My name is Iqbal
Hussein.This webinar
is about South Asia and
the First World War.
It is part of a project The
National Archives embarked upon
in 2016 with the historian
Rozina Visram which
includes blog
posts, an education
resource and audio plays.
The webinar will introduce
in a little more detail
some of the more
remarkable documents
we uncovered whilst
researching for a project
called Loyalty and Dissent.
It will hopefully act as a
starting point for others
to follow up on their research.
Detailed guides covering some
of the files series we looked at
are available online
and in the library
at The National Archives
and in published guides.
The fanfare surrounding loyalty
and service of colonial troops
during the First
World War that ushered
in the 100th anniversary
commemorations
has drowned out the fact
that the period in question
was also a period of significant
resistance and upheaval.
This webinar will start
with a short introduction,
then show how you can
conduct a search using
index cards and
the process you can
undertake to convert
the numbers on the cards
into a reference that
can be used on Discovery
and from there for a file to
be called up for you to use.
Finally, we will look at
a number of key documents
and use these to bring
out in some more detail
the issues arising which will
help the listener follow up
on further lines of enquiry.
In the year 1858 Queen
Victoria was proclaimed Empress
of India.
A year earlier the British had
faced the most serious threat
to their rule, following
the 1857 Uprising.
The repercussions
and echoes of 1857
continued to be felt and
heard throughout the remaining
years of British rule.
Whilst the British were
able to assert their power
and authority over India
after 1857, in no small way
through their control of
the military in India,
they increasingly faced more
determined and better organised
anti colonial resistance.
A change in
anti-colonial activity
was notable at the end
of the 19th century
and beginning of 20th
century during the period
of Curzons viceroyalty.
However, historians have located
the most significant shift
to 1905 the year in which
Japan defeated the Russians;
the first time an Asian
power had fought and defeated
a European power.
It was also in this year that
in India the nationalists
protested against the
partition of Bengal.
However, it was not until the
eve of the First World War
that matters came to a
head between, broadly, two
opposing factions: those
loyal to the British and those
opposing their rule.
The following extract
from a translation
of the Ghadar newspaper
in our collection
includes claims
that are being made
by Indian anti-colonial voices
saying that the English take
a lot of money from
India and in return
spend very little on education,
sanitation or medical help.
However, it says they
spend the majority of it
on the upkeep of the army.
A transnational network
had been forming over
the decade prior to
the start of the war
gradually locating itself
outside those areas
under British control
and influence.
For these Indian
anti-colonialists,
the start of the First
World War was an opportunity
with the British
vulnerable, and the Germans
ready to aid them, to hatch
varied schemes including
armed invasions, mass
uprisings and coups
brought together
under the banner
of Ghadar and its newspaper.
Part of the British
Imperial States response
was to activate the
loyalty of Indians who
following the failed
uprising of 1857
had joined the
British in defending
the Empire from both
internal and external threat.
One such group were the Sikhs.
The Punjab where the
Sikhs mainly came from
was valued for its loyalty.
The Sikhs made up a
disproportionate number
of the troops that the
British relied upon,
compared to the size of their
numbers in the population.
This image of Sikh troops
from after the First World
War is one of a set of
rare images we have that
speaks to a sense
of loyalty that
has been made much of as
part of the 100th anniversary
commemorations.
The nature of this
loyalty is much contested
some arguing that
the Indians chose
to join the British
colonial power
whilst others have
argued that this was
a far more mercenary affair.
It is certainly possible
to draw distinctions
in terms of motivation
between Indias contribution
and that of the British
dominions at the time.
At The National Archives
records in our foreign office
files amongst others illustrate
the efforts of the nationalists
and work of the British
state to monitor and counter
their activities.
In particular it is the
files series FO 371,
that provides some of the
most interesting insights
in our records to the kinds
of opposition to British rule
that was taking place in and
around the time of the First
World War.
FO 371 is one of the most
requested series covering
Foreign Office correspondence.
It holds 300,000 volumes.
These are bound
sets of loose papers
with a variety of items included
such as newspaper clippings
and photos.
To conduct a search
using FO 371,
you need to do the following.
Visit our Discovery page
and from here browse
our Research Guides.
Choose the research guide
for the Foreign Office
The following research guide,
FO correspondence 1906-19
provides instructions to
using the FO 1111 index cards
Choose an appropriate letter
range for the index cards.
In my example, I have
located index cards
relating to my search
for information
about the Ghadar Party.
As you will note it
refers me to India:
Anti British agitation
in US (also Censorship).
Once again searching
the index cards,
I am able to locate India
(Anti-British agitation in US).
Immediately we can see a
number of interesting leads
under the code 45.
