Struggle for Britishness British National Identity and the Remembrance of Colonial Soldiers During the World War One Centenary

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UNIVERSITEIT VAN AMSTERDAM

Figure 1 “One of the Lion’s Cubs”. A West Indian soldier poses with one of the lion statues at Trafalgar Square, London.

Robin Hendriks

Studentnr.: 5879515 Masterscriptie Geschiedenis 5 Juli 2017 Begeleider: Paul Knevel

For Izzy

Content Content ______2 Introduction ______3 Chapter One ______8 Early commemoration ______8 Remembrance, identity, and heritage ______12 Modern remembrance and national politics ______14 Remembrance and intranational politics ______21 Remembrance and the white Dominions ______22 Chapter Two ______24 Race and the British Empire in the early 20th century ______24 Indian soldiers and laborers ______29 Remembrance ______33 West Indian soldiers and laborers ______37 Remembrance ______43 Conclusion ______44 Chapter Three ______46 Government intent ______46 British Broadcasting Company ______48 British Library ______52 Imperial War Museum ______54 National Army Museum ______56 Analysis ______59 Conclusion ______65 Chapter Four ______70 West Indian remembrance ______73 West India Committee ______73 The Empire Needs Men ______74 Black Poppy Rose ______76 Great War to Race Riots ______78 Indian remembrance ______79 Commemoration in Wolverhampton ______79 Sikh Museum ______81 Empire, Faith & War ______82 Unknown & Untold ______85 Analysis ______86 Conclusion ______93 Conclusion ______96 Image sources ______105 Bibliography ______106 Abstract ______118

Introduction

The First World War conjures up a series of well-known images: young men cheerfully signing up for the army to serve King and Country, muddy trenches filled with rats and disease, gas masks, a landscape torn apart by bombs, and millions of deaths. The United Kingdom alone lost 888,236 lives, essentially a generation of men.1 The impact this had still resonates a century later, and is reflected by continuous interest in the war from artists and novelists. War and death and lost youth, despair and loss of control, class and gender; the Great War provides a setting to explore basic human themes. But the war that plays out in the public imagination only shows a small part of historical reality. The setting is almost exclusively the Western Front, in Belgium and northern France. This is where the protagonists of the British war narrative, the English, Welsh, Scottish, and Irish boys fought and died. Because of the inclusion of white Dominions such as Australis and Canada in the narrative, there may be a small excursion to Gallipoli, but the main action takes place just across the English Channel. But the Great War extended far beyond the Western Front, and far beyond Europe. Fighting happened in Turkey, in the Middle East, across the Atlantic Ocean and in the Caribbean Sea, on the Pacific Ocean, and across Africa. The colonial presence of the main European players meant that this truly was the First World War. Soldiers from across the British Empire served both in Asia and Africa and on the Western Front. The Indian subcontinent alone mobilized 1.4 million men during the war, one million of whom served abroad.2 English, Welsh, Scottish, and Irish men weren’t the only ones to fight and die for King and Country. So did African, Indian, Punjabi, and Caribbean men, as well as Canadian First Nations. They, however, are not very present in the public imagination of the war, if at all.3 This raises the question of what is happening in public imagination and remembrance right now, during the Centenary of the war. In 2012 Prime Minister Cameron held a press conference at the Imperial War Museum and announced the launch of a national program of

1 Emma Hanna, “Contemporary Britain and the memory of the First World War”, Matériaux pour l’histoire de notre temps 113-114:1 (2014) 115 2 Lawrence Sondhaus, World War One. The Global Revolution (Cambridge 2001) 27. 3 A welcome change to traditional Hollywood representation of the First World War was provided by the superhero movie Wonder Women in 2017. Her team featured an Algerian man and a Native American, and the movie showed people of various ethnicities walking around London in military uniform, most prominently among them Sikhs.

remembrance. The government reserved 50 million pounds to fund special educational programs for schools and an upgrade of the facilities at the Imperial War Museum. The BBC alone has announced 2500 hours of programming on both television and radio, to be broadcast over the course of four years.4 Funding has also gone to institutions such as the British Library and to the development of school programs, but the bulk of the money was allocated to the Imperial War Museum. The World War One Centenary has been a politicized issue from its inception, and continues to spark criticism and praise. One of the main criticisms is that the remembrances center too much on the British experience of the war. After Jonathan Jones visited the Tower of London poppies in 2014 (see figure 2) he wrote the following in The Guardian: It is deeply disturbing that a hundred years on from 1914, we can only mark this terrible war as a national tragedy. Nationalism – the 19th-century invention of nations as an ideal, as romantic unions of blood and patriotism – caused the great war. What does it say about Britain in 2014 that we still narrowly remember our own dead and do not mourn the German or French or Russian victims? The crowds come to remember – but we should not be remembering only our own. It’s the inward-looking mood that lets Ukip thrive. But that’s probably an overinterpretation, because the spectacle of all these red poppies is emptier than that. In spite of the mention of blood in its title, this is a deeply aestheticised, prettified and toothless war memorial. It is all dignity and grace. There is fake nobility to it, and this seems to be what the crowds have come for – to be raised up into a shared reverence for those heroes turned frozen flowers. What a lie. The first world war was not noble. War is not noble. A meaningful mass memorial to this horror would not be dignified or pretty. It would be gory, vile and terrible to see. The moat of the Tower should be filled with barbed wire and bones. That would mean something.5

For Jones, the way Britain remembers the First World War says something about her identity, and about her position in the world. Remembering only the British dead ignores the enormous size of the tragedy and is dangerous, because it feeds modern nationalism. The poppies at the Tower were immensely popular, however, with an estimated 4 million visitors, and to say people disagree with Jones would be an understatement.6

4 Emma Hanna, “Contemporary Britain and the memory of the First World War”, Matériaux pour l’histoire de notre temps 113-114:1 (2014) 111. 5 Jonathan Jones, “The Tower of London poppies are fake, trite and inward-looking – a Ukip-style memorial”, The Guardian 28-10-2014 (25-11-2016) https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2014/oct/28/tower-of-london-poppies-ukip- remembrance-day. 6 Ibidem.

Figure 2 Sight to remember? … the sculpture Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red at the Tower of London

The Daily Mail’s Robert Hardman responded to Jones’s piece, writing: Many will be astonished that anyone could politicise this magnificent project, any more than someone might quibble with the Cenotaph. Some chapters in the history of this country are of such a different order and magnitude that they transcend the petty squabbles of Left and Right. The death of close to a million men and women in the Great War is one of them.7

Hardman, however, is also guilty of politicizing the discussion: “Why is it that the Left have such a loathing for home-grown patriotism while they are so keen to salute it elsewhere?”8 Both sides acknowledge the importance of remembering, and of what and in what way we remember. This thesis will look specifically into the remembrance culture around non-white soldiers who fought in the British Army. The central question is what the way colonial soldiers are remembered tells us about the position of minority migrant groups from the Caribbean and India within Britain and ideas of Britishness. How do their remembrance and British national identity intersect? The first group consists of soldiers from the Indian subcontinent. Most of the recruits were illiterate and from the north of India, an area known as the Punjab. They saw action on the

7 Hardman, Robert “Why DO the Left despise patriotism? Sneering Left-wing art critic brands the poppy tribute seen by millions at the Tower as a 'Ukip-type memorial'”, Daily Mail 30-11-2014 (25-11-2016) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2813473/Why-Left-despise-patriotism-Sneering-Left-wing-art-critic- brands-poppy-tribute-seen-millions-Tower-Ukip-type-memorial.html#ixzz4R1e61164. 8 Ibidem.

Western Front, northern Africa, and the Middle East. Of particular interest are the Sikhs, a Punjabi religious and ethnic group. After the Punjab was incorporated into the British Empire in 1849, the Imperial Army started recruiting in the region. The Sikhs were militarily successful and stayed loyal to the Empire during the Indian Mutiny in 1857, which led to more recruitment for the next 90 years.9 The Sikhs are invested in their history, and hold their own memorial services for those who fell during World War One. In the 2011 UK census, 423,000 people reported Sikhism as their religion.10 The second group is black men from the West-Indies. These men, descendants of slaves, tended to join the British Army in order to prove their loyalty to the Empire and advance their social and economic position. Some of them were already living in the UK, others sailed across the Atlantic. After the war, those who stayed did not receive a warm welcome, and those who returned to the Caribbean did not see any of the advancements they had fought for. According to the 2011 census of England and Wales, 594,825 people identify as Black Caribbean and a further 426,715 as White and Black Caribbean.11 The position of these groups is strained, as members of these communities were often born in Britain or in the British Empire, but not always accepted as part of Britain by native Britons. They feel excluded by white Britons for having a different skin color, religion, language, and history, all of which they cannot escape.12 As a result, these immigrant groups are under a constant obligation to prove their loyalty to Britain, be it by supporting the right football teams or serving in the army or police force. With the current terrorism threat, Muslims especially are under pressure to assert themselves as British. This pressure on non-white Britons has only increased after the Brexit vote, as more than one in three Black and Asian Britons have been subjected to or witnessed racial abuse since the vote.13 How do these tensions and the remembrance of the First World War intersect? In a time when Britain is struggling with its national identity on multiple levels, with a narrowly avoided

9 Tony Ballantyne, Between Colonialism and Diaspora: Sikh Cultural Formations in an Imperial World (Durham 2006) 66. 10 “Religion in England and Wales 2011”, Office for National Statistics 11-12-2012 (21-6-2017) https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/religion/articles/religioninenglandandwales 2011/2012-12-11. 11 “British African-Caribbean people”, Wikipedia (21-6-2017) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_African- Caribbean_people#Demography. 12 K. Vadher and M. Barrett, “Boundaries of Britishness in British Indian and Pakistani Young Adults”, Journal of Community & Applied Science of Psychology 19 (2009) 450. 13 Lucy Pasha-Robinson, “One in three Black, Asian or minority ethnic people racially abused since Brexit, study reveals”, The Independent 17-3-2017 (22-3-2017) http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/one-three- black-asian-minority-ethnic-bame-racism-abuse-assault-brexit-hate-crime-tuc-study-a7634231.html.

Scottish independence and a looming separation from the European Union, the Centenary remembrance is even more politicized than other remembrances. The arguments of Jones and Hardman about the Tower of London poppies showed that remembering the First World War is as much about the present as it is about the past. It is about what Britain thinks of herself, and how she presents herself to the world. In a time when Britain is becoming increasingly isolationist and nationalistic what does the remembrance of colonial soldiers say about Britishness? Chapter one will look at the current political climate in Britain, and how it intersects with the general remembrance of World War One. Chapter two will examine the historical and historiographical background of Indian and West Indian soldiers. Since the late 20th century, academic and popular interest in colonial contributions to the British war effort and risen. Historians such as Santanu Das, Richard Smith, and David Omissi have worked to put the stories of Indian, African, and West Indian soldiers front and center, and their work will be reflected on in this thesis. The main recurring themes are the nature of British and European imperialism at the time of the First World War, the racism at its foundation, and the treatment of colonial soldiers during and after the war. In chapter three, the commemoration of colonial soldiers by British institution will be analyzed. Due to the difficulties of studying this subject from another country, the institutions have been selected based on their online accessibility. The BBC hosts an extensive radio archive online, and a more limited television archive. The British Library, National Army Museum, and Imperial War Museum host articles, teaching resources, and videos on their websites. These sources will be described and analyzed to study how these institutions present the stories of colonial soldiers and what their presentation tells us about the positions these institutions take in the public debate about British national identity. Chapter four has the same structure as chapter three, but examines the remembrance of West Indian and Indian soldiers by British Caribbean and Sikh and Muslim British Indian communities. Before delving into the subject, a few words about terminology. This thesis will make a distinction between Dominions such as Australia, New Zealand, and Canada on the one hand, and India and the Caribbean on the other hand. Based on their position with the Empire the latter will referred to as colonies rather than Dominions. Another term that will be prominent is “non- white.” It is not without problems, as race is not a binary of white and non-white, but very nuanced. Nevertheless, this thesis will use it for lack of a better, brief terminology.

Chapter One World War One remembrance in the UK

A hundred years after the fact, the Great War is almost an abstract entity. It manifests itself in memorials and the broken landscape of the Western Front, but aside from recorded testimonies there are no voices representing those who experienced the war. This opens up debate as to how the war should be remembered. As John Horne writes in The Cambridge History of the First World War, “Commemoration starts from the present, and thus starts from the familiar.”14 But in order to understand how the current shape of commemoration, it is important to know how commemoration started. Therefore this chapter will start by tracing the origins of World War One commemoration in the United Kingdom, before focusing on the discussions surrounding contemporary commemoration in Britain’s volatile political climate.

Early commemoration

The very first memorials date back to when the war was still waging. In 1916, inhabitants of East London raised street shrines for those who had joined the army. On one occasion, in Hackney, their names were written on parchment, framed, and attached to a cross. Whether these shrines were spontaneous outbursts of collective emotion and support or instigated by evangelisms, it seems there was a need for them.15 It was a place where communities could come to remember and commemorate those who were gone, and those who would never return. This local form of remembrance pored over into post-war commemoration. Many Britons had personally lost someone: it is estimated that 3 million people lost a close relative,16 and there were approximately 240,000 widows.17 In order to try and preserve human dignity for the fallen and their next of kin, Fabian Ware and the Red Cross started to identify and register graves of soldiers as early as January 1915. This was revolutionary: before the First World War, only officers had been buried in an individual, named grave; private soldiers had been laid to rest in mass graves. During the war,

14 John Horne, “The Great War at its Centenary”, in: Jay Winter ed., The Cambridge History of the First World War (Cambridge 2013) 618. 15 Bruce Scates and Rebecca Wheatley, “War Memorials” in: Jay Winter ed., The Cambridge History of the First World War (Cambridge 2013) 535. 16 Scates and Wheatley, “War Memorials”, 359. 17 Ibidem, 361.

however, death became the great equalizer in more than one way. In May 1917, the newly founded Imperial War Graves Commission took over the care for remains and graves. The organization decided that “officers and soldiers from the Dominions would not be separated from the English or Scots, to affirm the union and strength of the Empire.”18 After the war, soldiers’ remains stayed in the care of the army. Families had no authority over the bodies or graves of their loved ones. Where the French government decided to let French families bring remains home from the front to be buried in the village cemetery, the British government defied resistance and made the remains stay in Belgium, France, and other countries where soldiers had fallen. Opposition grew against the “tyranny” of the state, with families crying out to bring their men home, but the debate was settled in the House of Commons on 4 May 1920: remains would not be allowed to be brought to Britain. If the state allowed it, the upper class and moneyed middle class would be able to bring their loved ones home, while the poor would continue to be separated from theirs.19 This scenario only existed for those whose loved one’s remains had been identified. The Imperial War Graves Commission also took care of the bodies that could not be identified. Everybody got a marked grave, though not named. The inscription their received was proposed by the poet Rudyard Kipling.20 His eighteen year old son was severely injured in the face, and consequently missing, presumed dead, in Loos in 1915.21 His body was never found, but his father gave him and those like him a fitting epitaph: “Known Unto God.” Finally there are those who never got a grave, not even one with Kipling’s inscription. The need to give those who had never been identified or never found at all a final resting place resulted in lists of names carved into stone in places like Ypres’ Menin Gate, and the Tyne Cot cemetery, where 34,000 names are listed.22 These monuments took time to complete, but immediately after the war ended people came together to remember those who were absent.

18 Ibidem, 574. 19 Ibidem, 575. 20 Ibidem, 579. 21 Jay Winter, Sites of Memory,Sites of Mourning: the Great War in European Cultural History (Cambridge 1995) 72. 22 Antoine Prost, “The Dead”, in: Jay Winter ed., The Cambridge History of the First World War (Cambridge 2013) 579.

Figure 3 The Cenotaph, Whitehall, London. Date unknown.

