First World War: Personnel from the Indian Subcontinent

Baroness Flather Excerpts

Wednesday 18th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Flather (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, for securing this debate. Part of me is sorry that there are not more speakers, and part of me is very glad because it gives me a few more minutes to speak. I hope this is not because of lack of interest: perhaps holidays have started for most people.

This is an important issue and is particularly so for me personally because my father volunteered in the first war—I was going to say “Great War”. Gandhiji said to Indian students that they should volunteer but not fight to kill. So my father was a stretcher bearer in Mesopotamia. Goodness knows what kind of a time he had there. He would not speak about it, which tells us it was a pretty awful time for him. All I know is that he lived on bully beef. I remember him saying that and it was the first time I had heard the word.

Young people who were studying in this country also volunteered because Gandhiji said so. Gandhiji himself was an amazing man who had fought in the Boer War—I know we are not talking about that war—and was at the battle of Spion Kop. Spion Kop was a hill that some noble Lords will know about. All the stretcher bearers at that battle were Indians and Gandhiji held the rank of sergeant-major. It is good to remember his contribution. As the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, said, he actually canvassed people to join the British Army in the first and second wars and said, “We have to save the Empire”. Even Mark Tully got that wrong.

When I was deputy mayor and then mayor of Windsor and Maidenhead, I laid the first wreath on the war memorial. During my mayoralty, one of my fellow councillors asked me if Remembrance Day meant anything to me. Noble Lords might feel the same shock I did that an educated man, an elected councillor, had no idea what the Indians had done in the two world wars. This was so shocking to me I started to think about the memorial mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh. It took me many years to get people to agree to work for it and I am not sure anybody really believed we would get a memorial in the end, but we have one. I note what the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, said about the Indian community. I have been very disappointed indeed by the interest it has shown—or not shown—in the memorial. It is their memorial, built not by the Government but by people giving money. However much I have tried to get them interested in visiting, I have not been very successful. Every year, we have a commemoration—a gathering not a service—when we try to remember the people. The noble Lord, Lord Parekh, asked, “What is war?”. War—whichever war it is—is horrible but we should never forget the contribution of the people and that is what this debate is about.

I remind noble Lords that when the British Expeditionary Force went to France the British standing army was very small and it lost. The first group who came to support them were 150,000 members of the Indian standing army. When they arrived in November they had no warm clothing. It was not just that they were not used to the cold: the army had not thought to provide them with the appropriate clothing. This has happened in many wars. There was also a lot of racism, and many problems with food. Nevertheless, our people were stalwart, and stayed with the Army and fought—and in such a way that they cannot be said to have been just cannon fodder. They were wonderful people and had a very important role to play in both roles.

Brighton Pavilion is an interesting place, because the then Prince of Wales thought that if he put the wounded Indian soldiers in Brighton Pavilion they would feel at home. Those people were from villages and had never seen any kind of palace, not even an Indian one, let alone the English Brighton Pavilion. In any case, they were put there; I hope that they were looked after but do not know whether they were—probably not terribly well, I should not wonder.

We have to work on the curriculum. We have to get some information about the Indian contribution in the curriculum—not just to the First World War, but even more importantly to the Second World War. I urge noble Lords to try their best to influence those who should be influenced.