Using the term code 45
in our advanced search
and the reference FO
371 and the date range
1914 I get a series of results
These results provide
file references
such as FO 371/2152,
highlighted,
which can then be ordered to
view at The National Archives.
It is worth noting
when using index cards
that whilst they provide
some fascinating leads,
it is important to remember
the variety of spellings
that can be employed.
For example, in looking up
a term such as Muslim using
a spelling that we are
familiar with today
may not be enough
to uncover leads
to files that contain relevant
information for your search.
You may therefore need to
look under various spellings
such as Moslem or Mussalman.
You would also need to look at
related words, such as Muhammad
or Mohammadan.
Again it is important to
try various spellings so as
to make the most of your search.
If you set aside
enough time it is
possible to browse
the index cards
to see the variety of entries.
However, as there
are many index cards,
you may still find
it beneficial to hone
in on spellings and words that
are familiar to your search
area.
The following file
includes a report
by an informer for the
British, Dady Burjor.
Burjor in his report
outlines the concerns
of some Indian students,
who have moved to the US,
and are increasingly concerned
at the anti-British views
they are being exposed
to by radicals.
At the same time he
notes that other students
have more readily accepted
these anti-British views
and turned to more violent
expressions of their discontent
with continued colonial rule.
His report then goes on
to say that it is not
only students and radicals
that are active in the US,
but also peasants from India,
who in seeking a better future
have confronted racism and
immigration restrictions which
they resent.
From the first decade
of the 20th century,
the numbers of Punjabis
emigrating year on year
was growing significantly.
For many of the poorest
it was economic drivers
fuelled by famine and
agricultural discontent.
At the same time political
dissent in India was increasing
and the British rulers
sought to suppress
seditious political
activity both in India
and wherever else it
was able to take place.
The USA at the start of
the First World War, still
remained a place where
Indian revolutionaries could
be openly active, and
coming into contact
with Punjabi labourers
emigrating in search of work,
a natural audience for
grievances came into being.
Unable to use military force
against these dissident voices,
the British decided they would
try and suppress activity
wherever possible,
using information
to gather evidence of the
activities, particularly
of students and
nationalist leaders.
This is an image
from our collection.
It is a picture of
recruits and the image
is catalogued as
Sikh raw recruits.
It may have been similar men who
enlisted to fight in the First
World War.
Some challenges that
have been identified
in engaging in research into
the lives of these recruits:
- the low literacy rates from
which recruitment was done
and a stronger oral tradition
which limits the written record
- the difficulty in retaining
service records as countries
changed and records
were not preserved,
for example following the
Partition of the Indian
sub-continent
- and in the post-colonial
period questions raised
by newly independent nations
about those who served
the colonial power and a focus
on studying the nationalist
journey to power
One example is the
challenge in using
what has become a very important
source for Indian soldiers
in the First World
War, the letters
that the soldiers
sent and received.
The collection is currently
housed at the India Office
Library, part of
the British Library,
and consists of 4000 pages.
The censors read
the soldiers mail
and then sent a report to
various government departments
including the War Office
and Foreign Office
plus to commanders
of Indian divisions.
The objective was not
to stop communication
that was held to be unfit but
to monitor morale and ensure
that issues arising relating to
food and religious observance
were attended to.
In each report the
censors appended
in the region of 100 translated
extracts from the letters
and it is from these
extracts that the historians
have been working.
David Omissi points out that
in reading these letters
it is not simply
a matter of eaves
dropping on the innermost
thoughts of the soldiers
or looking invisibly over
their shoulders as they write.
Layers of filtration took
place, for example the process
of writing itself.
Whilst some of the letters
were written by the men,
the vast majority were
written by scribes
on behalf of the soldiers since
most of the Indian soldiers
were illiterate.
In the Punjab, no more
than 5% could read
and among rural military
communities this was even less.
And the British recruited
from the least educated
rural population, those
least likely to be
affected by dangerous
western political ideas.
The letters themselves
contain references
to the soldiers
illiteracy or refer
to the scribes themselves.
Some of the problems
identified in using the scribes
include the fact
that they would have
a repertoire of
formulaic phrases;
some suggested to the sender or
owed to the scribe themselves.
Another problem in
using scribes was
that it would make the
letters a more public record
than a simple correspondence
between two literates.
For example, constraining what
people may be willing to say.
According to Santanu
Das, they can
be read as
palimpsests, something
reused or altered
but still bearing
traces of its earlier form.
According to Gajendra Singh,
whilst Indian nationalism
was marginal to the sepoys
experience in the First World
War and reference
to it largely absent
from the sepoys correspondence,
an atmosphere of discontent
did exist
This is an image from a war
diary from our collection
relating to the story of Buta
Singh, an Indian sepoy serving
in the First World War.