Lutyens’s Cenotaph, still the most important World War One memorial within the UK, is one of these places. It was meant to be a temporary place of remembrance.23 A construction of plaster and wood was placed in Whitehall, the political center of the British Empire. It was erected for the occasion of the London Victory Parade on July 19, 1919, for the victorious armies and leaders to pass by.24 The design proved popular, and the architect Lutyens was quickly commissioned to build a permanent version. In the days after its unveiling on 11 November 1920, more than a million and a quarter people passed by the Cenotaph.25 The power of the Cenotaph was its design and meaning; it represents an empty grave, and “as a tomb of no one, this one became the tomb of all who had died in the war.”26 As a result, it turned into a site of pilgrimage within the UK, a place for families who had nowhere to visit their lost loved ones to go. The raising of monuments and memorials was not without arguments. Many memorials became subject to heated public debate before they could be raised. Some were against memorials altogether: “Monuments, the critics asserted, were ugly as well as useless. [...] They kept alive the ‘war spirit’, critics complained, and were ‘relics of barbarism.’”27 Those who

23 John Horne, “The Living”, in: Jay Winter ed., The Cambridge History of the First World War (Cambridge 2013) 596 24 Winter, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning 103-4 25 Prost, “The Dead”, 374 26 Winter, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning, 104. 27 Scates and Wheatley, “War Memorials”, 533.

agreed that memorials should be raised also contended amongst themselves about which form memorials should take. In the United States, utilitarian spaces had become popular memorials: libraries, stadiums, community houses, and other places. The UK wasn’t wholly receptive to this idea. Opponents feared that halls (“it will be mostly used for dancing and the brave ones who shed their lives for us would be forgotten”28), cinemas, and libraries would not properly convey the right message. In some cases, like memorial hospitals, it was thought that the message was too pacifist. As a concession weapons could be added to the facade of such a building.29 Places where utility and commemoration came together in harmony were returned soldiers’ halls, where the faces of dead comrades lined the walls of billiard rooms. Even the Cenotaph had its critics. Christians did not like its absence of religious symbolism, and conservative Catholics in particular derided the “pagan” structure.30 This criticism was sporadic, however, and The Cenotaph’s appeal stretched beyond the borders of the UK itself. The lack of religious markings made the monument indifferent to religion and race. This monument was for the entire Commonwealth. Across the Empire, copies were erected. Hamilton (Ontario), Hong Kong, Bermuda, Auckland, and Johannesburg all have their own Cenotaph.31 It should be noted that these places all had a sizeable white European population or held particular economic and political interest. As Bruce Scates and Rebecca Wheatley write: For all the rhetoric of common sacrifice, inequalities marred imperial commemoration. Noting that 50-60,000 native African troops ‘fell during the war’ and that no real records had been kept of their graves, the Imperial Graves Commission came up with the simple expedient of declaring the entire force ‘Missing.’ There was not much point in building a memorial: ‘the Colonial Office [was] of the opinion that [it] would not be intelligible to the average East African native.’ In the end, the statue of a native bearer was raised in Nairobi, a quaint aside to a war that destroyed entire African communities.32

The monument still stands in Nairobi, but was almost taken down in 1984.33 As in other places across the former Empire, it is an indication of the sentiment towards the old colonizer. Memorials are preserved in Trinidad, Jamaica, and Barbados, but mostly forgotten in India.34

28 Ibidem, 534. 29 Ibidem, 534. 30 Ibidem, 538. 31 Ibidem, 538. 32 Ibidem, 553-4. 33 “State of Nairobi Statues”, Sagepage Uncolonized 24-5-2013 (2-1-2017) http://sagepage- uncolonized.blogspot.nl/2013/05/state-of-nairobi-statues.html. 34 Scates and Wheatley, “War Memorials”, 555.

Across the empire, white men took center stage in memorials. In New Zealand only one statue depicted a Maori soldier,35 while more than 2,000 Maori served during the war.36 In South Africa, memorials give “the sons of England” their names, but are not guaranteed to mention “faithful men of the native and coloured race.”37 Imperial war memorials depicted “the British race” and were expected to be made by a Briton. The legacy of this remembrance influenced subsequent generations and rings through to the present. One of the greatest questions of the Centenary is who to remember.

Remembrance, identity, and heritage

The memorials of war not only confirmed British identity but also built it. As John R. Gillis observed in 1994, commemoration is “by definition social and political,”38 because no matter how much reference is given to history, these questions always remain: “Whose history, written for whose benefit, and on which records?”39 The answers to these questions are dictated by the identity of those who answer them, and their identity is influenced by the answers they choose. The First World War made an important impact on the national identity of Britain. Some shifts took place during the war; the naming of every individual soldier, for instance, was a departure from the past, when only gentlemen had been honored by name after dying in battle.40 There was room for the individual, both for those who died and those who had been left behind, who could grief, mourn, and commemorate in their own ways. Commemoration ceremonies at the war memorials were a “public acknowledgement [...] of bereavement.”41 The scale of the loss was so enormous that it became communal.42 Now, almost a century after the end of the war, bereavement is no longer an immediate factor. All those who lost someone are now themselves

35 Scates and Wheatley, “War Memorials”, 542. 36 “Māori and the First World War”, New Zealand History (2-1-2017) https://nzhistory.govt.nz/war/maori-in-first- world-war/introduction. 37 Scates and Wheatley, “War Memorials”, 542. 38 Gillis, “Memory and identity: the history of a relationship”, in: ed. John R. Gillis Commemorations. The politics of national identity (Princeton 1994) 3. 39 Winter, Remembering War: the Great War between Memory and History in the Twentieth Century (New Haven 2006) 9. 40 Thomas W. Laqueur, “Memory and naming in the Great War”, in: Commemorations. The politics of national identity ed. John R. Gilles (Princeton 1994) 150; Prost, “The Dead”, 570. 41 Winter, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning, 97. 42 John Horne, “The Living”, 596

gone.43 The loss is still felt however. The Lost Generation has become seminal for how Britain thinks of the war, even if it was a “demographic myth.”44 This loss and sacrifice had to be justified, but a unified justification never solidified. Pacifists could not imagine a cause that would have justified the means, as was easier to do during the Second World War. Despite this, as Dan Todman has pointed out, the soldiers were heroes: “The rhetoric associated with veterans emphasizes the heroism and sacrifice of individuals in a manner seemingly at odds with the war’s popular reputation as a futile, mistaken, misfought conflict.”45 Those who thought that the war was ultimately just pointed to the invasion of Britain’s helpless ally Belgium by ruthless, cruel Germany. As will be shown later in this chapter, this debate still rages on in the UK. It is one of the arenas where the struggle for Britain’s national identity is being fought today. National identity is not a solid state; it is constantly constructed and reconstructed.46 During the Centenary both Europhiles and nationalists are using the First World War to support their arguments, which will be discussed shortly. While reading the arguments from both sides, it is important to keep some things in mind. First, the relationship between heritage, memory, and identity. Heritage is not equal. It used to belong to the rich and powerful, and although more people are inheriting now than a century ago, not everyone gets the same amount. Some things and people are forgotten, or purposely not remembered in order to propagate a specific narrative. This is in part because heritage is still metaphorically ancestral.47 Those who fall outside of the ancestral pool do not need to be included in either memories or remembering. Identity is forged by creating a distinct heritage and legacy. David Lowenthal describes this sentiment as: “Exclusive to us, our past is unlike anyone else’s. Its uniqueness vaunts our own superiority.”48 Britons have taken this to the extreme:

43 Aside from possible war orphans. 44 Horne, “The Living” 595. 45 Dan Todman, “The First World War in Contemporary British Popular Culture”, in Christoph Schmitt-Supprian a.o. ed.: Untold War :New Perspectives in First World War Studies (Leiden 2008) 423. 46 Gillis, “Memory and identity: the history of a relationship”, in: Commemorations. The politics of national identity ed. John R. Gilles (Princeton 1994) 4. 47 David Lowenthal, “Identity, heritage, and history”, in: ed. John R. Gillis Commemorations: The Politics of National Identity (Princeton 1994) 44. 48 Ibidem, 47.

convinced that their heritage is utterly unique take special pride in knowing and caring so little about others. Tracing English separatism to thirteenth-century efforts to purge England of foreign influences and a “stubborn desire to manage its own affairs in its own way,” a historian a century ago applauded the “long-standing … air of condescension towards foreigners.”49

The second thing to keep in mind is the nature of nationalism. Nationalists think of their country as fundamentally unique and essentially homogenous (i.e. internal diversity is ultimately encompassed by national homogeneity).50 To a nationalist, their national identity is a natural fact, not a social and political construct. As a consequence, subjective positions, social boundaries, and power imbalance do not exist.51 What does exist is a constant threat to their nation, which will surely prevail and lead to “national demise unless restorative political and cultural action is taken.”52

Modern remembrance and national politics

The Centenary falls at a time when opposing political and ideological factions fight over Britain’s future and national identity. To understand the context of the official memorials held in the UK during this Centenary, we need to look back to 2012. In October of that year, then-Prime Minister David Cameron gave a speech at the Imperial War Museum to introduce the cabinet’s plans for a national commemoration of the First World War. In it, he pledged 50 million pounds in funding and explained why he thinks it is important to give national attention to a war with no living survivors, particularly in times when “money is tight.”53 Cameron appealed to the British national identity, which he said has been shaped by the war. The sheer sacrifice of the war itself also warranted commemoration, as did the way the war has shaped British and World history. Nevertheless, Cameron imagined a British commemoration, centered on the British narrative of the war. It was, however, also pointedly not to be a celebration of the war and Britain’s victory. Instead, the Centenary was to “provide the foundations upon which to build an enduring cultural

49 Ibidem, 48. 50 Handler, “Is ‘identity’ a useful cross-cultural concept?”, in: ed. John R. Gillis Commemorations: The Politics of National Identity (Princeton 1994) 29-30. 51 Gillis, “Memory and identity: the history of a relationship”, in: ed. John R. Gillis Commemorations: The Politics of National Identity (Princeton 1994) 4. 52 Handler, “Is ‘identity’ a useful cross-cultural concept?”, in: ed. John R. Gillis Commemorations: The Politics of National Identity (Princeton 1994) 29. 53 “Speech at Imperial War Museum on First World War centenary plans”, gov.uk 11-10-2012 (2-1-2017) https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/speech-at-imperial-war-museum-on-first-world-war-centenary-plans.

and educational legacy, to put young people front and center in our commemoration and to ensure that the sacrifice and service of a hundred years ago is still remembered in a hundred years’ time.”54 Over the course of the past century, commemoration has not been static in the UK. Aside from various motivations, from personal grief to pacifism, the number of people who participated in commemorating the Great War has changed over the years. Until after the Second World War, there were high levels of participation, but by the 1980s levels were low. During the 1990s, with the vanishing of the generation who experienced and fought in the First World War, interest grew again. The character of the commemoration had changed, however, as Andrew Mycock describes: “More positive conceptions of the First World War that celebrated victory and the defeat of militaristic threats to the nation, which were prominent in the inter-war period, have largely dissipated.”55 Since the 1960s, the dominating narrative has been that of “Lions led by donkeys.” Alan Clark’s The Donkeys, published in 1961, played an important part in this. With this book the military historian and Conservative MP wrote a revisionist history and popularized the idea that the British soldiers (the lions) had been led to slaughter by incompetent and indifferent leadership (the donkeys).56 This shift in perception of the First World War coincided with the memory boom as described by Jay Winter. At the time, when the Baby Boom generation was coming of age, an unprecedented number of people attended university, which led to an increased demand for and access to cultural activities.57 Furthermore, increased affluence had led to disposable income for the state and individuals, which could be allocated to remembering. Finally, Winter writes, the memory boom shifted the focus away from national histories towards familial stories.58 One exemplary project in Britain is the documentary series The Great War from 1964, which was produced to commemorate the fifty year anniversary of the outbreak of the war. The 26-episodes production featured interview with veterans, and allowed the audience “to find out about what dad, or grandad had done in the war—indeed, they hoped to catch a glimpse of a relative in the

54 Ibidem. 55 Andrew Mycock, “The politics of the great war centenary in the United Kingdom”, in: Shanti Sumartojo and Ben Wellings ed., Nation, Memory and Great War Commemoration: Mobilizing the Past in Europe, Australia and New Zealand (Cultural Memories) (Oxford 2014) 102. 56 Ibidem. 57 Jay Winter, “The Memory Boom in Contemporary Historical Studies”, Raritan: A Quarterly Review 21 (2001) 58. 58 Ibidem, 60.

footage on show.”59 The series gave a voice to average soldiers, emphasized the horrors of the war, and was immensely popular. It contributed to the changing views of the war, and the memories its audience constructed still influence how the war is remembered today.60 It should also be noted, however, that a revisionist, nationalist view of history has emerged in response to this new view of World War One. In 2013 Andrew Murrison, the minister appointed by Cameron to lead the commemorations, predicted that the general public would not be as engaged with the big questions of the war, but instead “focus on the local.”61 What Murrison meant are human interest stories, and in early 2013 the commemoration of one of these stories was announced. In 1914 English and German troops played football between the trenches, and by staging a football match in Belgium Murrison said: “if you engage [people] in things like the Christmas truce then I think that you do offer them something that is of relevance and use and of interest to them.”62 Counter-voices to this approach sprang up, for instance in the letters section of The Guardian, where Steve Cox commented: But as in 1914-1918 we might yet ask: “To what end?” This is clearly the question Andrew Murrison et al are not keen to have answered. In his own words, the focus of the commemoration will be on “the personal and the parochial.” We can expect no reference to the imperial competition which underpinned conflicts then, for the simple reason that it underpins them now. Equally unlikely will be any mention of the private sectional interests at odds with the genuine common good that drove the war then, because it drives war now. We will hear much of ‘sacrifice’ but not of waste. We will be told of “national unity” and nothing of opposition and division. We will learn nothing from Cameron’s projected four-year festival of banality.63

This fear of “prettifying” the memory of the war rang throughout the British left. In response to the Times writing that the British case was “essentially just” and a necessary response to German aggression, Seumas Milne wrote in 2012: “The war was a vast depraved undertaking of unprecedented savagery, in which the ruling classes of Europe dispatched their people to a senseless slaughter in the struggle for imperial supremacy. [...] This wasn’t a war of self-defense,

59 Dan Todman, “The Reception of the Great War in the 1960s”, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 22 (2002) 30. 60 Ibidem, 35. 61 Andrew Mycock, 102. 62 Nick Hopkins and Richard Norton-Taylor, “Kickabout that captured futility of first world war to be replayed for centenary”, The Guardian 8-2-2013 (30-5-2017) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/feb/08/first-world-war- kickabout-replayed-centenary. 63 “Blinkered view of the first world war”, 13-2-2013 (30-5-2017) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/feb/13/blinkered-view-first-world-war.

let alone liberation for tyranny.”64 He further argues that the colonial aspect of the war should not be forgotten. All warring nations had colonies where they suppressed and murdered people. When self-determination was championed by Woodrow Wilson after the war, this only applied to Europeans. In 2014, Milne returned to the topic and added: “[Michael] Gove [then minister of education] and his fellow war apologists worry that satirical shows such as Blackadder have sapped patriotism by portraying the war as ‘a series of catastrophic mistakes perpetrated by an out-of-touch elite.’” Milne argued that Gove and his fellow historical revisionists will keep fighting these ideas, “because history wars are about the future as much as the past – and as long as imperial conflict is discredited, future foreign military interventions and occupations will be difficult to sell.”65 In order to understand these discussions it is important to reflect on the situation the UK was in at the time. The country was leading up to the General Election of 2015, in which the ruling Tories were up against UKIP as a serious contender. The UK Independence Party rode a strong wave of nationalism and xenophobia, and the Tories feared losing the election. By boosting their own patriotism and criticism of the European Union, which they are in fact in favor of, they hoped to win. In a desperate bid, they promised to hold a referendum on the participation of the UK in the EU if they won reelection. After the Tories won, David Cameron first renegotiated the terms of the UK’s EU membership and then called a referendum on June 23, 2016. English nationalism won the leave vote - Northern Ireland and Scotland voted to remain. It has divided the nation on nationalism, patriotism, and xenophobia, but the split had already happened. The discourse about how to remember the First World War reflects this. “So what if the sea of poppies at the Tower is a British commemoration? Every nation honours the dead in its own way,” wrote Robert Hardman for the Daily Mail in 2014,66 in response to an opinion piece by Jonathan Jones in The Guardian. Jones had urged for a more

64 Seumas Milne, “The first world war: the real lessons of this savage imperial bloodbath”, The Guardian 16-2-2012 (30-5-2017) https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/oct/16/first-world-war-imperial-bloodbath. 65 Seumas Milne, “First world war: an imperial bloodbath that’s a warning, not a noble cause”, The Guardian 8-1- 2014 (30-5-2017) https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/08/first-world-war-imperial-bloodbath- warning-noble-cause. 66 Robert Hardman, “Why DO the Left despise patriotism? Sneering Left-wing art critic brands the poppy tribute seen by millions at the Tower as a 'Ukip-type memorial'”, Daily Mail 30-11-2014 (25-11-2016) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2813473/Why-Left-despise-patriotism-Sneering-Left-wing-art-critic- brands-poppy-tribute-seen-millions-Tower-Ukip-type-memorial.html#ixzz4iYlV7Un2.

inclusive and darker remembrance piece: “It is deeply disturbing that a hundred years on from 1914, we can only mark this terrible war as a national tragedy. Nationalism – the 19th-century invention of nations as an ideal, as romantic unions of blood and patriotism – caused the great war. What does it say about Britain in 2014 that we still narrowly remember our own dead and do not mourn the German or French or Russian victims?”67 Where The Guardian takes a stand against the rise of British nationalism and against the UK leaving the EU, the Daily Mail is a staunch UKIP newspaper. As a result of this, we see two very different approaches to writing about the First World War. The critical position of The Guardian is contrasted by the Daily Mail, who takes the approach Murrison advocated, focusing on human interest stories that honor and celebrate their heroic Tommies. On June 31, 2016, on the eve of the centenary of the battle of the Somme, they published a story titled “Relaxing before the carnage: Heartbreaking photos of our troops on the eve of the Somme 100 years ago shortly before they went ‘over the top’ on the bloodiest single day in British military history.”68

Figure 4 Screenshot of the Daily Mail article.

