How an Indian woman’s quest in Belgium led her to forgotten soldiers of WW-I

When a tour guide in Belgium told fashion designer Bhushavali that thousands of Indian soldiers died in World War I with Ypres as the starting point (because England joined the WW-I during the Ypres battles and India was a British colony), she didn’t even know what to make of it.

Bhushavali hadn’t known of Ypres till she came to Belgium and had no clue of India’s involvement in World Wars. At least 10 lakh Indian soldiers participated in WW-I and more than 20 lakh in WW-II. Of those, at least 74,000 soldiers died in WW-I and more than 87,000 in WW-II.

Bhushavali, a fashion designer from Tamil Nadu who’s been living in Belgium since late 2017, “felt ashamed” that a foreigner had to tell her about the sacrifices made by her countrymen in a foreign land.

It was a wakeup call. The very next day, she went to the Bedford House Cemetery, very close to Ypres, which has some graves of Indian soldiers. She then decided to start visiting all the graves of Indian soldiers in Belgium, one by one to pay her respects. The Menin Gate Memorial has the names of 412 missing soldiers inscribed on it. She has visited all the 37 graves so far. The graves have a Hindu, Muslim or a Sikh headstone.

“The unusual thing about it is that this doesn’t seem to signify the personal religion of the soldier, but the common religion of the regiment. If the personal religion is known, that’s separately mentioned on the headstone,” says Bhushavali, opening a forgotten chapter of the history of Indian soldiers abroad.

Drivers had a great role during the war, and there seems to be more drivers from south India. “I saw the graves of Raghunandhan, Susai and Achattan which were identified as that of drivers with the Indian Royal Artillery Regiment. Maybe there was a lack of drivers and they were moved from Madras Regiment, or maybe some south Indians went to Mumbai or Punjab to join the army,” she adds.

On November 11, 1918, the armistice was signed between the nations fighting the WW-I. The day is significant as that was when Indian soldiers stopped dying in battlefields in Europe under the British Raj.

The Menin Gate cemetery at Ypres usually holds a huge ceremony on Armistice Day, but this year due to Covid, there were many restrictions. “I visited the last of the Indian graves in Belgium that I had to visit on November 11 [Armistice Day]. I went to La Louvière cemetery where there’s the grave of Indian soldier Achattan to pay my homage to him,” says Bhushavali, who has visited all the graves of Indian soldiers not only in Ypres, but all over Belgium.

“From now on, whenever I travel anywhere I will be checking if there’s a grave of an Indian soldier from WW-I or WW-II and make sure to visit and pay my respects,” she says.

It was with her five-year-old daughter Atyudarini that Bhushavali visited the cemeteries in Belgium. A visit to one of these cemeteries, according to her, can change the outlook of a person about wars. Bhushavali says she didn’t realise the horrors of war until she visited Ypres.

“I had no idea I could actually cry for a soldier I didn’t know. Someone who died 100 years ago. Being there, surrounded by tens of thousands of graves, is just way too painful. At that point, more than your countrymen, it is about humanity,” she says.

“Crores of human beings just died and you’re just surrounded with burials of brave soldiers who died for the sake of others, as young as 16-20 years old, in a country, so far away from theirs, so different and strange compared to theirs. If we still fight today, 100 years after their ultimate sacrifice, we are missing the point.”

The soldiers were buried at the cemetery closest to where they died or their bodies were found. “Identified Hindu and Sikh soldiers were cremated and have dedicated headstones. Identified Muslim soldiers were buried with a headstone. There are only 37 identified soldiers, which means any of the unidentified ‘known unto God’ graves could belong to an Indian soldier,” says Bhushavali. Also, since we are talking about the British Indian Army, it includes India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal etc, as well as the British commanders of various troops.

“There are some identified ‘Indian’ graves which belong to English majors and lieutenants,” she adds.

Every cemetery maintains a register in which one can find the details of the soldier and where he has been cremated. Walking across the cemeteries, Bhushavali felt how people are connected to the war heroes of their family or country. The headstones are all exactly the same size and shape to signify that everyone is equal in death.

She saw some identified graves of various soldiers across the world that had memorial items like photos, things that the soldier liked (games, caps, wine bottles, biscuit tins etc.), tiny handmade gifts like drawings, poems and more left by their descendants and others.

“I left a banana as a homage at one grave, an Indian flag at another, drew a kolam at one but at each and every grave I did a ‘sashtanga namaskaram’,” she says. All the graves and memorials of both the World Wars belonging to the Commonwealth Countries (UK and its colonies, including Canada, Australia, New Zealand etc.) are maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. This also includes the India Gate in New Delhi which is a memorial for the dead and missing soldiers of WW-I.

Why did Indian soldiers who fought the two World Wars become a forgotten lot?

“Since both the World Wars (1914-18 and 1939-45) happened between 1857 and 1947 (First War of Indian Independence till our Independence Day), somehow our history books in school skipped this. We all know who Gandhi, Nehru, Rani Lakshmibai or Bharathiyar were by Class 5; we would dress up like them in fancy dress competitions. We also get to know a bit about Hitler and Roosevelt, in probably the single lesson on World War throughout school. But somehow the Indian involvement in it is never mentioned at all,” says Bhushavali, who maintains a blog to document her journeys.

There is another reason as well. “It is probably also because it was the British Indian Army which included today’s Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal etc. But nevertheless, they were our forefathers, our neighbours, our brothers, even if a soldier was from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal.” She hopes to see a chapter about the Indian involvement in the two World Wars in our school history books someday soon. “So that the future generations don’t forget our brave ancestors altogether,” she adds.