Unrecognized Punjabi Soldiers of World War I

A recent research project uncovered nearly 10,000 Punjabi soldiers who died fighting for Britain in World War I but were omitted from the United Kingdom’s official war-dead register. The case of Kesar Singh—who left his Indian village to serve in the Mesopotamia campaign and never returned—illustrates a broader pattern of exclusion revealed through family recollections and archival investigation.

New York Times

During the 1914-1918 conflict, the British Indian Army mobilized about 1.4 million soldiers from the subcontinent. Roughly half a million Punjabi men fought in the grueling Mesopotamia campaign, which aimed to seize Ottoman-controlled Iraq and its oil fields for the British Empire. Historians argue that colonial administrators treated non-British personnel differently, resulting in bureaucratic failures that left these soldiers off official records. Amandeep Madra, a British historian and chairman of the U.K. Punjab Heritage Association, described the omission as a product of colonial attitudes that denied equal treatment to Indian soldiers.

New York Times

• Approximately 10,000 Punjabi soldiers have now been identified as missing from the war-dead register.

New York Times

• About 500,000 Punjabi troops served in the Mesopotamia campaign.

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• In total, 1.4 million soldiers from the Indian subcontinent fought for the British Empire in World War I.

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• “These men served honestly, they died sadly, and they weren’t afforded the same treatment as the other men whom they served alongside,” — Amandeep Madra, a British historian and the chairman of the U

New York Times

Recognizing these soldiers could lead to revisions of official commemorations and reshape how the United Kingdom acknowledges its imperial military history. The findings also highlight broader issues of how colonial forces have been recorded—or omitted—in national narratives of the Great War.

New York Times