67 Jonathan Jones, “The Tower of London poppies are fake, trite and inward-looking – a Ukip-style memorial”, The Guardian 28-10-2014 (25-11-2016) https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2014/oct/28/tower-of-london-poppies-ukip- remembrance-day. 68 Nigel Blundell, “Relaxing before the carnage: Heartbreaking photos of our troops on the eve of the Somme 100 years ago shortly before they went 'over the top' on the bloodiest single day in British military history”, Daily Mail 30-6-2016 (30-5-2017) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3666866/Relaxing-carnage-Heartbreaking-photos- troops-eve-Somme-100-years-ago.html.

The article features over twenty photographs that were secretly taken by British troops and published in Richard van Emden’s The Somme: The Epic Battle in the Soldiers' Own Words and Photographs (2016). (See figure 4.) Most of the photographs have been colored especially for the Daily Mail, which transports their observers to the past, eye in eye with these doomed men. The annotations about the destiny of the men are supposed to add even more pathos. The headline lays the emotion on: these photos are “heartbreaking.” The Guardian was quick to hit back on this article. On July 1, 2016, Jonathan Jones writes that by coloring the photos “the paper has changed them, updated them, distorted them. [...] To colourise an old photograph or film is to falsify it. The rosy cheeks are not theirs. The hair colour is not theirs. The effect is to create the illusion that it all happened just yesterday, that we know how these men felt.”69 This is not his main point however, and it does not hold as much ground as his main argument. The biggest problem with the Daily Mail, Jones argues, is that they focused solely on the British troops. Only one of the photographs features people from other nationalities, and the text discusses only British casualties. Any pretense that his article is about something other than political ideology goes out the window when Jones writes: “Worse, and typical of the way that Brexit Britain is determined to misremember the first world war, there is no attempt to contextualise what happened. So all our brave Tommies marched into those evil German machine guns.”70 Jones is right to point this out about the Daily Mail, because they tend to feature Germany as the villain in the narrative of the war. They produce headline such as: “Sunken WWI battleship is brought back to life: Experts digitally recreate HMS Falmouth 100 years after it was torpedoed by German U-boats”71 and “Story of one of the first ever tank crew to be killed in battle is revealed 100 years after he was mowed down on the Somme by German machine gunners.”72

69 Jones, Jonathan, “The true faces of the Somme – uncoloured by the new nationalism”, The Guardian 1-7-2016 (30-5-2017) https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2016/jul/01/battle-of-the-somme-dailymail-photographs. 70 Ibidem. 71 Ryan O’Hare, “Sunken WWI battleship is brought back to life: Experts digitally recreate HMS Falmouth 100 years after it was torpedoed by German U-boats”, Daily Mail 19-8-2017 (30-5-2017) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3747129/Sunken-WWI-battleship-brought-life-Experts-digitally- recreate-HMS-Falmouth-100-years-torpedoed-German-U-boats.html. 72 “Story of one of the first ever tank crew to be killed in battle is revealed 100 years after he was mowed down on the Somme by German machine gunners”, Daily Mail 2-9-2016 (30-5-2017) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3770770/First-tank-crew-Battle-Somme-revealed-100-years-killed.html.

The Daily Mail goes even further. In 2013 Robert Hardman wrote an opinion piece he titled “Why we SHOULD upset the Germans - by reminding them of their Great War atrocities.” Hardman bemoans the remembrance of the war he thinks will happen: “mud, futility of war, lions led by donkeys, a bit of poetry, a nod to the nurses and the munitions girls and a solemn conclusion that it must ‘never be allowed to happen again.’”73 He thinks the focus should be on the result of the war, namely the defeat of Germany, the empire that plotted the takeover of Europe and the invasion of neutral countries. Germany should be remembered as the perpetrator of the greatest atrocities, the inventor or chemical warfare, the one who introduced blitz war and the targeting of civilians. “The modish Blackadder school of thought is now so entrenched among a generation of schoolchildren that there is no question where blame lies: with those horrid toff generals and their Establishment chums.”74 The idea that the UK was as bad as Germany during the war is dismissed by Hardman. He argues that UK was not as bad as Germany, whether on the battlefield or as a colonist and that the main reason the “lions led by donkeys” narrative is dominant is because it’s “easier” to read than the stories of German plotting and atrocities. Considering the importance of the defeat of the evil empire Germany, Hardman argues it would be justified to celebrate the Battle of Amiens of August 1918, “the black day of the German army. … Moulding the Great War to suit contemporary sympathies is not just a case of historical inaccuracy. It is setting a dangerous precedent. For once you start allowing everyone on all sides to be winners, losers, and victims as they see fit, they will make the most of it.”75 Daily Mail opinion writers are not the only ones espousing this view. Prominent Tory politicians have expressed similar opinions. Boris Johnson has said the “war was the fault of German expansionism and aggression”76 and Michael Gove “claims our brave boys were

73 Hardman, Robert, “Why we SHOULD upset the Germans - by reminding them of their Great War atrocities”, Daily Mail 14-1-2013 (30-5-2017) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2262443/Why-SHOULD-upset- Germans--reminding-Great-War-atrocities.html. 74 Ibidem. 75 Ibidem. 76 Milne, Seumas, “First world war: an imperial bloodbath that’s a warning, not a noble cause”, The Guardian 8-1- 2014 (30-5-2017) https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/08/first-world-war-imperial-bloodbath- warning-noble-cause.

fighting for ‘western liberal values’ against the evil Jerry.”77 Simon Jenkins writes about these sentiments in The Guardian. He thinks people who blindly vilify Germany and glorify the Tommies are avoiding having to feel a sense of guilt about the war. He writes that this is easy for Britons to do: Any war a nation wins is thereby rendered ‘worth it.’ Historians can argue whether the Great War was noble, well-fought and sensibly resolved. But the more appalling the sacrifice, the more inexcusable it is to challenge its worth. Hence Germany must be depicted as do evil that the very idea of not declaring war on it is taboo. All wars start as popular; all wars end as just.78

Jenkins urges to look at what Britain and Germany have in common, instead of continuing the “orgy of recalled hatred” for Germany. All of this ties back into the Brexit discussion, which in early 2014 was only an abstract possibility. In the 21st century Germany sits at the very core of the European Union and butts heads with the UK on a regular basis. Tory politicians who want to retain voters who are threatening to drift towards UKIP will talk negatively about the EU and Germany, which extends to how they remembered the First World War. Meanwhile, the pro-EU The Guardian writers urge to not put the blame on Germany but instead strengthen the ties. One of them, Matthias Strohn, explicitly urges to remember and teach about the war as “a world, rather than a British, conflict.”79 For him, the focus on the western front is too narrow to accurately and profoundly capture the scope and importance of the war, including the effects it would have around the world twenty-five years after it ended.

Remembrance and intranational politics

While politicians and opinion writers discuss the way the war should be remembered and whether or not the UK has put itself too much at the center of its own commemorations, there are similar problems to discuss within the UK. The United Kingdom is not one country, but four: England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. When talking or writing about the “British”

77 Jenkins, Simon, “Germany, I apologise for this sickening avalanche of first world war worship”, The Guardian 30-1-2014 (30-5-2017) https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/30/first-world-war-worship- sickening-avalanche. 78 Ibidem. 79 Strohn, Matthias, “First world war centenary: let's remember a world, rather than a British, conflict”, The Guardian 23-7-2013 (30-5-2017) https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/23/first-world-war- remember-world-conflict.

experience of the First World War, British and English narratives are conflated.80 This is reflected in the commemorations that Cameron introduced. He claimed the commemorations would draw on “our national spirit in every corner of the country.” It appears the country he meant was England, because the plans are very Anglocentric. Most of the UK funding for “national” events is set to be spent in England, with most of the events being are hosted there as well. For instance, the program that provides funds for schools to take children to battlefields on the western front is only accessible for English schools. In response to these plans from London, in May 2013 Scottish National Party-led Scotland announced its own program of commemoration. At the time, it was working up to the independence referendum that would be held in September 2014. Like the commemorations announced by David Cameron, the Scottish program was explicitly about remembering, not celebrating. It focused exclusively on events that are meaningful to the Scottish experience of the Great War. The disproportionate human cost of the war to Scotland was not properly represented in the UK commemorations, and the Scottish government created their own space to honor its sons. 81 There is no room for a wider British context, and the news of the UK national commemorations was met with fears of a “wider unionist ‘Britannia fetishism.’”82

Remembrance and the white Dominions

The official British commemorations cover only the UK, but a century ago the British territories covered a large portion of the globe. The remembrance practices that were covered earlier in this chapter also apply to Canada, Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand. The Imperial War Graves Commission took care of all those who had fallen, memorials were raised across the Dominions, and inhabitants of Australia undertook the same kinds of pilgrimages to the place their loved one died as Britons did. The Dominions and colonies were essential to victory in the First World War. They provided what Germany did not have: backup. The British Empire was not only able to ship in extra men (approximately a third of pilots in the British forces were

80 Mycock, “The politics of the great war centenary in the United Kingdom”, in: Shanti Sumartojo and Ben Wellings ed., Nation, Memory and Great War Commemoration: Mobilizing the Past in Europe, Australia and New Zealand (Cultural Memories) (Oxford 2014). 108. 81 Ibidem, 108. 82 Seymour, Richard, “The first world war centenary and the Britannia fetish”, The Guardian 12-10-2012 (30-5- 2017) https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/oct/12/first-world-war-centenary-britannia-fetish.

Canadian), but also had food to feed their troops. The UK took out loans with her dependencies. These elements aided the Allied victory.83 The men who joined the army from the Dominions had strong ties to the motherland. Immigration to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa had risen sharply in the late nineteenth century, and a lot of military-age men had been born in Britain themselves, or had close family in the UK. Half the man who joined up in Australia had been born in Britain. Enlisting was an act of nationalism, sympathizing with the core of the Empire. But the war had unforeseen consequences. The victory was a Pyrrhic one, because it rang in the beginning of the end for the Empire. The war was essential to creating a separate national identity in Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. These countries paid a high price, with ten percent of men not returning from the war. The sense that this price might be too high to pay resounded in 1939, when Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa deliberated for a week before joining Britain in the Second World War.84 Decreased migration from Britain weakened the ties between the crown and the Dominions further. Migrants from other former colonies - the West Indies, India, and Africa - came to the UK after the Second World War, and Australia saw an influx of migrants from Asia.85 Today ANZAC Day, which commemorates the landing at Gallipoli on April 25, 1915, is more important in Australia than Armistice Day (November 11).86 The founding legend of the country takes place during the First World War, and as a result the war is still used as a warning to Australians against involving themselves in distant conflicts. Paul Daley, an Australian columnist for The Guardian, writes: You’ll hear a lot about Australian “sacrifice” in the next few days as politicians, military leaders and the families of the dead converge on Fromelles for the commemorations. But it’s worth remembering that few of those who went over the top at Fromelles to trudge across the sodden no man’s land filled with decaying British bodies, would have viewed their actions as such. They didn’t sacrifice themselves. The Australian politicians and the British sacrificed them. And what did Australia learn? Not enough. Australia continues to volunteer for more and more distant imperial wars. Meanwhile, our politicians still justify the “sacrifice” of those (mostly) young men who they send to die in them

83 Winter, Remembering war, 171. 84 Ibidem, 169. 85 Ibidem, 156. 86 “The Anzac Day Tradition”, Australian War Memorial (13-1-2017) https://www.awm.gov.au/commemoration/anzac-day/traditions.

Chapter Two Colonial soldiers during the First World War

In 2011, historian Santanu Das noted: “we are witnessing the demise of the last handful of European war veterans; at the same time, the colonial non-white participants are slowly being wheeled in from the shadowy chambers of modern memory.”87 Academic interest in colonial soldiers has risen since the late twentieth century, with publications like David Omissi’s Indian Voices of the Great War: Soldier’s Letters, 1914-1918 in 1999 and G. Howe’s Race, War and Nationalism: A Social History of the West Indians in the First World War in 2002. Around the same time the Commonwealth Memorial Gates were being planned by the Memorial Gates Trust, to be installed in Hyde Park Corner in London in 2002. The trust was chaired by Prince Charles, and the architects of the memorial were Liam O'Connor and Amrish Patel. In order to understand the circumstances of the modern remembrance of non-white soldiers, this chapter will examine the concepts of race and empire as they dominated public opinion and science in the early twentieth century, before looking at the experiences of colonial forces during the war and their remembrance since.

Race and the British Empire in the early twentieth century

Take up the White Man’s burden - Send forth the best ye breed - Go, bind your sons in exile To serve your captives’ need; To wait, in heavy harness, On fluttered folk and wild - Your new-caught, sullen peoples, Half devil and half child.

Rudyard Kipling, the man who gave unidentified soldiers the epitaph “Known Unto God,” wrote these words in 1899.88 In eight short verses he painted a striking image of the way empire and race were viewed in his time; “colored peoples” were underdeveloped and childlike, but could be savage and devil-like. They required the guidance of white people to live a proper life, or they

87 Santanu Das, “Introduction”, in: Santanu Das ed. Race, empire and First World War writing (London 2011) 6. 88 The Bombay born writer is of course most famous for writing The Jungle Book.

could be deemed so inferior as to require extermination. This was the fate of the Tasmanian Aboriginals, as Peter Fryer described in his landmark 1984 book Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain.89 Pseudo-scientific racism in English literature dates back to the eighteenth century, with the introduction of (physical) anthropology and the classification of species. In the study of skulls, Africans were designated as having smaller brains than Europeans, and classified by some as closer to apes and therefore of a different “race,” meaning “species.”90 By the start of the nineteenth century, racial purity became a concern: “The lower class of women in England, are remarkably fond of the blacks, for reasons too brutal to mention; they would connect themselves with horses and asses if the laws permitted them.”91 This is how Edward Long, a British colonial administrator and author of The History of Jamaica (1774) in which he describes Africans as “under-evolved apes,”92 expressed his worry that the miscegenation of English women with black men would spread through the population and eventually reach the highest classes. According to Long, the result would be a population that would resemble “the Portugese and Moriscos in complexion of skin and baseness of mind.”93 The looming vision of black men marrying the daughters of white nobility was also used as an argument against the abolishment of slavery in the West Indies.94 The onus of preserving racial purity rested with white women. In the West Indies (as in many other places), “[f]or a white man to engage in sexual relations with, and father children by, a black woman was nothing unusual; living openly with a black concubine brought no social condemnation. As black concubinage became normal, white women became the embodiments of respectability as well as the victims of a rigid double-standard that allowed only white men full sexual license. Black men faced draconian punishment if they had sex with white women; the women in turn experienced disgrace and ostracism.”95 Black men were depicted as hypersexual and predatory.96 As Joanna de Groot writes, the taboo subject of (suggested) sexual contact between a white woman and a black man became a popular erotic scene in orientalist art, where the “depiction of women in harem or bath scenes accompanied by

89 Peter Fryer, Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain (London 1984) 181. 90 Fryer, Staying Power, 168. 91 Fryer, Staying Power, 157. 92 Edward Long, The History of Jamaica Vol. 2 (London 1774), 476. 93 Fryer, Staying power, 157. 94 Fryer, Staying power, 163. 95 Philip D. Morgan, “Slavery in the British Caribbean”, David Eltis and Stanley L. Engerman ed., The Cambridge World History of Slavery Volume 3 (Cambridge 2011) 391. 96 Black men still are.

guards, or Negro attendants, or even on occasion their male masters, ties their sexual attraction closely to possession, control and subordination.”97 De Groot points to Gérôme’s painting The Slave Market (see figure 5) as a prime example of the genre, which reinforced pre-existing conceptions about the sexual nature of black men, and made sexual contact between white women and black men even more scandalous and horrific; the idea that a black man could possess and subordinate – i.e. have sexual relations with – a white woman was unthinkable.

Figure 5 The Slave Market by Jean-Léon Gérôme (1866)

By the end of the nineteenth century, Darwin’s theory of evolution had settled the question whether white and black people were of the same species, but it had also given a new rationale for racial superiority: “Nineteenth-century sociologists assumed that when they were studying human society they were studying innate racial characteristics at the same time. White

97 Joanna de Groot, “’Sex’ and ‘Race’: The Construction of Language and Image in the Nineteenth Century”, in: Susan Mendus and Jande Rendall ed., Sexuality and Subordination: Interdisciplinary Studies of Gender in the Nineteenth Century (London and New York 1989) 111.

skin and ‘Anglo-Saxon’ civilization were seen as the culmination of the evolutionary process.”98 In short, societal differences were racial differences, and racial differences were seen as essential, “natural,” and basic biology.99 Due to their differences in quality and worth, it was seen as “necessary, justifiable, and proper that the superior race control the inferior, and that the weaker race accept the authority of the stronger,” just as women should accept the authority of men.100 Arguments of inferiority were not merely based on physical characteristics (e.g. smaller brains), but also on way of life. In the eyes of European colonizers the inability of Africans to create proper forms of governments, law, or religion proved their inferiority, and their need for a guiding hand which would provide them with government, law, and religion which they could not adequately create themselves. In contemporary histories of the subjugation of India, it was depicted “as an act of salvage from the violence, corruption, and instability of regimes that preceded it.”101 These theories made colonizing an honorable thing to do. The inherent qualities of the white race had allowed white men to practice science, create technological innovations, and develop politically and socially. It was the duty of the white man to spread his civilization and salvation throughout the world, for “the life-blood of Europe to be poured forth in fertilizing streams into the waste places of the other continents,” as J. Holland Rose put it in 1905.102 These ideas were widespread, and racism “was not confined to a handful of cranks. Virtually every scientist and intellectual in nineteenth-century Britain took it for granted that only people with white skin were capable of thinking and governing.” Non-white people were deemed “racially unfit for ‘advanced’ British institutions such as representative democracy.”103 Racism was thus, as Philippa Levine states, “functionally necessary to the stability of imperial rule.”104 These views were perpetuated in schools and children’s literature. At public schools, the sons of the rich and powerful were taught to shoulder the white man’s burden. But children of all classes were exposed to the dominant racial narrative. Peter Fryer: “The reader of [G.A.