Buta Singh, with a
number of colleagues,
saw it as a matter of
shame that a rifle had
been left in the
field of battle,
and in an attempt to
retrieve it, he was killed.
One of the more fascinating and
intriguing aspects of the war
has been the motivations of the
sepoys who fought in the war.
Omissi says that whilst the
Indian Army under the British
has often been portrayed
as a mercenary force
if you look more closely
at their military service
it suggests that the recruits
also made a deliberate
choice after
weighing the benefits
and drawbacks of enlistment.
The main source for recruits
into the Indian army
were peasants.
These were men who could not
afford to rely on the land
alone as a source of income.
The importance of
pay to these groups
was also reflected
in the fact that they
would remit much of their
pay to their families
or save money so that it
could help their families when
there was a bad harvest.
There were also those for whom
a martial image resonated.
For example, in the
case of the Rajputs
it was an assertion of
identity, an image they
had of themselves as warriors.
So, a martial image or community
tradition of military service
could also influence
the choice to serve.
It is also important to note
that recruitment was not
necessarily always voluntary
and that at times a quota
system was in operation which
led local officials to resort
to intimidation, bribery
and even kidnapping.
It was not only what
motivated the men to fight
but what kept them fighting.
As Omissi points out, in so
many ways the soldiers resembled
other groups of Indian
labour migrants,
but he also points out that
there was something distinct
about this group too because
when an army goes to war you
need something else to sustain
them so that they are willing
to fight and if necessary die.
For Omissi, this requires an
examination of other forces,
such as honour, identity and
loyalty which he says sustained
the Indian Army not only during
war but also in peacetime.
He highlights fthe example
of the role izzat or honour
as featured in the translated
extracts from the letters:
This is the time to show
ones loyalty to the Sirkar,
to earn a name for oneself.
To die on the
battlefield is glory.
For a thousand
years ones name will
be remembered a sepoy wrote.
Also a mother writing
to her son in 1917:
You went to war in 1914 and
are still fighting the Kings
enemies on the field of battle.
I am heartily grateful to
you for the faithfulness
and loyalty and will remember
it to my dying breath.
Another strand linked with izzat
or honour was the idea of shame
or sharm where disloyalty
was seen as shameful.
Omissi recounts
how sepoys feared
dying shamefully as cowards.
And shame was also linked
to masculine identity,
with those soldiers
behaving dishonourably held
to be imperfectly male.
According to the
historian Gajendra Singh,
ideals of izzat, dharm,
shaheedi were widely invoked.
These had existed before
colonialism was established,
however were heightened
under imperial rule
such as with the promoting of
the idea of the martial races
theory, the idea some
Indians were more
suited to fighting than others.
Of course not everyone
could be a soldier.
Gajendra Singh quotes
Malcolm Lyall Darling,
a colonial official:
The small holder is faced
with two alternatives.
Either a supplementary source
of income must be found,
or he must be content
with the low standards
of living that bondage to
the money-lender entails.
The bolder spirit joins the
army [] the more enterprising
emigrate
According to
Gajendra Singh there
was a shift in revolutionary
nationalist activity
away from elites
in towns and cities
to communities of
migrants abroad.
Those Indians who left
and settled, for example,
in North America organised
themselves politically
to fight against
anti-immigrant racism.
Initially attempts were made
to appeal to the Imperial
State for help but when
these fell on deaf ears
the Indians turned
once again to India
as a place that could
fulfil their aspirations.
Maia Ramnath identifies
some of the groups
which historians have referred
to as the radical diaspora.
For example, intellectuals who
travelled to Tokyo and London
to study.
Tokyo became a
stronghold according
to Ramnath for an international
community of radicals.
A significant outflow
of students from India
occurred after the Japanese
victory against Russia
and the British
partition of Bengal.
Or radicals, people like
Shyamaji Krishnavarma,
who founded the Indian Houses.
According to Ramnath, it was
at the India House in London
where one of the more
prominent radicals, Har Dayal,
came after abandoning
his studies at Oxford.
Or soldiers.
They were stationed all over
the world, charged with securing
Britains interests.
Discharged from service
many sought new livelihoods
in the US and
according to Ramnath
constituted a pool of potential
Ghadar or revolutionary
recruits.
According to a report
from September 1917
that we hold at The
National Archves,
Pakhr Singh, whose
photo is in the slide,
is an ex-soldier who won four
medals serving the Indian Army.
The report says he had been
in Panama for about five years
and is planning to return
to India to cause revolt.
An accompanying
record we have refers
to the seditious activity
of East Indians in Panama,
East Indians being
a blanket term
used at the time for
people from India.
