Current Events

Breathtaking & Inspiring:
WW1 National Memorial Service

PRIYA KAUR ATWAL

“You are no longer an invisible face amongst the alphabetically dead, another body draped out to dry on the blood-stained barbed wire. Now at last we can honour the selfless courage of our beloved Sikh soldier.”

These stirring words were read out by Mankamal Singh, a volunteer for the ‘1914 Sikhs’ Project, during the special National Memorial Service held to commemorate the sacrifices of Sikh soldiers during the First World War, on Monday, June 8, 2015. 

Mankamal’s words were derived from a moving letter written by fellow volunteers working for the 1914 Sikhs initiative: a project established by The Anglo-Sikh Heritage Trail to highlight Sikh history in connection with the now century-old global conflict.

Addressing the Unknown Soldier (whose statue stands at Paddington Station) as an imagined long-lost son of an ordinary Punjabi family, the letter was a beautifully creative tribute, which brought home to the assembled guests the conflicting emotions of pride and grief that naturally arise on remembering both the bravery and loss of those young soldiers sucked into one of the most brutal wars in recent history.

Indeed, it is difficult, even painful, to reflect upon the circumstances in which Sikh soldiers were recruited to fight in the First World War - a conflict precipitated and fought solely to pursue the interests of rival European colonial powers.

Of the millions who enlisted, willingly or unwillingly, a disproportionately high number of Sikhs featured in the ranks. Like the Unknown Soldier, 130,000 such Sikhs were tragically never able to return home to their families. 

The memorial service held in honour of these Sikh soldiers was a dignified, yet touching affair. It took place at the St. Martins-in-the-Field’s Church in central London.

Despite being a rather solemn occasion, the varieties of turbans, chunniyan and British regimental uniforms, with added adornments of commemorative medals and ceremonial weapons, brought together a pleasant array of colours inside the hall. In fact, the entire event was positively marked by the friendliness and warmth displayed by the guests towards each other, despite their hailing from a variety of backgrounds: Sikhs and non-Sikhs, and veterans and representatives of the armed forces, mixed with those who simply came out of a desire to learn more about an overlooked aspect of their history, as well as to pay their respects to past generations.

From a personal perspective, two features of the memorial struck a deep emotional chord.

The first was the musical aspect of the service, particularly the manner in which Sikh young women from the Acapella Jatha took turns in singing with the youth choir from St. Martin-in-the-Fields. It was a special opportunity to be able to see such talented young people from two different faiths coming together to sing about themes of peace and sacrifice.

Their performances were breathtaking and inspiring.

On the other hand, the readings of war poetry and memoirs by Sikh and British descendants of WW1 soldiers and officers were incredibly humbling to listen to.

One section of the poem ‘Birdsong‘, by Sebastian Faulks (1918), was especially poignant when read out by Major General Peter Currie:

‘,,, I do not know what I have done to live in this existence.
I do not know what any of us did to tilt the world into
this unnatural orbit. We came here only for a few months.

No child or future generation will ever know what this was
like. They will never understand ...’

Faulks’ words were certainly correct. Even as a History student, I will never fully understand what the soldiers went through, when one hundred years ago, they became caught up in a style of warfare more devastating than had hitherto been known to mankind.

This is its own way is a marker of the good fortune in which many members of my generation now live, safely removed from the threat of such horrors.

What we cannot afford to forget though is the nature and origins of this conflict, as well as the devastating impact it had on countless lives. Yet even amongst the atrocities committed in the blood-soaked crucible of an imperial war, lies a glimmer of hope, in the way that certain British and Sikh soldiers were able to forge close friendships through the sense of humanity and compassion they displayed on the battlefield: no better evidence of which exists in the tale of Manta Singh’s rescue of his friend, Captain Henderson.

Such relationships, based on a spirit of equality and simple goodwill continue to be nurtured by their descendants to this day. Members of these families stood together at the end of Monday’s service and made a touching plea for the stories of their fathers and grandfathers to be ever remembered; not only to remove the risk of the sufferings of war being again inflicted on mankind, but also, so that people of different walks of life could live side by side with dignity and respect in modern Britain.

Their message could not have been more timely.


The author is a PhD student researching Anglo-Sikh history at the University of Oxford. 

June 11, 2015

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