98 Fryer, Staying powe,r 179. 99 Joanna de Groot, “‘Sex’ and ‘Race’” in: Sexuality and Subordination , 95. 100 Ibidem, 98. 101 Ibidem. 102 JA Hobson, “Imperialism: A Study”, in: ed. Harrison M. Wright, The “New Imperialism”. Analysis of late- nineteenth-century expansion (Lexington 1976) 3. 103 Fryer, Staying power, 169. 104 Philippa Levine, “Battle Colors: Race, Sex, and Colonial Soldiery in World War I”, Journal of Women’s History 4 (1998) 105.

Hendry’s] By Sheer Pluck: a tale of the Ashanti war (1884) is told that black people are just like children… They are always either laughing or quarrelling. They are good-natured and passionate, indolent, but will work hard for a time; clever up to a certain point, densely stupid beyond. The intelligence of the average negro is about equal to that of a European child of ten years old. A few, a very few, go beyond this, but these are exceptions, just as Shakespeare was an exception to the ordinary intellect of an Englishman. They are fluent talkers but their ideas are borrowed. They are absolutely without originality, absolutely without inventive power. Living among white men, their imitative faculties enable them to attain a considerable amount of civilization. Left alone to their own devices they retrograde into a state little about their native savagery.105

By 1950, 25 million of Hendry’s books were sold. This does not mean, however, that children were receiving extensive education on the colonies. As Philip Blom notes, “[in] the state-run schools successive imperial minded observers found to their dismay that the children knew hardly anything about the colonies.”106 Even those who went to public schools were not trained for imperial duties until they went to university.107 Critics of imperialism also existed. J.A. Hobson argued in his Imperialism (1902) that the new imperialism was not profitable or beneficial for the British population as a whole. It was only good for a select group of people, such as ship makers, boiler makers, and gun and ammunition makers.108 Investors were the oil which kept the engine running smoothly with financial injections, and they brought a large amount of foreign money into Britain.109 Trade with the colonies themselves, however, was not profitable,110 and most of them did not have representative institutions or responsible government. But, Hobson adds: This is attributable, not to any greed or tyranny on the part of the Imperial Government, but to the conditions imposed upon our rule by considerations of climate and native population. Almost the whole of this new territory is tropical, or so near the tropics as to preclude genuine colonizations of British settlers, while in those few district where Europeans can work and breed, as in parts of South Africa and Egypt, the preoccupation of the country by large native populations of “lower races” precludes any considerable settlement of British workers and the safe bestowal of full self- government which prevails in Australasia and Canada.111

Even a man who vehemently opposed imperialism made objections based on economics, not on

105 Fryer, Staying power, 189-90. 106 Philip Blom, The Vertigo Years: Europe, 1900-1914 (New York 2008) 111. 107 Ibidem, 112. 108 JA Hobson, “Imperialism: A Study”, in: ed. Harrison M. Wright, The “New Imperialism”. Analysis of late- nineteenth-century expansion (Lexington 1976) 18. 109 Ibidem, 23. 110 Ibidem, 14. 111 Ibidem, 12.

morality. Hobson did not doubt the racial narrative of his day, and decried the conquering of land which could not be colonized by white men: the tropics. Britain was not alone as a European imperialist power. France had an extensive empire of her own, the Netherlands had possessions in the West Indies and Asia, Belgium had the Congo (a media war was waged over the especially brutal regime of King Leopold II),112 Germany had established herself as a colonial power in Africa, and Italy had imperial ambitions. In the years leading up to the First World War, European countries defined themselves by their empire.113 To control an empire meant to project power to other European forces, and superiority within the white racial hierarchy. White Europeans were divided into Anglo-Saxon, Gallic, Teutonic, or Slavic “races.” Eventually, the violent rule and suppression of the colonies pored over into Europe. “As historian John Whiteclay Chambers II observed [in Anticipating Total War (1999)], ‘The ruthlessness of colonial warfare, with its lack of restraints, would return to haunt Europe in the slaughter of World War I.’”114 During the war, intra-European racism reached new heights. Santanu Das: “Germans were often viewed as a different ‘race’: they were regarded as a throwback to some ‘Tartar stock’ charged with the ‘instincts … of some pre-Asiatic horde’ and, in one instance, as the ‘Zulus of Europe.’”115 It should be noted that in order to denigrate the Germans they were compared to non-European peoples. This put them on a level with already dehumanized colonized peoples, against whom the use of violence was justified due to their animal nature.

Indian soldiers and laborers

Of all the colonies and Dominions, India contributed the largest number of men to the British war effort. Estimates differ, but anywhere between 1.1 and 1.4 million men were recruited up to December 1919.116 Most of the men came from the North Indian provinces, the Punjab in particular. This recruitment decision was based both on social Darwinism and indigenous caste hierarchy, which emphasized that “some ‘races’ from Nepal and North India [...] were inherently

112 See: Philip Blom, Vertigo Years chapter 5. 113 Ibidem, 116. 114 John H. Morrow Jr., “The Imperial Framework”, in: Jay Winter ed., The Cambridge History of the First World War (Cambridge 2013) 409. 115 Santanu Das, “Introduction”, in: Race, Empire and First World War writing, 11. 116 Ibidem, 4.

more ‘manly’ and warlike than men from other parts of India.”117 By the Armistice, 360,000 Punjabi men had been recruited.118 Among some communities, such as the Jat Sikhs, between 30 and 50 percent of men enlisted. Most of the men were semi-literate or illiterate, which means we have limited written sources by their hands. While the lower peasant-warrior classes were the ones to enlist, enthusiasm for the war came from India’s bourgeois and educated middle classes. They hoped that after the war, Britain would grant India self-governance. The war would be an opportunity to establish their racial equality with the English, and proof their courage and loyalty.119 History would prove this hope to be fruitless. In December 1914 the first Indian troops arrived at the Western Front.120 In total, about 140,000 Indian men served in France, making up a quarter of the British army on the Western Front during the winter of 1914-15. Two-third of them were combatants, the other third was comprised of non-combatants, also known as followers. BC Hacker describes them as follows: “Followers included bakers, butchers, cooks, gardeners, herdsmen, blacksmiths, water carriers, carpenters, shoemakers, packers, sweepers, tailors, and launderers, among other menials, artisans, and tradesmen.”121 Non-combatant enlistees were a vital part of the war machine. Static trench warfare was maintained by the labor of men behind the trenches, the first of which were built by non-combatants. Aside from the tasks performed by the followers listed above, non- combatants were also the ones who assembled and distributed stores and ammunition.122 The arrival of Indian soldiers - and soldiers from the French colonies - caused a shock, both to Europeans and the new arrivals. Before 1914, contact between white Europeans and black and Asian people and been limited to Europeans who travelled to the colonies, and to large cities like London, Liverpool, Cardiff, Marseille, and Paris.123 Neither the British government nor her colonial officers were eager to let non-white men fight on European soil, but shortages in

117 Ibidem, 12. 118 Santanu Das, “Indians at home, Mesopotamia and France, 1914-1918: towards an intimate history”, in: Santanu Das ed. Race, empire and First World War writing (London 2011) 74. 119 Ibidem, 73. 120 Ibidem, 75. 121 Borton C. Hacker, “White Man’s War, Coloured Man’s Labour. Working for the British Army on the Western Front”, Itinerario 38.3 (2014) 29. 122 Ibidem, 27. 123 Alison S. Fell, “Nursing the Other: the representation of colonial troops in French and British First World War nursing memoirs”, in: Santanu Das ed. Race, empire and First World War writing (London 2011) 159.

manpower forced them to allow Indian troops onto the battlefield.124 White frontline soldiers were not any more welcoming: “On the whole, front-line soldiers seem to have shared the widespread racist perceptions about colonial non-white troops; they hardly differentiated between different ethnic groups, and sometimes even confused them.”125 To British soldiers, their colonial counterparts were not seen as comrades, but as auxiliaries to be used for the most dangerous tasks, and their regiments were segregated from British ones. In the French army, it was the usual practice to send colonial troops to do the most dangerous work.126 Especially in France, colonial soldiers were depicted as members of the races jeunes, who followed their white master with childlike obedience and whose brutality could be utilized for the Allied cause. The British media made a distinction in depicting her own colonial forces. Where the French colonial troops were childlike and stupid, “Indian troops were often characterised as ‘picturesque.’ The British media emphasised not only the loyal, martial spirit and bravery of the Indian troops, but also their physical grandeur and cultural practices.”127 While France and Britain used propaganda to make the use of colonial soldiers on the Western Front acceptable to the public, in Germany the use of colonial soldiers by France and Britain was met with outrage. German propaganda depicted colonial soldiers as ferocious beasts, and the use of them by Germany’s enemies was nothing less than a breach of white solidarity. After the war, the propaganda warned, the colonial troops would have lost their respect for the white race forever, and turn against their masters.128 Germany was not alone in this worry. In December 1915, all Indian soldiers were removed from the Western Front. The recruitment of mostly illiterate soldier from northern India had been a deliberate strategy by the British authorities, to limit the risk of “dangerous” Western ideas entering their minds. There was anxiety about what deploying colonial soldiers next to - and against - white Europeans might do to their perception about their place in the racial and colonial hierarchy.129 By the end of 1915, it was deemed too dangerous to let Indian soldiers continue to fight on the Western Front, and they were re-stationed in the Middle East. Not all men left. Those who were unfit for front duty were assigned to a labor unit, as was the newly

124 Borton C. Hacker, “White Man’s War, Coloured Man’s Labour” 30. 125 Christian Koller, “Representing Otherness: African, Indian and European soldiers’ letters and memoirs”, in: Santanu Das ed. Race, empire and First World War writing (London 2011) 131. 126 Koller, “Representing Otherness”, 131. 127 Ibidem, 132-33. 128 Ibidem, 128-29. 129 John H. Morrow, Jr., “The imperial framework”, 413; Smith, “The multicultural First World War”, 351.

redundant cavalry unit.130 The “damage,” however, had already been done. Exposure to European social practices and thought had made a deep impact on colonial soldiers and laborers.131 Das: “Some defended their traditional cultural and religious values, while others openly tried to assimilate Western norms, though there were frequent overlaps between these attitudes.”132 Whatever their reaction, their experience during the war gave Indians political awareness and fresh confidence. “As one Indian veteran later pointed out, ‘When we saw various peoples and got their views, we started protesting against the inequalities and disparities which the British had created between the white and the black.’”133 This disparity was felt by many, even officers. The Rajput aristocrat Thakur Amar Singh was aide-de-camp to General Brunker. Yet he was not saluted, teased for not eating beef, and asked to leave when important military issues were discussed.134 Amar Singh decried his own treatment and that of the Indian troops: “The great trouble under which we have laboured is that whenever we fail in the slightest degree anywhere people raise hue and cry whereas if the British troops fail under the same circumstances no one mentions it.”135 He told his Indian officers that “this is the first time we Indians have had the honour to fight Europeans on their own soil and must play up to the government that has brought us up to this level.” About the Indian troops in France he wrote in October 1915: “They must see it through whatever happens. It is on them that the honour of India rests. India will get tremendous concessions after the war which she would not have been granted otherwise - at least not for years to come.”136 Captain Kalyan Mukherji, who witness fighting as part of the ambulance corps in Mesopotamia, questioned the war (“Why so much bloodshed?” “We have advanced quite a lot - why more?”), and realized what England was teaching her colonial soldiers: England is the educator. The patriotism that the English have taught us all this time, the patriotism that all civilised nations have celebrated - that patriotism is responsible for this bloodshed. All patriotism - it means snatching away another’s country. Therefor patriotism builds empires, kingdoms. To show patriotism, nationalism, by killing thousands and thousands of people and snatching away a bit of land, well, it’s the English who have taught us this. The youths of our country, seeing this, have started to practice this brutal form of

130 Borton C. Hacker, “White Man’s War, Coloured Man’s Labour”, 29. 131 Santanu Das, “Indians at home, Mesopotamia and France, 1914-1918”, 83. 132 Christian Koller, “Representing Otherness”, 128. 133 Guoqi Xu, “Asia”, in: Jay Winter ed., The Cambridge History of the First World War (Cambridge 2013) 502. 134 Santanu Das, “Indians at home, Mesopotamia and France, 1914-1918”, 76. 135 Ibidem. 136 Guoqi Xu, “Asia”, 502.

nationalism. Therefore, killing a number of people, throwing bombs at an innocent overlord - they have started these horrific things. Shame on patriotism. As long as this narrowness does not end, bloodshed in the name of patriotism will not cease. Whether a man throws a bomb from the rooftop or whether fifty men start firing from a cannon-gun - the cause of this bloodshed, this madness is the same.137

The hope for self-governance as a result of participation in the war was widespread. Among the hopeful was Mahatma Gandhi. He proposed that they should not make their demands until after the war: “It was more becoming and far-sighted not to press our demands while the war lasted.”138 Woodrow Wilson’s ideas for the post-war world raised hopes and expectations, since he had argued for self-determination. In 1918, the convened Indian National Congress adopted the position that demanded India to be recognized as “one of the progressive nations to whom the principle of self-determination should be applied.”139 Japan was the only Asian country included in the Paris Peace Conference, and was awarded her spoils in China. The proposed racial equality clause, however, was blocked by Woodrow Wilson himself. India was not granted self- governance. This caused a shift in the Indian nationalist movement, which had soared through the war. In 1919, Mahatma Gandhi “shifted [...] from a position of firm if critical support for Indian membership in the British Empire to one of determined opposition to it.”140

Remembrance

Of the estimated 1.1 to 1.4 million men shipped out from India, 72,000 would not survive the war.141 During the war, efforts were made to give these men a proper burial. Indian casualties were buried in a separate plot or in their own graveyard, sometimes divided by religion (Sikh, Hindu, and Muslim).142 Many mistakes were made, however, and after the war the Imperial War Graves Commission set to work to reduce the damage “or, more accurately, the evidence of what had happened.”143 The frequently unsegregated burial grounds made the task difficult. It was often

137 Santanu Das, “Indians at home, Mesopotamia and France, 1914-1918”, 79. 138 Guoqi Xu, “Asia”, 502. 139 Ibidem, 509. 140 Ibidem, 509. 141 Dominiek Dendooven, “Troepen uit Brits India in de Westhoek, 1914-1919”, in: Dominiek Dendooven and Piet Chielens ed., Wereldoorlog I. Vijf continenten in Vlaanderen (Brugge 2008) 117. 142 Ibidem, 121. 143 Michèle Barrett, “Afterword Death and the afterlife: Britain’s colonies and dominions”, in: Santanu Das ed. Race, empire and First World War writing (London 2011) 309.

impossible to make a distinction between a Muslim and a Hindu, and the policy was to ignore one group and give the same burial rites to the whole lot. Muslim graves were to be left untouched, though not especially marked if buried along Christians. Sikhs and Gurkhas were grouped in with Hindus and “where it is known for certain that Hindoos have been buried, their remains should be exhumed, burnt, and taken out to sea to be scattered on the water by Hindoo soldiers, under a Hindoo officer, of if a Hindoo regiment is returning to India, they should be given an opportunity to take the ashes with them.”144 After the cremation, a tablet was to be erected listing the names of those who had fallen. In Europe, the Indo-Saracenic courtyard near Neuve Chappelle is the largest monument dedicated to Indian soldiers. Designed by Sir Herbert Baker, it creates a space for both Hindu and Muslim casualties. The list of 4,843 names is guarded by Asoka lions.145

Figure 6 Neuve Chappelle Monument

Within the UK, the most significant place of remembrance is the Chattri memorial in Brighton, where wounded Indian soldiers received care in specially appointed hospitals. During this time, 21 Muslim and 53 Hindu and Sikh soldiers died, the former of who were buried at the nearby Shah Janah Mosque, and the latter of whom were cremated at the site where the Chattri

144 Ibidem, 309. 145 Winter, Remembering war 176; Thomas W. Laqueur “Memory and naming in the Great War”, in: John R. Gillis ed., Commemorations: The Politics of National Identity (Princeton 1994) 154.

monument would be built.146 Designed by a young Indian architect studying in England, E.C. Henriques,147 it was unveiled on February 1, 1921 by the Prince of Wales, the future Edward VII. Susan L.T. Ashley asserts that the construction of the Chattri takes a special place in the post-war memorial program, because it had a primarily colonial intent: “The construction of the monument and its subsequent unveiling ceremony were highly symbolic acts that validated colonial ways of thinking reflective of that era. The subjectivity of Indian soldiers expressed by public discourse at the time was that of loyal colonials coming to the aid of the mother country. From a state perspective the memorial was a particular act of appeasement by the paternal ‘King- Emperor.’”148 After its unveiling, the monument was abandoned by the government, and even subject to army target practices during the Second World War. After World War Two, the British Legion took interest in the Chattri monument and started organizing almost-annual memorial services in 1951, which were also attended by British Indian veterans. When the Legion announced in 1999 that it would stop its ceremonies, Indians veterans reacted dismayed that the Legion had made this decision without understanding the significance of the site and ritual to Indian veterans and their communities.149 Local teacher Davinder Singh Dhillon, a Sikh with no connection to the veterans or the fallen soldiers, “took over the stewardship of the remembrance ceremonies, involving the public, politicians, as well as a Britain’s large South Asian population and its military veterans to reinvigorate the event and increase its popularity.”150

146 Susan L.T. Ashley, “Acts of heritage, acts of value: memorializing at the Chattri Indian Memorial, UK”, in International Journal of Heritage studies 7 (2016) 555. 147 “Planning and Construction”, Sikh Museum (20-5-2017) http://www.sikhmuseum.com/brighton/remembrance/chattri/construction.html. 148 Ashley, “Acts of heritage”, 557. 149 Ibidem, 558. 150 “Over the years” Sikh Museum (30-5-2017) http://www.sikhmuseum.com/brighton/remembrance/chattri/years.html.

