indian forces during this tragic conflict.
Educated in Calcutta and Cambridge, Santanu Das is Reader in English at King’s College London, and is the author of the prize-winning Touch and Intimacy in First World War Literature. He is writing a monograph titled India, Empire and the First World War: Words, Images and Songs for Cambridge University Press and is the presenter for a two-part series on the subject for BBC Radio 4. In 2013–16, he is leading an international collaborative research project on ‘Cultural Exchange During the First World War’.
ISBN - 9788189995478
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Pages : 160
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