Thousands of forgotten Punjabi WW1 soldiers recognised for first time

A significant story is unfolding on the international scene. Thousands of forgotten Punjabi WW1 soldiers recognised for first timeImage source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Some 1. 4 million people from the subcontinent – now India, Pakistan and Bangladesh – served in the British Indian Army in WW1ByAleem MaqboolReligion EditorPublished11 minutes agoThousands of forgotten soldiers from pre-partition India who served and died in World War One are finally being recognised in the biggest update to casualty records in more than 80 years. The names of 9,909 British Indian Army servicemen are now being added to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) casualty database after they were uncovered by researchers.

UK volunteers spent years looking for the names in unique registers compiled in the state of Punjab shortly after WW1. Work is now being done to trace British descendants of those whose sacrifice is now acknowledged. Image caption, Sunney Palahey, a descendant of one of the forgotten Punjabi soldiers"The circle has closed.

The Details

I feel much more complete," says Sunney Palahey, a dentist from Leicester. For years he had been searching for information about his great-grandfather who he heard had gone to war and had never come back. But researchers contacted him to say his great-grandfather's name, Kesar Singh, had been found in newly examined registers and that it would now be formally added to official lists.

"It's been recognised by an authority, which it never was before. He is now an entry in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. All the sacrifices seem to have been worth it.

"He says this recognition makes him proud to feel part of a global community of those connected with service in WW1. Image caption, Entries from the Punjab Registers in the Lahore Museum, PakistanAround 1. 4 million people from the subcontinent – now India, Pakistan and Bangladesh – are known to have served in the British Indian Army in WW1.

What Experts Say

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.

The story has become one of the most prominent items on the global agenda.