Figure 7 The Chattri Monument

Most of the Indian deaths occurred outside of Europe, in Mesopotamia. In 1929, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission unveiled the Basra Monument in modern-day Iraq to commemorate the British and Indian men who had lost their lives there. It listed the names of approximately 8,000 British soldiers and 665 Indian officers. All other Indian ranks were merely numbered by military unit. “A telegram sent on 4 August 1928 from the Commission to the Indian Army in Simla states the facts badly: ‘Basra Monument. Total number of missing from Indian Army commemorated by name officers 665[,] numerically other ranks 33,222.’”151

Figure 8 Basra Monument

151 Michèle Barrett, “Afterword: death and the afterlife”, 310.

While British soldiers had finally gotten the dignity to be identified by name, Indian troops were subject to the old order: only officers were names, the other men were merely numbered.

West Indian soldiers and laborers

For a long time, slavery was central to the history of the West Indies, and persistent and systemic racism was crucial to slavery. Between 1615 and 1807 – slave trade was abolished – 2.7 million Africans were brought to the Caribbean. Slaves were kept down with a “‘spectacle of suffering: bodily mutilations … were frequent, long after it had become rare in Europe; flogging was the most common punishment; and transportation, involving its own psychic terrors, was widely practiced.”152 The first West India Regiments, created during the French Revolutionary War in the 1790s, were made up of slaves. “By 1799 the British government decided that one-third of the total British force in the West Indies would consist of black soldiers. Between 1795 and 1807, the British government purchased about 10,000 Africans as recruits for these regiments. Overall, 30,000 black regulars served.”153 Throughout the nineteenth century, harsh physical punishment like flogging was permitted in the British army.154 In World War One, the British Caribbean support to British West Indies Regiment amounted to about 16,000 officers and men from the West Indies, Bermuda, the Bahamas, and British Honduras. The West India regiment supplied 1,200 men, and about 1,000 men enlisted with other British Army units.155 All were volunteers, and as Richard Smith writes, there were three important reasons for enlisting. The first was to prove their loyalty to the Empire, as a Barbadian correspondent to the West India Committee Circular remarked in 1914: We have put up sugar and money for the various subscriptions, but that won’t win our battles. It’s lives we desire to give as it’s for the Empire that that Motherland is fighting, and it is only fair to give these colonies the opportunity of showing the true spirit of patriotism that they have always evinced in the past.156

152 Philip D. Morgan, “Slavery in the British Caribbean”, 390. 153 Ibidem, 401. 154 Richard Smith, “Loss and Longing: Emotional Responses to West Indian Soldiers during the First World War”, The Round Table 103 (2014) 244. 155 Richard Smith, “The multicultural First World War: Memories of the West Indian contribution in contemporary Britain”, Journal of European Studies 45.4 (2015) 349-50. 156 Idem, 350.

There was a growing animus for self-governance among black citizens in the West Indies. Since the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars, military service had become increasingly associated with citizenship, and so black men in the Caribbean hoped to gain rights associated with citizenship through military service.157 Power was in the hands of white officials, and the middle classes were apprehensive about granting enfranchisement to the working class and the peasantry, as it would collide with their own interests. Many enlistees were from these lower classes, which brings us to the second reasons for joining the war effort: the prospect of regular food and wages. The third reason was fear of the possible reinstatement of slavery if Britain lost the war: Faith in professed imperial values was underpinned by the strong identification with the monarchy, linked to the popular perception that William IV and Queen Victoria had delivered emancipation. This belief was exploited by speakers at wartime rallies seeking support for the war effort: they argued that a “Prussian victory” would end the “benign rule of the Empire” and lead to the reintroduction of slavery.158

Initially, London was not in support of the idea of West Indian volunteers. It took until October 1915 for the British West Indies Regiment to be inaugurated. Earlier discussed fears about the stability of the racial hierarchy of the Empire were at the root of this reluctance, even though Indian troops were at that time deployed on the Western Front. In the end, it was the governors of the West Indies who pushed for the acceptance of black volunteers, as they feared that continued rejection would undermine loyalty to the Empire.159 The acceptance of volunteers was still a difficult matter, “because military law was unclear whether a volunteer regarded as ‘a negro or person of colour’ was a British subject or an alien.”160 Before the West Indian troops arrived in Europe in the Spring of 1916, a small detachment of the BWIR marched in the Lord Mayor’s show in November 1915. Smith notes: “Accounts of the black West Indian contingents were preoccupied with the men’s physique. The Belfast Evening Telegraph pictured ‘sturdy West Indian troops’ and the Daily News ‘huge and

157 Smith, “Loss and Longing”, 244. 158 Smith, “‘Heaven grant you strength to fight the battle for your race’: nationalism, Pan-Africanism and the First World War in Jamaican memory”, in: Santanu Das ed. Race, empire and First World War writing (London 2011) 267. 159 Smith, “The multicultural First World War”, 351. 160 Smith, “Nationalism, Pan-Africanism and Jamaican memory”, 268.

mighty men of valour.’”161At the same time, there were anxieties about the status of British manliness, with medical officers and eugenicists questioning the physical quality of British stock.162 And with over 200,000 British soldiers discharged on psychological grounds, this “undermined claims of white masculine superiority founded of rationality, stoicism and self- control” and “brought British authority and ascendancy into question.”163 By the time the British West Indies Regiment arrived in fighting form, the fighting units of the Indian Army had been pulled back from the Western Front and re-stationed in the Middle East. BWIR privates were officially considered infantrymen and received the same pay as a counterpart in a British unit but the separation allowance, paid to wives and dependents, was set lower. When the pay for British soldiers was increased, the pay for BWIR men was frozen, and only adjusted after protests.164 Pay inequality was not the only deliberate limitation men from the Caribbean faced. They were often excluded from entertainment facilities and received inferior medical care.165 This was the norm for non-white soldiers. Alison S. Fell notes that both in France and Britain, the contact with colonial soldiers caused worries: Despite the more positive images presented in Britain of the subject races as brave warriors, the prospect of encounters between Indian and West Indian troops and white British women provoked as much anxiety as it had in France, if not more, and these fears were particularly evident in attitudes to nursing.166

These positive images were spread in order to increase recruitment and boost morale. Contact on British soil came from the many soldiers who were injured and brought back to Britain for treatment. While there, they faced severe restrictions. Troops from the white Dominions could go out and explore cities freely, but non-white soldiers were under de-facto house arrest. Indian soldiers, for instance, could only go outside while accompanied by white, male, British personnel. But even within hospital grounds there was anxiety about the presence of colonial soldiers. Some people thought that hospitals should be racially segregated and patients cared for army or “native” personnel. The idea that white women should “wait on” colonial troops was

161 Smith, “Loss and longing”, 248. 162 Ibidem, 247. 163 Ibidem, 248. 164 Richard Smith, “Nationalism, Pan-Africanism and Jamaican memory”, 269. 165 Richard Smith, “The multicultural First World War”, 351. 166 Alison S. Fell, “Nursing the Other”, 164.

seen as offensive and a lowering of their prestige.167 This, plus the possibility of sexual contact between colonial soldiers and white women, was dangerous to the colonial power structure. Unlike the Indian Army, the British West Indies Regiment was never deployed on the Western Front as a fighting force. Nine of its twelve battalions were deployed as laborers on the Western Front; the other three battalions were only deployed as fighting forces in Palestine and Jordan, and a small detachment in East Africa.168 But no matter the work they did (road and railway construction, the digging of trenches, unloading ships and trains, carrying supplies to ammunition dumps169) or the bravery and prowess in battle they displayed, this did not earn them any credit. They were still not as masculine as white, British men were, “for theirs was an obeisance and a bravery that seemingly owed more to primitivism than to the manly good judgement their white comrades displayed.”170 By the end of the war, the nine European battalions were stationed in Taranto, Italy. There they worked alongside Italian and Maltese laborers, who received wage and ration improvements while the West Indian troops did not. The BWIR was moved to more and more menial tasks, and its members were subject to harsh disciplinary actions. Unrest grew, and everything came to a head shortly after the Armistice. On December 6 1918, the 9th Battalion was ordered to clean latrines used by Italian workers. West Indian soldiers surrounded the (British) commander’s tent and slashed it with knives and bayonets before dispersing. They demanded to be demobilized and repatriated to the West Indies before Christmas, and accompanied their protest with “promiscuous shooting” and threats “to kill every white man.”171 Ten days later, on December 16, the Caribbean League was formed by sixty West Indian officers. They discussed “all matters conductive to the General Welfare of the islands constituting the British West Indies and the British Territories adjacent thereto”172 and asserted at one meeting “that the black man should have the freedom to govern himself in the West Indies and that force must be used, and if necessary bloodshed, to attain that object.”173 This last statement was cause for concern among military superiors up the War Office, and to the Colonial Office and West Indian governors.

167 Ibidem, 166. 168 Smith, “Nationalism, Pan-Africanism and Jamaican memory”, 268. 169 Smith, “The multicultural First World War”, 351. 170 Philippa Levina, “Battle colors” 115. 171 Smith, “Nationalism, Pan-Africanism and Jamaican memory”, 270. 172 Smith, “The multicultural First World War”, 353. 173 Smith, “Nationalism, Pan-Africanism and Jamaican memory”, 270.

Immediately after the war, racial tensions mounted in Britain as well. Black British subjects who had found job opportunities as sailors and soldiers during the war were turned away at job sites, just as they had been before the war. Instead, contactors preferred to hire white foreigners.174 In Liverpool, a main port which had seen a race riot in its Belmont Road Military Auxiliary Hospital weeks before the end of the war,175 the situation turned so bad that black men were being attacked in the streets: On 4 June [1919] two Scandinavians stabbed a West Indian, John Johnson, when he refused to give them a sigarette. Johnson was severely wounded in the face, and the news spread quickly. Next evening eight of his friends went to the pub the Scandinavians used, threw beer over a couple of them, then attacked them with sticks, knives, razors, and a piece of iron taken from lamp-posts, knocking unconscious a policeman who tried to stop them. Five Scandinavians were taken to hospital, but only one was detained.176

In subsequent raids made on boarding houses inhabited by black seamen, fights with the police broke out. At his arrest, Charles Wotton, either from Bermuda or Trinidad, was torn away by a lynch mob and thrown into the water. He was pelted with rocks until he died. No one was arrested. Over the following days in June 1919, thousands of white men formed mobs and attacked, beat, and stabbed “every Negro they could find.”177 Houses where black people lived were looted and set on fire. Both the police and an editorial in the Liverpool Courier explained the unrest as a result of contact between black men and white women: One of the chief reasons of popular anger behind the present disturbances lies in the fact that the average negro is nearer the animal than is the average white man, and that there are women in Liverpool who have no self-respect. [...] The white man [...] regards [the black man] as part child, part animal, and part savage [...]178

In the Spring of 1919, race riots also tore through Cardiff, another main port city. Black men were attacked, shops and houses destroyed and set on fire. The police had to stop white mobs from going into black neighborhoods in order to prevent mass scale fights. Days later, Australian soldiers were heading lynch mobs.179 Once everything had calmed down, men were repatriated without compensation for property lost during the riots. The chief constable of Scotland Yard was of the opinion that while some were repatriated willingly, they “openly stated that it would

174 Fryer, Staying power, 299. 175 Fryer, Staying power, 297. 176 Ibidem, 300. 177 Ibidem, 301. 178 Fryer, Staying power, 302. 179 Ibidem, 304-5.

only be for the object of creating racial feeling against members of the white race domiciled in their country.”180 Those who resisted repatriation were prevented from getting jobs. For all of Spring and Summer, Cardiff, Liverpool, and London, too, were subject to race riots. Although the Caribbean League from Taranto did not survive the demobilization, the war experience, which did not only include the usual hardships of war but also racially motivated abuse, had sparked a distinct racial consciousness for West Indians. Smith: “A certain confidence had also developed from having served alongside white European troops abroad and having observed their human frailties at first hand.”181 In 1919 the Jamaican veteran and poet expressed his hoped for citizenship, employment and autonomous land ownership: Lads of the West, with duty done, soon shall we parted be To different land, perhaps no more each other’s face to see, But still as comrades of war our efforts we’ll unite To sweet injustice from our land, its social wrongs to right … And Heaven grant you the strength to fight the battle for your race.182

Employment and land settlement schemes were promised by Governor Probyn of Jamaica in May 1919, but no real steps were taken until 1924.183 In the meantime, a substantial number of veterans dispersed across the Americas, with 4,036 of 7,232 returning Jamaicans making their way to Cuba. In the subsequent two decades, demobilized BWIR soldiers journeyed to the US for educational, employments, and political opportunities. They were part of developing and spreading Pan-Africanism. In the wake of the demobilization the Universal Negro Improvement Association was founded, which would work with the Universal African Legion in order to improve the social, political, and economic position of black people across the Americas. Smith: “Aside from the visible spectacle of military parades and drills, the UAL was equally keen to nurture black self-improvement through technical and industrial education classes.”184 In 1935, when West Indians were prohibited in enlisting in support of Ethiopia, the only free African country which was being invaded by Italy, an anonymous veteran wrote a letter to the radical Jamaican newspaper Plain Talk and asked: “if I had the fighting spirit to defend the whiteman [sic] against the whiteman then why should I not

180 Ibidem, 309. 181 Smith, “Nationalism, Pan-Africanism and Jamaican memory”, 271. 182 Smith, “Nationalism, Pan-Africanism and Jamaican memory”, 271; Richard Smith, “The multicultural First World War”, 353. 183 Smith, “Nationalism, Pan-Africanism and Jamaican memory”, 272. 184 Smith, “The multicultural First World War”, 355.

defend the Abyssinians my mother against those heartless uncivilized Italians?”185

Remembrance Immediately after the war, the contributions made by West Indians to the war effort were commemorated both by official institutions and popular publications. The Times History of the War (1918) and The Empire at War (1923) paid special attention to the West Indies and their men. In Jamaica, where two-third of the BWIR hailed from, and whose Inspector of Police Herbert Thomas had himself lost three of his five sons during the war, a monument was unveiled in September 1921. Public subscription made the placement of smaller memorials in other parishes possible. Guiana dedicated a memorial in Georgetown in August 1923, and Trinidad unveiled its own Cenotaph in June 1924. As Smith notes, “Some public recognition in the West Indies was important in terms of maintaining order and to restate the imperial relationship in the post-war world. Notable figures within the white colonial elite had contributed to the war effort and had experienced losses which were also influential in the post-war commemoration process.”186 The war memorials are generally well-maintained and Remembrance Sunday is still observed in many Caribbean nations.187 Since the 1960s, their service in the First World War has become a part of asserting their national identity.188 It would take until 2002 for a significant monument to be placed on this side of the ocean, and a sign that Britain is starting to come to terms with its colonial past. The Memorial Gates at Constitution Hill in London are dedicated to all soldiers from the Commonwealth (here to mean India, Africa, and the Caribbean) who gave their lives for Britain during the two world wars. The only other significant site is at Seaford Cemetery in Sussex, where 19 members of BWIR are buried.189 It would take until 1994 for a memorial service to be held there by World War Two veteran members of the West Indies Ex-Service Men and Women’s Association of London.190

185 Idem, 355. 186 Smith, “Multicultural Commemoration and West Indian Military Service in the First World War”, Environment, Space, Place 8.2 (2016) 15. 187 “Jamaica’s War Memorial Cenotaphs: Reminders of patriots who gave the ultimate sacrifice”, Office of the Prime Minister 16-11-2012 (30-5-2017) http://opm.gov.jm/jamaicas-war-memorial-cenotaphs-reminders-of-patriots-who- gave-the-ultimate-sacrifice/ 188 Smith, “Memories of British West Indian Service in the First World War”, West India Committee (30-5-2017) http://westindiacommittee.org/caribbeansgreatwar/map/africa/topics/richard-smith-memories-of-british-west-indian- service-in-the-first-world-war/ 189 Smith, “The multicultural First World War”, 355-357. 190 “West Indians in Seaford”, East Sussex World War One (30-5-2017) http://www.eastsussexww1.org.uk/west- indian-soldiers-seaford-2/.