Its a report written by
an official at the British
Embassy in Panama
based on a report
by a secret agent, Nanco.
The official writes that
there is no way of verifying
the agent's statements,
complaining that the demeanour
of the Indians has changed
from deferential to sullen
and therefore it is difficult
to get reliable information from
them.
The official concludes
that whilst Nanco sometimes
draws the wrong
conclusions, the official
will continue to pass on
the agents observations
for the information of
the Indian government.
Early immigrants
to the West Coast
found work in a booming
economy but by 1907 the economy
entered into recession and many
of these early settlers faced
widespread racial discrimination
and political exclusion.
In 1907 the Canadian
government stipulated
that all immigrants
arriving from Asia
would only be permitted if
they had $200 and in May 1910
they made entry
even more difficult
by passing the continuous
journey provision.
This made it possible for
Indians to come to Canada
as there was no direct
journey from India...
I should say, this made
it impossible for Indians
to come to Canada as there was
no direct journey from India.
The early pioneers got together
and tried to challenge this
but were hindered by their poor
level of English and it was
the arrival of Har Dayal on
the scene that has been widely
recognised as the
catalyst for change.
He was a brilliant
student who got to Oxford.
He left Oxford before
completing his studies,
networked with other
revolutionaries
and planned for
an armed struggle
for the liberation of India.
He was effective in
mobilising different sections
of the Indian community and
helped launch four initiatives:
firstly with two
others he launched
the Ghadar or Revolutionary
Party of India;
secondly, his colleagues
purchased a printing press;
thirdly, they launched
vernacular newspapers
in Urdu and Panjabi
and fourthly they
purchased a house in
San Francisco that
was to house the
publishing venture
and serve as a meeting place.
It was here that they printed
weekly papers, anthologies
of revolutionary poetry
and the chronicles
of Indian heroic figures
and past armed struggles,
like the great
rebellion of 1857.
This slide is the front page
of the Ghadar newspaper,
published in the USA and
is part of a file that
contains information gathered
about seditious activities
of Indians in the USA
around the First World War.
The Ghadar paper, was
part of a movement
with its origins
in the Punjab that
sought to overthrow
British imperial rule.
The various headings
at the top of the page
include reference to the British
Raj being the mortal enemy
and that the youth of India
should rush to arm themselves.
One of the headings
lower down says
'Hindustan is for Hindustanis'
above a headline that
refers to the chaos of
the British Army in Egypt.
Its message was uncompromising,
on this front page
one of the headlines reads
The reality of the British Raj
has been laid bare and goes
on to list in sometimes quite
stark and emotive language what
the Ghadarites were arguing
was the cost of being a colony.
It goes on to say that 'under
the British Raj we are seeing
an increase in famines...the
British do not face any
consequences for killing
Hindustanis or raping
their women folk...there is
a constant attempt to create
a rift between Muslims and
Hindus of Hindustan...it has
been 58 years since the mutiny
of 1857 and now there is
an urgent need for a
large scale mutiny'.
The paper was a concern
for the authorities
and efforts were made to alert
people of its seditious impact
and to stop its distribution.
Which leads me back to the work
we started with the historian
Dr Santanu Das
and others in 2016
by planning a forum at King's
College University London
on the topic of South Asia
and the First World War.
Santanu, himself an English
literature academic,
has done some very important
work in not only highlighting
the cross disciplinary nature
of this endeavour but also
the very real need to move
away from sanitising the story
of South Asia and
the First World War.
It was the opportunity to work
with him and other colleagues
that helped me to start to
frame our project on loyalty
and dissent.
It allowed us to make the
connection with Dr Rozina
Visram and start working
with her on developing
educational resources,
and to start
to undertake some more
intensive archival research,
starting with our own collection
at The National Archives.
Maybe most excitingly
we collaborated
with Tamasha Theatre, to work
with five playwrights, who.
following a visit to
the archives, and time
for independent
archival research,
presented a series of short
plays at the Rich Mix Centre
in London.
And in 2017, with the help of
the Friends of The National
Archives, we were able
to record all five
plays, which are now available
on our media player pages.
The objective of
this webinar has not
been to provide a comprehensive
outline of what is available.
There are guides
and books that can
help the interested researcher
pickup lines of enquiry.
A topic of such a
size and complexity
is not serviceable
by one webinar alone.
It will require the
individual to follow up
on areas of interest.
And hopefully, as this
webinar will demonstrate,
individual documents and
pages provide enough space
for significant
on-going research.
For further information
to the work produced
as part of the Loyalty
and Dissent project,
please use the
links in the slide.
Thank you.
And can I thank Tafhim Kiani
for kindly translating extracts
from the Ghadar paper.
