Letter to an Indian soldier serving on the Western Front in World War 1; from his mother, living in a small village in Punjab province.

My dearest son

Many  blessings. My eyes see nothing else, just you, only 22, so handsome in your cotton khakis. I was so proud when you became a sepoy in Punjab’s regiment.  ‘But why do you have to go and fight in a foreign land?’ I kept asking.  Your eyes shone. ‘If we help English people’s war, we will get freedom.  And just think, 11 rupees a month! And some land of our own!  We can pay off the debt from grandpa’s influenza and funeral’.  

‘What is freedom?’ I keep thinking.

‘Don’t worry that you haven’t had a letter from your son, old Ma’, Harjit from next door keeps reassuring me, ‘Sometimes the sepoys can’t find anyone to write for them; and when I was on the front, once the ink froze in the pot!  Also, if the Army doesn’t like the letter, they don’t send it’.

Harjit got maimed four times before they sent him home -the butcher doesn’t let the goat escape so easily! Raghu came back within a month – he lost his leg.  His mother thinks she is lucky. They both just lie there, weary like bullocks after ploughing.

 ‘Our uniform felt really cold there, old Ma’, they tell me. ‘White soldiers had coats. We took some off the dead soldiers to wear; felt cosy like fresh warm chapaatis.’ They think Indian sepoys will also get coats soon.

They say that the hospital in Brighton was grand, and the white doctors were very clever, and kind to them, although white nurses were not allowed to treat them. The hospital had barbed wire around it, like a large prison; to protect white women. I have only seen two white men; one who came to talk about taxes, and one about their God.  I hear they call you black pepper, and that black pepper stays ahead of red pepper. What does all that mean?

My friend Mandeep’s son wrote that shells fall like monsoon rain, and afterwards the bodies look like mounds of harvested corn, or like a carrot and turnip field turned upside down.

Don’t worry about the field. I am strong and am helping your father. The rains have been good this year. Your father is well. He doesn’t talk about you, but his tears singe my skin like that Diwali when you dropped a lamp and the paraffin dripped down my arm.

Nasty gossip travels fast, like whispering wind. It seems that two men from Joshapur village were caught cutting their own arms. The Army shot them.  I know you will never commit such sins. Keep the Holy Book with you always. It will protect you.

Bhola, who now goes to town to work, says history is being written. Must it be written in the blood of my son, on another land, that I will never see?

When your letter comes I will make hot sweet halwa for Bhola. He says he will read it to me as many times as I want.

May you live long, my son, and with God’s grace, be home by the harvesting.

Your loving mother.

 

Approximately 1.5 million Indian troops served overseas in World War 1, in Africa, Europe, and the Middle East.  At least 74,187 died. Dozens were awarded a Victoria Cross.  It has been acknowledged that the British "couldn't have come through both wars [World War I and II] if they hadn't had the Indian Army”.