Finally, on June 22, 2017, the first Government funded monument specifically for African and Caribbean servicemen of the First and Second World Wars was unveiled in Brixton. At the unveiling, Defense Secretary Sir Michael Fallon stated: “The UK is indebted to all those servicemen and women from Africa and the Caribbean who volunteered to serve with Britain during the First and Second World Wars. It is thanks to their bravery and sacrifice that we are able to enjoy our freedoms today. We should also congratulate those who have worked tirelessly to place this memorial in the heart of Brixton.”191 The monument was devised by the Nubian Jak Community Trust, an organization that works to place sculptures and plaques dedicated to the accomplishments of non-white people in Britain, starting with a plaque for Bob Marley in 2006.192

Figure 9 African and Caribbean War Memorial in Brixton, London.

Conclusion There are several disparities between the way Indian and West Indian troops were treated and remembered. Indian troops were allowed to fight in Europe, though for a limited amount of time, while West Indian troops were only used as labor forces on the continent. Although some of this

191 “First ever memorial to African and Caribbean Servie Personnel unveiled in Brixton”, gov.uk 22-6-2017 (5-7- 2017) https://www.gov.uk/government/news/first-ever-memorial-to-african-and-caribbean-service-personnel- unveiled-in-brixton. 192 “First ever memorial to African and Caribbean soldiers unveiled in London”, WICNews 24-6-2017 (5-7-2017) http://wicnews.com/caribbean/first-ever-memorial-to-african-and-caribbean-soldiers-unveiled-in-london-46143076/.

might have had to do with the slightly higher standing of Indians on the racial hierarchy, timing was a more important factor. It took longer for West Indians to be mobilized and shipped to Europe. Both groups were subject to racially motivated abuse and became more self-aware of their position in the world, and of the injustice of this position. This injustice was also reflected in the way these men were remembered immediately after the war. British soldiers gained the right to keep their name after death, but at the Basra Monument Indian soldiers were merely remembered as numbers. In Britain, remembrance of non-white soldiers was minimal. As discussed in chapter one, remembrance usually started within the community to work through communal grief, and non-white soldiers were simply not part of these communities. Working animals were embraced in the public imagination and were adopted by communities, resulting in their own monuments. 193 Memorials to colonial soldiers that were erected, such as the Chattri in Brighton, served mainly to maintain the colonial status quo by acknowledging the sacrifice of India. The size and economic importance of India to the British Empire warranted the Chattri, as did the stay of Indian soldiers within the Brighton community. The greater attention to Indian soldiers can be explained by several factors. First of all, the number of men who joined the war effort from the West Indies was far smaller than that from India. About 16,000 Caribbean men served, compared to over a million Indians. Furthermore, the Indian army saw more military action. War meant combat, and combat meant an honorable death which was to be commemorated. Of the 1,256 men from the British West Indies Regiment who died, 1,071 died as a result of illness.194 This meant they had a diminished standing, and were less likely to be remembered.

In the last two decades more energy has been geared towards the remembrance of Indian and West Indian troops. Academic interest has risen, and so has general interest. In the following two chapters, this thesis will focus on the contemporary remembrance of these men, both by institutions and communities. How are these men remembered in Britain when the country is under such political and societal strain?

193 Damousi, “Mourning Practices”, 544. 194 Fryer, Staying power, 296.

Chapter Three Institutional commemoration

This chapter will look at how Indian and West Indian soldiers are remembered by several British institutions during their Centenary programming. The BBC, British Library, Imperial War Museum, and National Army museum all highlight the role of colonial soldiers during the First World War. But how much time they spend on the topic, which approach they take, and what aspects they stress says a lot about the position of colonial soldiers in modern commemoration. This chapter will first describe the works these institutions have produced, before analyzing what messages they send.

Government intent

In October 2012, David Cameron, at the time Prime Minister, ended his speech announcing the government's Centenary plans with the following words: “... let’s get on and do it right.” “Right” to Cameron was an inclusive, commemorative Centenary, which would emphasize sacrifice and unity, both in the UK and within Europe, and beyond: That from such war and hatred can come unity and peace, a confidence and a determination never to go back. However frustrating and however difficult the debates in Europe, 100 years on we sort out our differences through dialogue and meetings around conference tables, not through the battles on the fields of Flanders or the frozen lakes of western Russia.195

Cameron also noted that the Centenary Commission was working closely “with Australians and New Zealanders and others - Canadians” in order to coordinate commemorations across continents. The prime minister gave special attention to how the First World War changed the course of racial history in the UK. He mentioned how 70,000 men from the Indian Empire were lost, and how “the loss of the troopship SS Mendi, in February 1917 and the death of the first black British army officer, Walter Tull, in March 1918, are not just commemorated as tragic moments, but also seen as marking the beginnings of ethnic minorities getting the recognition, respect and

195 “Speech at Imperial War Museum on First World War centenary plans”, gov.uk 11-10-2012 (2-1-2017) https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/speech-at-imperial-war-museum-on-first-world-war-centenary-plans.

equality they deserve.”196 Cameron’s own relationship with race and multiculturalism, however, is complex. While he was prime minister, both in coalition with the Liberal Democrats and later with a Conservative cabinet, the government made drastic budget cuts that disproportionately disadvantaged non-white UK citizens.197 In a speech about terrorism Cameron pronounced in 2012 that “‘multiculturalism is dead’, underscoring the pronouncement by Home Secretary May that ‘equality is a dirty word.’”198 In 2015, Theresa May would succeed Cameron as prime minister after the “leave” outcome of the Brexit referendum. Under the leadership of Cameron and May, the government has chosen to focus on color-blind assimilation, because in their view racial inequalities are a thing of the past.199 Remembrance Sunday of 2016 at the Cenotaph gives further insight into the approach the government takes. The remembrance and its coverage were accompanied by a lot of military pomp and circumstance, with parades and military bands. At the Cenotaph, the clergy of the Anglican Church, politicians, army commanders, representatives of the Commonwealth, the mayor of London, and the royal family lay wreaths. Two minutes of silence are held, and a trumpet salute is given. As representatives lay the wreaths in the 2016 ceremony, the BBC presenter lists all the members of the Commonwealth present: Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Ghana, and Malaysia, who together delivered five million troops for World War One. Nigeria, Cyprus, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda, Kenya, and Malawi are accompanied by the description of a poster used to recruit men in the colonies, depicting a lion on a rock surrounded by younger lions. The list goes on, and the presenter lauds the Bahama forces for their contributions during the First World War. The presenter also makes a point to say that, “They’re all here now, but in 1919 none of those from Africa or the West Indies who’d fought in the First World War were invited to London for this celebration. Only those from India were present.”200 There is no further examination of the position of colonial soldiers, which is not surprising considering the purpose of this remembrance. Remembrance Sunday is about pride and connection. Soldiers, veterans, and their families are a smaller part of the population than

196 Ibidem. 197 Gary Craig, “Invisibilizing ‘race’ in public policy”, Critical Social Policy 34.4 (2013) 716. 198 Ibidem, 717. 199 Ibidem, 718. 200 “2016 UK Remembrance Sunday London BBC Complete”, YouTube 13-11-2016 (21-3-2017) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6P4eNMFifk.

they were a century ago, and this is the moment when the rest of the country and the Commonwealth stand at their sides and recognize their work and sacrifice. It would be difficult to combine criticism of the army and the country’s international politics with the support of its individual members, without undermining their sacrifice and morale. This event is about soldiers and their families, and their losses. As one veteran says, “The poppies to us have names.”201 Remembrance Sunday does not examine the complexities of the colonial contributions to the war effort in order to present a unproblematic present, but how do institutions handle the balance between respectful commemoration and the confrontation of Britain’s racial and colonial past? After the Brexit vote this question has become even more important. In the months following the vote, hate crimes went up as much as 100 percent in England and Wales.202 A substantial number of black and Asian Britons have been confronted with racial abuse: “Over a third of Black, Asian and minority ethnic (Bame) people have been racially abused or have witnessed racist abuse since the Brexit vote, a report reveals. One in five Bame people have suffered or seen a racial assault and two in five – 41 per cent – have heard racist remarks or opinions since Britain’s decision to leave the EU in June 2016.”203 In this chapter, the remembrance of colonial soldiers by British institutions will be examined. Their work will first be described, and subsequently analyzed.

British Broadcasting Company

To mark the Centenary of World War One, the BBC will have produced about 2,500 hours of programming by 2019: from dramas to radio interviews, documentaries, and websites. All of these productions fall under the BBC’s diversity strategy, which gives guidelines for representation of minority groups both in front of and behind the camera.204 The BBC has produced six radio stories specifically about Indian and West Indian soldiers. Five of these are part of The War At Home, a collection of 34 stories, and only one is

201 Ibidem. 202 Jon Sharman and Ian Jones, “Hate crimes rise by up to 100% in England and Wales, figures reveal”, The Independent 15-2-2017 (22-3-2017) http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/brexit-vote-hate-crime- rise-100-per-cent-england-wales-police-figures-new-racism-eu-a7580516.html. 203 Lucy Pasha-Robinson, “One in three Black, Asian or minority ethnic people racially abused since Brexit, study reveals”, The Independent 17-3-2017 (22-3-2017) http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/one-three- black-asian-minority-ethnic-bame-racism-abuse-assault-brexit-hate-crime-tuc-study-a7634231.html. 204 For more on the BBC’s diversity strategy see appendix 2.

about West Indian men. West Ham, London: The Stowaways205 is just under three minutes long and tells the story of nine men who travelled from Barbados to Britain as stowaways in order to join the fight for King and Empire. Richard Smith, whose research has been featured in this thesis, tells the story while accompanied by somber piano music. The focus is on the rejection and ridicule these men faced, and the humiliation and perhaps disillusionment they felt as a result. The next story, Perth, Scotland: Diaspora, Indian Troops in WWI206 has a runtime of 5:18 minutes and has a more militaristic and pompous tone, both from the speakers and the music. While it is recognized that Indian soldiers were seen as second class troops, archivist Richard McKenzie stresses cooperation and respect. He claims that the Indian Army was removed from the Western Front due to internal stress caused by the loss of Indian officers at Neuve Chappelle. He does not acknowledge the role of racism, neither in the treatment of the Indian soldiers during the war or in their lack of remembrance after. In fact, McKenzie seems stumped as to why there is not more remembrance: “Why is that? I don’t know.” The next story, The Royal Pavilion, Brighton: Wartime Indian Hospital207 has a runtime of 18:12 and focusses on the stay of Indian troops at the seaside palace of George IV. Kevin Bacon and Tom Donwin explain the history of the building and the adjustments that were made to facilitate hundreds of men of three different religions and of different castes. Historian Santanu Das, featured in chapter two of this thesis, talks about the social impact of the presence of a large number of Indian men in an English seaside town, both for the English and the Indians. Despite growing restrictions imposed because of racial anxiety, Das says, the Pavilion was presented as a paradise to and by the Indians who stayed there. These men were the first non-aristocratic Indians to reach Britain, and Das stresses that through them the Indian diaspora can forge a bond with 20th century history. One of the aristocratic Indians who reached Britain before the war is discussed in Balliol College, Oxford: The First Indian to Fly with the Royal Flying Corps.208 In just under eight minutes, the story of Oxford student H.S. Malik is told by Jane Markham and Shinder Thandi. Although initially rejected by the British Army, Malik was allowed to join the Flying Corps, where he received special dispensation to wear his turban and fought dogfights over France. After the war he

205 “West Ham, London: The Stowaways”, BBC 21-1-2015(3-4-2017) http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02hcrvy. 206 “Perth, Scotland: Diaspora, Indian Troops in WW1”, BBC 17-11-2014 (3-4-2017) http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02c4kpq. 207 “The Royal Pavilion, Brighton: Wartime Indian Hospital”, BBC 13-2-2014 (3-4-2017) http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01s6x3c. 208 “Balliol College, Oxford: The First Indian to Fly with the Royal Flying Corps”, BBC 30-7-2014 (3-4-2017) http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p022ybgy.

returned to India and had an illustrious political career. In the final story of War At Home, Stony Stanton Road, Coventry: Sikhs in the Trenches,209 Siobhan Harrison interviews Jagdeesh Singh and Colonel Robin Vickers. Singh’s father was crucial in erecting the monument for Sikh soldiers in Coventry, and Singh comments, “here was a lot of debate, discussion, criticism, disagreement. I think this memorial, as good as it is and wonderful as it is, still lacks the accompanying public information.” Meanwhile, Vickers focusses on the military contributions of Sikh soldiers and remembers the respect with which his grandfather spoke of the Sikh he had fought with. In a special one-hour show, Santanu Das travels to India and Pakistan to collect stories about the First World War. The first episode of Soldiers of Empire presents descendants of Indian soldiers, and the songs and plays that were used to recruit them. Some descendants are proud of their grandfather’s contribution; others feel pain and anguish for the way their ancestors were used as cannon fodder. The grave economic conditions that drove men into the army can still be observed in villages. And though the Indian Army was officially made up of volunteers, the program underscores that recruitment wasn’t always entirely voluntary. Landlords, in order to cope with the imposed number of recruitments by the British, would divert water, kidnap wives, and shame men with public nudity in order to force them to join the war effort. Unfortunately, the second episode of this series is not available online. Based on the description, this episode is about Indian experiences on the Western Front, their meeting with Europeans, and the impact of the conflict back in India. For television, the BBC has produced two documentaries about non-white soldiers. Forgotten Warriors of World War One is a BBC Wales production about black soldiers from Wales, and The World’s War: Forgotten Soldiers of Empire tells the story of Indian, African, and Asian troops and of how the war was fought far beyond the Western Front. In Forgotten Warriors,210 presenter Suzanne Packers, herself of Caribbean descent, delves into the war history of Wales and her city, Cardiff. In the thirty minute documentary she is supported by several speakers: professor Hakim Adi, Doctor David Jenkins, Tim Whiteaway, Neil Evans, and descendants of black soldiers. Adi provides the historical context of black

209 “War At Home, Stony Stanton Road, Coventry: Sikhs in the Trenches”, BBC 28-5-2014 (3-4-2017) http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01wtvyq. 210 “Forgotten Warriors of World War One”, BBC 5-7-2016 via YouTube (5-4-2017) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqGmAwDmDLA.

soldiers, stating the pervasiveness of imperialism and white supremacy, and explaining why black soldiers from Wales, Africa, and the Caribbean would want to join up. They were driven by economic circumstances as well as a drive to prove themselves as British patriots. Jenkins, meanwhile, asserts that the black community had been well-established in Cardiff since the 1860s. Whiteaway is a battlefield expert, who tracks the movements of a particular black soldier, Eustace Rhone, across the battlefield at Loos. Evans talks about the social unrest after the war, caused by the return of white sailors, which meant an increased competition for jobs, and by relationships between black men and white women, which undermined racial and sexual norms. As presenter and narrator, Packer explores these histories. She goes to archives to gather information, and talks to the grandchildren of James Augustus Headley, one of the earliest Caribbean immigrants to Cardiff. They tell her about their grandfather’s experiences during and after the war, when their grandparents were targets during the race riots of 1919. Eustace Rhone is highlighted as one of the few black men from Wales who were able to enlist in the British Army - i.e. not in a segregated regiment - and one of the victims of the disastrous gas attack by the British at Loos. Rhone was one of the men who died from the friendly gas. There is a brief aside to mention the Yemeni and Somali seamen who came to Cardiff as recruit of the merchant navy. Finally, Packers investigates the fate of Caribbean soldiers who were repatriated, and a mutiny on a ship called the Orca, where one Caribbean soldier was shot dead and five more arrived home in chains. Packer calls the war “the start of a battle of acceptance, which would take generations to win.” The second documentary about colonial soldiers, The World’s War: Forgotten Soldiers of Empire, was produced by David Olusoga, a Nigerian-British historian and film-maker. Of the two one-hour episodes, only ten minutes are accessible on the BBC website at the time of writing.211 Based on the clips available, there are several observations that can be made. Surrounded by high production values, David Olusoga himself takes us through the history of colonial soldiers during the First World War, and does not just focus on the European site of the narrative. He explores the participation of the Ottoman Empire in the war, and of men from all over the world. Olusoga presents the history of the war from an imperial and colonial perspective, and calls the colonial soldiers the “human capital” of the European empires. Imperialism and racism are explicitly discussed, as they are in the accompanying book The

211 Efforts to buy the show online or find it via libraries have proven fruitless.

World’s War.212 The program has been well received by Richard Smith, who has pointed to the documentary as a key example of television which has contributed to the recognition of non- white participation.213 So far the BBC has produced ten dramas about the Great War, of which five aired on television. In the television productions, all main characters are white, and only two offer representations of colonial soldiers. In The Passing Bells (2015) there are a few references to and appearances by West Indian soldiers. At one point in the series, which follows an English and a German soldier, the German soldier Michael Lang and his regiment are captured by British forces. “There’s a BWI prisoner detail leaving in half-an-hour,” shouts an English sergeant, soon followed by the image of a black soldier wearing a badge with the BWI acronym. One of the Germans who were captured by the black regiment observes, “They don’t seem so different from us.” As the German prisoners march through the forest, one of them tries to escape. His friend, who volunteered as a decoy, is shot by a BWI soldier, even as he raises his arms to signal surrender. In The Crimson Field (2014), a drama about British nurses in France, Jamaican private George Shoemaker is brought to the field hospital. He has suffered a head wound and has been rendered mute. His father Noah rushes to his bedside, and expresses concern that his son might die soon. The visiting wife of a wounded officer tells him, “I’m sure you’re quite wrong. I’m sure everything will be perfectly fine. It will all be as it was before.”

