Forgotten Punjabi WW1 soldiers recognised for first time

Around 1.4 million people from the subcontinent – now India, Pakistan and Bangladesh – are known to have served in the British Indian Army in WW1.

In the years that followed the war, officials visited every town and village in Punjab in an effort to record the names and fates of each of the 320,000 servicemen who came from that state alone.

Following India’s partition in 1947 the state of Punjab was split between India and Pakistan.

Scores of cracked, fragile, leather-bound volumes filled with hand-written records, and each embossed with a village name, now line shelves at the Lahore Museum in Pakistan.

Members of the UK Punjab Heritage Association initiated the project to digitise and analyse the records, a process that has taken several years.

“As a Punjabi myself I feel really proud that I can do this part for the community,” says Jasmin Basra, a PhD student at the University of Greenwich, who participated in the pain-staking research.

During the process, Basra unexpectedly stumbled across the names of two of her own relatives, a great-great-grandfather and his brother, who also served in WW1 fighting for the British Indian Army.

“That connection was emotional. As a second-generation British Punjabi, there is almost a disconnect from Punjab as well as not being fully connected to British history, but I think this is a tangible link to all of it,” she says.