First World War: Empire and Commonwealth Troops

Lord Desai Excerpts

Monday 4th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Desai (Lab)]

My Lords, I join the noble Lord, Lord Goodlad, in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, on securing the debate and introducing it in a fine manner.

I will confine myself to India, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Lexden. As he said, the army originally had about 115,000 people. Eventually, 2 million Indian soldiers fought in the First World War. To begin with, the recruitment that took place in Punjab and the North-West Frontier Province was very successful. Later on, things got harsher and the bitterness in Punjab, which resulted in the firing into the Jallianwala Bagh on 13 April 1919, was very much due to the pains of false recruitment in Punjab.

On a more normal note, India gave £100 million to Britain as part of its contribution to the war. That money was 30% of its debt, which was added to the burden. Of course, the Indian army was always maintained from Indian taxpayers’ contributions; every year, it cost between £20 million and £30 million to maintain the Indian army at war in Europe and elsewhere. In addition, £75 million was raised through private contributions alone in India to provide food for the Indian army and all the combatants from India. Silver coins were cast to pay the farmers, and that silver came from the US Treasury. India made a lot of effort to ensure that, whatever else it did, it came to the help of the Empire in its time of trouble.

Of course, in 1917, for the first time an Imperial War Cabinet was formed, by Lloyd George, in which India had its place. It was Lord Sinha, the first and only hereditary Peer of the British Empire, who became the Minister of State in the India Office. He also accompanied the Maharajah of Bikaner to the Versailles Peace Conference.

Apart from the Indian army, a lot of native kings joined the war on their own: Bikaner, Jodhpur, Patiala and Kishangarh all contributed their own armies—and themselves—to fight the war. It was a willing, total effort, and it needs to be remembered. Of course, we have the gates that the noble Baroness, Lady Flather, had constructed on Constitution Hill, but we need a proper remembrance of the First World War. Gallipoli, for example, is remembered for Australians and New Zealanders but a lot of Indians died there as well. As I said when we had a debate on the Commonwealth, if, in the post-Brexit era, we need friends and we look to the Commonwealth for friends, we ought to be friendlier towards the Commonwealth.