British Library

The British Library, which was founded in the 1973, holds over 625 kilometers in material. Old book collections, manuscripts, and objects are accompanied by colonial records and a sound archive. It creates exhibitions about various historical and cultural subjects, from the Russian Revolution to queer history and Harry Potter. As an educational institution is also publishes books and articles based on its collection, and hosts information on its website. For the World War One Centenary, it has created a special section of the site and an educational program to be used in schools.

212 David Olusoga, The World’s War (London 2014). This book is not present in the UvA library nor in the OBA. 213 Smith, “Muticultural commemoration”, 9.

The World War One website of the British Library has articles, collection items, videos, and teaching resources which are divided in themes. Of the 63 articles, eight are part of the theme Race, Empire and Colonial Troops.214 The collection has 87 items related to the same theme, but there is no video about the subject. The articles are written by academics, among whom Santanu Das. They offer concise historical descriptions with approximately the same content and tone as the literature examined in chapter two of this thesis. Images from the collection illustrate the stories, and further academic reading is provided for those interested. Of the eight articles, four are specifically about colonial troops and workers: “Experiences of colonial troops” and “The Indian Sepoy in the First World War” by Santanu Das, “Race, racism and military strategy” and “Contract workers in World War One” by Richard Fogarty, “Wounding in World War One” by Julie Anderson, “Combat and the soldier’s experience in World War One” by Vanda Wilcox, and “Daily life of soldiers” by Paul Cornish all mention or show colonial soldiers, while “Fighting for the Empire: Canada’s Great War in photographs” by Philip Hatfield examines the Canadian war experience. A similar division can be seen in the teaching resources offered by the British Library.215 There, only two resources belong in the theme Race, empire and colonial troops properly: “Experiences of colonial and Commonwealth troops” and “India and World War One.” The other resources are part of the themes Civilians and Life as a soldier. In these resources, images and letters by colonial soldiers are used to illustrate topics like daily life in the trenches and on the battlefield, health and hospitals, and hardship and loyalty. Students are encouraged to explore key questions about these subjects. About colonial and commonwealth troops, students are asked: “Which other nations used colonial troops? Did they all receive the same treatment and have the same experiences? How important do you think their contribution was?” About Indian soldiers, they are asked: “What is your mental image of a soldier on the Western Front during World War One? Do you know who controlled India in 1914? What roles do you think Indian troops carried out on the Western Front? Were there any issues affecting the service of Indian troops that British troops did not face? What prejudices did the involvement of Indian forces highlight and also dismiss?” In other resources, questions are asked that could be pertinent to

214 “Race, empire and colonial troops”, British Library (24-4-2017) https://www.bl.uk/world-war-one/themes/race- empire-and-colonial-troops. 215 “Teaching recourses”, British Library (19-4-2017) https://www.bl.uk/world-war-one/teaching- resources?related_themes=race%20empire%20and%20colonial%20troops.

colonial experiences and the European experience of colonial soldiers. For instance: “What difficulties did soldiers face in the trenches? Was life the same for all?” Or: “What might motivate someone to continue to support or participate in the war despite experiencing personal loss or injury?” The teaching tools are accompanied by extensive teacher’s notes and online resources.

Imperial War Museum

The Imperial War Museum, founded during the First World War, has not held any exhibitions focusing on colonial experiences of the war. In 2014, there was a large exhibition called Truth and Memory, about British reactions to the conflict during and since the war.216 Even though 2015 was part of the Centenary, that year more attention was given to the Second World War because of the 70 year anniversary of the end of the conflict.217 In 2016, the battle of the Somme was remembered.218 This year, 2017, will be marked by special attention for pacifism and resistance against the war.219 On its website, the IWM presents the stories of colonial and commonwealth soldiers in six articles. Two of these are longreads, three are picture stories, and one is a learning resource. The two longreads, both written by Lisa Peatfield, are about the West Indian contribution to the war effort. In “The story of the British West Indies Regiment in the First World War,”220 she quickly tracks the BWIR throughout the war. Quotes from white army commanders command the Regiment for its work and effort, the contributions of the Regiment are stressed by Peatfield, and she shortly discusses the mutiny in Taranto. The other article, “How the West Indies helped the war effort in the First World War,”221 examines how the war was perceived in the Caribbean. Here Peatfield explains the motivation of volunteers – i.e. proving loyalty, hope for self-

216 “What’s on at IWM in 2014”, IWM December 2013 (24-4-2017) http://www.iwm.org.uk/sites/default/files/press- release/IWM_Year_Ahead.pdf. 217 “What’s On at Imperial War Museums in 2015”, IWM (24-4-2017) http://www.iwm.org.uk/sites/default/files/press-release/2015-at-IWM.pdf. 218 “2016 at Imperial War Museums”, IWM (24-4-2017) http://www.iwm.org.uk/sites/default/files/press- release/Imperial%20War%20Museums%202016%20Highlights.pdf. 219 “Imperial War Museums announces 2017 programme”, IWM (24-4-2017) http://www.iwm.org.uk/sites/default/files/press-release/Press%20Release_IWM%202017%20Programme_0.pdf. 220 Lisa Peatfield, “The Story Of The British West Indies Regiment In The First World War”, IWM (24-4-2017) http://www.iwm.org.uk/history/the-story-of-the-british-west-indies-regiment-in-the-first-world-war. 221 Lisa Peatfield, “How The West Indies Helped The War Effort In The First World War”, IWM (24-4-2017) http://www.iwm.org.uk/history/how-the-west-indies-helped-the-war-effort-in-the-first-world-war.

governance – , how they were recruited, and the monetary contributions the islands made. Despite being called long-reads on the website, the articles are relatively short and don’t delve deep into the subject. For example, Peatfield mentions that the War Office was not eager to accept volunteers from the West Indies or to let black men fight at the front, but she does not go into why that was. The first of the photo stories is “12 photos of the Indian Army in the First World War.”222 The photos show soldiers and laborers in training, recreation, and prayer in the Middle East, Eastern Africa and on the Western Front. “15 photos of the ANZACs at Gallipoli” shows the Australian, New Zealand, and Canadian troops fighting, resting, and relaxing in Turkey. It includes one photo of a Maori soldier smiling at the camera.223 Finally, “The role of Empire and Commonwealth troops during the battle of the Somme” shows pictures related to specific colonies or territories: Newfoundland, West Indies, India, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada.224 In every story the photos are accompanied by a short text giving information about the image, such as when and where it was taken and what activities can be seen. The learning resource “The Empire called to arms” focuses what contributions colonies and territories made to the British war effort.225 The website consists of photos, paintings, and videos with short explanatory texts. All of these are also available in the form of a powerpoint, for easy use in the classroom. In an accompanying PDF-file, suggestions for classroom activities are made.226 Teachers are encouraged to use the provided images to challenge their students’ about the First World War, to have them think about why these photos were taken, or to recreate a photo. It is not clear what age group this resource is aimed at, but the material is indeed suited for challenging childrens’ (or more likely teenagers’) conceptions about the war: black soldiers from the West Indies and Africa in uniform, wounded Sikh soldiers donning their turbans, laborers in Kenya, and African women selling grain are not the usual staple of World War One imagery.

222 “12 Photos Of The Indian Army In The First World War”, IWM (24-4-2017) http://www.iwm.org.uk/history/12- photos-of-the-indian-army-in-the-first-world-war. 223 “The Role Of Empire And Commonwealth Troops During The Battle Of The Somme”, IWM (24-4-2017) http://www.iwm.org.uk/history/the-role-of-empire-and-commonwealth-troops-during-the-battle-of-the-somme. 224 “15 Photos Of The ANZACs At Gallipoli”, IWM (24-4-2017) http://www.iwm.org.uk/history/15-photos-of-the- anzacs-at-gallipoli. 225 Charlie Keitch, “The Empire called to Arms”, IWM (24-4-2017) http://www.iwm.org.uk/learning/resources/the- empire-called-to-arms. 226 “Digital Learning Resources”, IWM (24-4-2017) http://www.iwm.org.uk/sites/default/files/learning_resource/Suggested%20Activities.pdf.

National Army Museum

The National Army Museum, established in 1970, is “a leading authority on the British Army and its impact on society past and present.”227 It aims to connect the British public with the British Army, regardless of age, gender, race, and religion. During the Centenary the museum has put extra emphasis on the First World War. Every year, it chooses a different focus. In 2014, the outbreak of the war was in the spotlight, in 2015 Empire and Commonwealth, in 2016 Volunteers and conscripts, in 2017 Women, and finally in 2018 the focus will be on the fallout of the war. As part of the Centenary remembrance, the museum has produced videos, created exhibitions, and organized talks about the theme of that particular year. A special website dedicated to World War One in focus provides soldiers’ stories, events, a timeline of the war, news, stories about the years’ themes, and learning resources. The soldiers’ stories are exclusively about white men and women.228 The timeline is an extensive chronology of battles both on the European continent and beyond.229 In the news section visitors can find announcements about talks and new videos on the website, as well as publications about projects.230 The story which most stands out is titled “Commemorating the 15th Ludhiana Sikhs,” which is about a community project where members of the British Sikh community dive into the world of the 15th Ludhiana Sikhs, who fought on the Western Front and in Egypt: “Volunteers have learnt much about the regiment’s daily experiences of war. They have been taught vital skills used by the 15th Ludhiana Sikhs such as marching, rifle drills, cooking daal with First World War rations and camping out in tents. The recreated regiment is now touring events across the country, to help commemorate and raise understanding of the contribution that the Indian Army made to the war effort.”231 As part of the 2015 commemoration, the National Army Museum produced seven videos, of which four are short documentaries and three are interviews with the public at one of their events. The documentaries are about Gallipoli, East Africa, the Western Front, and Palestine, and the contributions made by Empire and Commonwealth troops. All four have the same introduction:

227 “About the Museum”, NAM (25-4-2017) https://www.nam.ac.uk/about/about-the-museum. 228 “Soldiers’ Stories”, NAM (31-5-2017) http://ww1.nam.ac.uk/stories/. 229 “Timeline”, NAM (31-4-2017) http://ww1.nam.ac.uk/timeline/#.WS6B7uF96Hs. 230 “News”, NAM (31-5-2017) http://ww1.nam.ac.uk/news/. 231 Lucy Richardson, “Commemorating the 15th Ludhiana Sikhs”, NAM 29-7-2014 (24-4-2017) http://ww1.nam.ac.uk/786/news/commemorating-15th-ludhiana-sikhs/#.WP8rEvR9601.

When Britain went to war in 1914 its professional army of three quarters of a million men was small by European standards and suffered huge casualties in the early battles of the war. Over the next four years, 8 million men were conscripted or recruited into the British armed forces; almost half came from outside the UK. Without their service and sacrifice, Britain would have lost the war. They came from across the Empire, from the plains and the mountains, from tiny islands and vast continents, serving on every front from the Equator to the Arctic Circle. Wherever they came from, they served the same cause half a world away from home. And one in ten of them never made it back.232

The documentaries focus heavily on battles, with descriptions of campaigns and enumerations of participants and casualties. Every time it is stressed that these losses were not in vain, since without the “heroic” sacrifice and effort of colonial and dominion troops a particular battle would not have been won, and without that battle the war could not have been won. The stories are told by a severe male voice-over, accompanied by dramatic and tragic music, and dozens of Ken Burns shots of photographs. In the interview videos, visitors of a National Army Museum event are asked three questions: “What do ‘Commonwealth’ and ‘British Empire’ mean to you?”233 “Why did soldiers from the Empire and Commonwealth serve in the First World War?”234 and “Would you volunteer to fight for Britain today?”235 The interviewees are a wide variety of people, black, South Asian, and white, gay and straight, and their answers are just as varied as they are. A middle-aged Caribbean woman associates the British Empire with nostalgia, and states that soldiers joined the fight because they knew how important it was for Britain to stand as one. She says she would fight for Britain today if the need arises. A lot of people think of invasion and riches when they think of the Empire. One British Indian woman calls herself a “child of empire,” because her grandparents and parents were all born outside of Britain but under British rule. She would like for people to learn what the Empire means to people now, not just what it was then. The Commonwealth has better associations than Empire, and some see it as the positive result of imperialism. An older black woman sees the Commonwealth as shared history

232 “Western Front”, NAM (25-4-2017) http://ww1.nam.ac.uk/videos/empire-commonwealth-western- front/#.WP8sqPR9600. 233 “What Do ‘Commonwealth’ and ‘British Empire’ Mean to You?”, NAM (25-4-2017) http://ww1.nam.ac.uk/videos/commonwealth-british-empire-mean/#.WP859_R9600. 234 Why Did Soldiers from the Empire and Commonwealth Serve in the First World War?””, NAM (25-4-2017) http://ww1.nam.ac.uk/videos/think-soldiers-commonwealth-empire-volunteered-fight-first-world- war/#.WP86LfR9600. 235 “Would You Volunteer to Fight for Britain Today?”, NAM (25-4-2017) http://ww1.nam.ac.uk/videos/volunteer- fight-britain-today/#.WP86aPR9600.

and activities. A young black man says that it’s the following: “You can be associated with our riches, but you can’t have any of yours back.” And older white man thinks the Commonwealth is a British attempt to pay the colonies back for “some of the naughty things” the Empire had done. When it comes to participation of Empire and Commonwealth soldiers in the war, answers differ as well. One older white woman says she honestly doesn’t know why those men served during the war. A young Indian man in a turban says he thinks men joined up for money, the attraction of a campaign to go abroad, and maybe also pride. A white woman thinks it was an amazing thing for them to do, but doesn’t know if they had much choice in doing it, and that their assistance should be more properly recognized than it is now. To a black woman, it seems like they wanted to do it for the greater good and to be part of something. A young black man sums it up as follows: “If we help you out, you will give us our freedom. And in that respect there was a betrayal.” Both he and a young white man point to poverty as a possible reason to join the army. When asked the question whether they would volunteer to fight for Britain today, the answers generally fall into groups. Most white men say no, they would not fight, while most non-white men say that they would fight, especially if the values they stand for – e.g. democracy – are challenged. One young Indian man who initially says “no” modifies that answer; because you never know what rights you might have to defend for yourself and your children. Women are evenly distributed, some of them would and some of them would not. Those who would not fight mostly state the horrors of war as a reason to not want to participate, point to ways to fight for your country that do not involve the battlefield, or say they prefer diplomatic solutions. A young black woman says she would not feel compelled to fight for Britain, since people from other places, like the Caribbean, weren’t treated well by the army in the past. Finally, the National Army Museum offers five teaching resources. Four of these correspond with the short documentaries mentioned above. The lessons about Gallipoli, East Africa, the Western Front, and Palestine are very much about the battles, and offer little to no historical context about colonial involvement in the war. Empire is a given, and race is not central to the discussion. The fifth resource, about war hero Khudadad Khan, focuses on the contributions and sacrifices of colonial troops, but does not directly mention what kind of treatment they received from members of the British Army. The only mention of poor treatment is the lack of warm clothing they suffered from. Teachers are encouraged to ask their students:

“Do you feel it is the role of an independent charity to organise this?” This, however, is the extent of it.

Analysis

During this Centenary, institutions have certainly made an effort to include the stories of colonial stories in their programming. The BBC, British Library, Imperial War Museum, and National Army museum have done this with varying degrees of success. This is a complex history with difficult ties to modern Britain, and it is not easy to combine Cameron’s call for unity with historical (or modern) reality.

BBC

The BBC has a sharp focus on what the history of the First World War means for modern society, and this includes the way colonial participation is presented. Seemingly geared towards a white British audience, the shows tell us that these men fought with “us” and are therefore part of Britishness too. The issue of racism is discussed but decidedly positioned in the past, as illustrated by this phrase from Suzanne Packer in Forgotten Warriors: “Those who remained in Wales had survived one battle. But another was just beginning, a battle for acceptance that would take generations to win.”236 Her phrasing implies that the battle has been won, and by placing racial and issues of race in the past, the modern audience does not feel compelled to think about racism in their own society. In Santanu Das’s show about the Indian war experience, he travels to India to explore the lasting impact of the First World War. While this is a valuable story that is worthy of being explored, it also positions any difficult topics far away from the audience. Not only are the people telling stories to Das on the other side of the world, they are also not part of British society and thus are less likely to cause any racial anxiety in a white audience.237 The white speakers in other shows also avoid having to talk about modern racial issues, and Richard Vickers goes so far as to stress that when he grew up sitting on his grandfather’s knee, he used to tell him how brave the Indian forces were and how much respect he had for

236 “Forgotten Warriors”, BBC https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqGmAwDmDLA (25-4-2017). 237 It could be argued that this is also why I am writing a thesis on the history of racial commemoration in the UK, instead of a similar subject in the Netherlands. Distance makes it easier to deal with this subject.

them.238 In the speaker's world everything is perfectly fine, which contrasts with the criticism Jagdeesh Singh uttered, when he commented that “there was a lot of debate, discussion, criticism, disagreement. I think this memorial, as good as it is and wonderful as it is, still lacks the accompanying public information.” In the radio show this statement remains vague, but is clearer in an article on the BBC website. In it, he calls for a more prominent place for the monument and more information, as well as more mainstream coverage of the Indian contribution to the war effort: The initiative by the many groups, the many activists who brought this together, that's unquestionable and highly commendable. But I think with a bit more thought we need to see a memorial a lot more prominent in a lot more publicly accessible places, such as for example the Coventry (city) Centre. A memorial which is more informative... more vivid, where the ordinary citizen of Coventry can access (it), Sikh, non-Sikh, English, Scottish, Asian... that would be a lot more fitting. … My grandfather, and others like him, never even set foot in this country, and they were dying in their thousands for this country.239

In Singh’s eyes, his family and people have earned their place in Britain and its recognition for the sacrifices they made. The history of colonial soldiers is mainly told on radio. This decreases the exposure of these stories, especially considering the time when these stories aired. At 11 o’clock on a Wednesday morning the reach of Das’s radio cannot have been great. The same goes for David Olusoga’s documentary series World’s War: Forgotten Soldiers of Empire, which aired on Thursdays around midnight. Suzanne Packer’s Forgotten Warriors of World War One aired on a Tuesday at 22:45. The BBC has not pushed these shows as central programming of the Centenary, but more as notes in the margin. In runtime the representation is meagre as well. Of 2,500 hours of programming, less than 10 are dedicated to the stories of colonial soldiers. Of the time that is allotted to them, a lot is spent on Indian soldiers. Only one radio show is about West Indian soldiers. The amount of representation in dramas is even smaller. Two large serial dramas feature, as we’ve seen, West Indian soldiers, but not without being unproblematic. In The Crimson Field, George Shoemaker is rendered mute. This means he does not get to tell his own story, and we

238 “War At Home, Stony Stanton Road, Coventry: Sikhs in the Trenches”, BBC 28-5-2014 (3-4-2017) http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01wtvyq. 239 “Coventry Sikh war memorial plea”, BBC News 2-6-2014 (31-5-2017) http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england- coventry-warwickshire-27429285.

have no idea of his internal life. As Richard Smith notes, “In this setting, Shoemaker becomes a one-dimensional character, part of a multicultural box-ticking exercise.”240 The Passing Bells does not do any better. The West Indian soldiers are introduced from the German point of view, making them the enemy instead of the protagonist. The shooting of a surrendering German soldier by a West Indian soldier is also problematic. Again, Smith: The effect of these scenes is to present the black West Indian troops as less compassionate and more careless than their white counterparts, almost echoing Robert Graves who remarked that, “The presence of semi-civilized colored troops in Europe was, from the German point of view, we knew, one of the chief Allied atrocities. We sympathized.” The responsibility for the barbarity of war is thus shifted to the non-white troops drawn into the conflict through imperial connections.241

The Passing Bells treats the British and German narrative with equal sympathy (corresponding with Cameron’s call for a united commemoration), but only if the characters are white. Black men are not the heroes of the story, but passive and mute or compassionless, and Indian characters are absent altogether. The BBC’s general emphasis on unity and belonging, with problems of racism being positioned in the past and multiple titles with the word “forgotten” in them without an examination of why these men were forgotten, bring to mind the BBC’s “Abolition Season” of 2007. In that year, the BBC commemorated the bicentenary of the British slave trade. Historian Ross Wilson has criticized this programming of having “a state of selective amnesia. What was promoted in these programs was not recognition and reconciliation but a remembering to forget.”242 The BBC has improved some since 2007. With some exceptions – particularly white guests on shows such as Richard McKenzie and Robin Vickers – the main narratives do not “present a stable multicultural past,”243 but it does present a stable multicultural present that has overcome all the troubles of the past. It seems that instead of repressing painful histories “to preserve an apparent calm,”244 the BBC in its World War One Centenary programming is repressing a painful present. The motivation is the same as in 2007, however: “The concept of

240 Smith, “The Multicultural First World War”, 359. 241 Smith, “Multicultural commemoration”, 8-9. 242 Ross Wilson, “Remembering to forget? - the BBC abolition season and the media memory of Britain’s Transatlantic slave trade”, in Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 28.3 (2008) 392. 243 Idem, 396. 244 Idem, 402.

the program schedule had therefore to be one that would not alienate its largely white British audience.”245

British Library

The British Library has excelled in providing concise, encompassing, and critical histories of Indian and West Indian involvement in the First World War. By recruiting academics to write for the website and providing further reading they created an excellent starting point for anyone interested in the topic. The research for this thesis did not start at the BL website, but it could have. Aside from dedicating special articles to colonial soldiers, efforts are also made to include their stories and images in more general articles about war experiences, such as “Wounding in the First World War,” “Combat and the soldier’s experience in World War One,” “Contract workers in World War One,” and “The daily life of soldiers.” By presenting their history to those who did not specifically look for it, their history becomes part of the mainstream. The teaching resources are not afraid to be critical, either. In the tool “Experiences of colonial and Commonwealth troops” teachers are encouraged to “ask students to evaluate the treatment of soldiers from each different country. Was everyone’s contributions judged the same? What factors of the time might affect how people were judged?” These questions dive right into the scientific racism and imperialism of the time, a crucial aspect to understanding the circumstances of colonial soldiers. In “Health and hygiene,” teachers and students are directed to the Sikh Museum246 and asked what the Kitchener Hospital can reveal “firstly about attitudes towards racial and ethnic segregation, and secondly towards how vital Indian troops were seen to be to the war effort at the time?” Just as is the case with the BBC, however, there is no indication that these issues might still exist in the present. Teachers can of course bring this up in class, but the British Library carefully avoids the issue, because in other cases students are encouraged to compare the past and the present. For instance in “Daily life in the trenches,” students are asked to compare their daily life to that of soldiers during the war. The reference images for this assignment are photographs called “British soldier washing in a shell crater” and “An Alpine barber in the trenches of Cerna.” The historical sources for this resource include a photograph of

245 Idem, 401. 246 See chapter four for more on the Sikh Museum and its exhibit about the Brighton Pavilion and the Kitchener Hospital.

Indian infantry digging trenches. By including a photograph of Indian or black soldiers in this particular assignment, students would be asked to think about the internal lives of those soldiers, instead of just thinking about their treatment by Europeans. Moreover, students of Indian, Caribbean, and African heritage would be able to see themselves as part of the main narrative of the First World War. The British Library does not, however, ask teachers and students to critically look at the origin of these photographs. The possible ethnographic and anthropological interest and gaze with which these images were produced is not mentioned, nor how widespread this way of thinking was – as illustrated by the “quasi-ethnographic voice” nurses used to describe their non-white patients247 – this interest might have distorted the historical reality. While this issue is not insignificant, the main criticism raised against the British Library, which overall does a good job of showing the history of colonial soldiers, would have to be that there is hardly any representation of African, West Indian, or East Asian soldiers and laborers. The main focus of the British Library is on Indian participation.

Imperial War Museum

The Imperial War Museum has produced hardly anything substantial about colonial soldiers. The two articles by Peatfield about West Indian contributions are the most informative, but even those are not thorough. There is no discussion of the racial aspect of Empire. Peatfield mentions that black volunteers were initially turned down, but does not go into why that was. She does not explain the role of pervasive, institutional, and scientific racism that led the government and army to make that decision. When racism, poor treatment, and the Taranto mutiny are described, there is again no mention of the underlying factors. The emphasis is on the accomplishments of the British West Indies Regiment, and there are almost as many mentions of contemporary praise as there are descriptions of poor treatment. In “The Story of the British West Indies Regiment in the First World War,” Peatfield quotes Field Marshal Haig, who in 1917 said of the BWIR: “[Their] work has been arduous and has been carried out almost continuously under shell-fire. In spite of casualties the men have always shown themselves willing and cheerful workers, and the assistance they have rendered has been much appreciated by the units to which they have been attached and for whom they have been working. The physique of the men is exceptional, their discipline excellent and their morale high.”

247 Alison S. Fell, “Nursing the Other”, 167.

This is a good example of a compliment that has a strong racist context. It is reminiscent of the way slaves were described as happy and merry, and how they were valued for their physical strength. As Sara Ahmed puts it in her The Promise of Happiness: “The coloniser might inculcate habits in the colonized, treat him/her violently if need be, speak to him/her as a child, reprimand or congratulate him/her.”248 Peatfield does not examine this context, but instead focuses on the fact that the BWIR was praised by army commanders. The learning resource “The Empire called to arms” encourages teachers to challenge students’ ideas about the First World War using photographs of colonial troops. What the IWM does not do is provide any context to this challenge. What are the most important misconceptions about the war and how did they come about? Why have these men been forgotten? This is a recurring issue, as the BBC and the British Library also do not ask these questions. It is another way in which the potentially problematic present is avoided. In the case of the Imperial War Museum this is especially noteworthy, considering the program they started in 2012 called “Whose remembrance.”249 This research project aimed to investigate the state of research into colonial contributions to the two World Wars, and to fill in existing gaps. In a short movie (20 minutes) produced for the project and distributed to schools, historians - among whom of course Santanu Das - proclaim excitement for future discoveries and frustration for the way this history has been ignored. Based on interviews with historians and community organizers, the message of the movie is that by studying the war, people can be brought together through sharing stories, and that communities can gain self-esteem by knowing their own history. It seems the Imperial War Museum has not been successful in reaching its own proclaimed goals during this Centenary season, at least within its own organization. The Museum has worked with other organizations to produce projects about colonial soldiers, such as Empire, Faith & War (see chapter four), but does not promote these projects on its own website, not does it host exhibitions made by outside organizations.

248 Sara Ahmed, The Promise of Happiness (Durham 2010) 129. 249 “Whose Remembrance?”, IWM (26-4-2017) http://www.iwm.org.uk/research/research-projects/whose- remembrance.

National Army Museum

It is not surprising that as an institution, the National Army Museum tells a militaristic history of the First World War. In 2015, the year it dedicated to Empire and Commonwealth, most of its output described the movements of colonial soldiers across different battlefields. It lists participants and casualties, and portrays colonial soldiers as heroes deserving of respect. The broader societal impact of colonial participation in the war is not examined, even though the museum calls itself “a leading authority on the British Army and its impact on society in past and present.”250 In order to properly look at this aspect of the war, the NAM would have to look critically at the army. At the same time the museum aims to connect the British public with its army, and these missions seem to stand in each other’s way. Although it is possible to be critical of past actions of the army and at the same time connect people to its individual soldiers, the museum chose to not critically examine past racism. The most interesting product the NAM produced for this Centenary season is the interviews with the public at one of their events. While the museum itself does not take a critical stance, its visitors do. The tendency of white people to be critical of the army and Empire in past and present contrasts with the tendency of nonwhite people to hesitate to criticize the past and they're more likely proclamation to be prepared for Britain today. Immigrants, especially those of color, have a precarious position in Britain.251 They are not perceived as British and continuously need to prove their loyalty in order to be tolerated, be it through assimilating to cultural practices, serving in the army, or supporting the right football club. Chapter four will look at the position of West Indian and Indian immigrants in Britain and how these communities use the commemoration of World War One to position themselves in Britain.

Conclusion

Institutions work to include non-white soldiers in their World War One Centenary program, but are not wholesale successful. The consensus is that the stories of these men have been ignored for too long, and now is the time to tell them. There is no in-depth discussion on why these stories have gone untold, however. The discussed institutions form part of the mainstream of

250 “About the Museum”, NAM (25-4-2017) https://www.nam.ac.uk/about/about-the-museum.

251 This situation is of course not exclusive to Britain; immigrants around the world deal with this issue, especially if they are perceived as “other” because of their race and/or religion.

public history in the UK but do not seem keen to examine their own role when it comes to the issue of marginalized histories. Their position in the mainstream can be a hindrance to this; the majority of the public has to connect to the products these institutions produce. Some institutions are limited by their character and the form their products take. The National Army Museum, for instance, is a sponsored by the British Department of Defense.252 This makes an overtly critical stance towards the Army – and engagement in contemporary political debate – difficult, and explains the emphasis on military actions and contributions made to those actions by colonial soldiers. The Imperial War Museum is in a not dissimilar position. It was refurbished using Centenary funds, and after closing for construction in 2012 it re-opened in 2014. Not all the money came from the government, however, “as Lord Ashcroft, Sir David Barclay (owner of the Daily Telegraph), Lord Rothermere (owner of the Daily Mail) and Evgeny Lebedev (owner of the Evening Standard and the Independent)”253 provided donations and had their names featured on the wall of sponsors. Lord Ashcroft is a member of the Conservative Party and most of the newspapers the other men own are right-leaning. As Louis Allday, a PhD candidate at the School for Oriental and African Studies in London, observed during his visit, the IWM is not very critical of Britain’s past: “A striking aspect of the IWM, particularly so given its name, is the glaring lack of references to British Imperial warfare it contains. Aside from a few cursory references to conflicts related to the end of Empire and the transition towards the Commonwealth, the British Empire is conspicuously absent from much of the museum.”254 Military medals awarded to soldiers who fought in imperialist war are presented without context, and the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is discussed without naming a culprit. But for Allday the most telling sign of the character of the IWM is the omnipresence of Winston Churchill in the gift shop. I walked out past the museum’s gift shop where, amongst numerous posters reflecting the ongoing and widespread nostalgia in Britain for an idealised 1940s, I saw one that depicted Winston Churchill — a man who while serving in Sudan shot at least five men whom he described as “simple-minded savages“ — holding a Thompson submachine gun. Indeed, the IWM’s online gift shop actually has an entire section devoted to Churchill-related paraphernalia.

252 “National Army Museum”, Gov.uk (31-5-2017) https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/national-army- museum. 253 Louis Allday, “The Imperial War Museum in London: A Lesson in State Propaganda?”, MRonline 7-9-2016 (31- 5-2017) https://mronline.org/2016/09/07/allday070916-html/. 254 Ibidem.

This deep-rooted veneration, not to mention monetisation, of Churchill, callous racist that he was, speaks to the heart of the problem in this country.255

All of these observations are indicative of stance of the IWM within modern British society, and makes the lack of representation of colonial soldiers in the mainstream Centenary material of the IWM not at all surprising. The lack of discussion of racism and imperialism in the material specifically about colonial soldiers also fits into the picture of the IWM Allday has painted. It should be noted, however, that the IWM contributes to projects outside of its own organization. In chapter four we will see that they helped a Sikh community project to produce a website and an exhibition about the Indian contribution to the war effort. This did not result in an exhibition at the IWM and is not featured on its website, and as a result the character of the physical museum in London retains its character, presenting the past without raising problematic questions. The BBC has a long history with colonialism, as it was itself part of the machine of Empire. Especially in the West Indies, where schools had been a center of cultural colonization, the BBC was used to strengthen the identification of West Indians with Britain: “Top BBC officials and government functionaries in departments such as the Colonial Office and the wartime Ministry of Information shared a belief that the primary purpose of broadcasting to and in the West Indies was to further loyalty to Britain.”256 Now no longer a tool of imperialism, the BBC has struggled for decades to fairly represent the British public. Although the BBC had been working on this since the 1990s, in 2007 Yasmin Alibhai-Brown wrote a column to indict the company. All major shows were presented by white people, and mostly men at that. These included shows about foreign countries: “Every adventure and discovery programme into foreign parts, from Africa to China, has a white, male presenter.”257 In this regard the BBC has made some progress in its Centenary coverage, with for instance Santanu Das and Suzanne Packer. But a large part of presenters and speakers are still white Britons. This distorts the narrative, as the stories are told by through white people to make it palatable to other white people. This stops a frank discussion about modern racism from taking place, as those problems are placed firmly in the past.

255 Ibidem. 256 Darrell Newton, “Calling the West Indies: the BBC World Service and Caribbean voices”, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 28.4 (2008) 489. 257 Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, “The real reason for all the white faces at the BBC”, The Independent 5-3-2007.

Finally, the British Library is also sponsored by a branch of the British government, namely the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. As a research institution it has a more open character than the IWM or the NAM, and it shows in the material they produced. Academics have written concise histories for the project, with suggestions for further reading. Its teaching tools challenge teachers and students to revise their thinking of the First World War, and an effort is made to include stories and images of colonial soldiers into the mainstream curriculum. It could take a final step by inciting critical thinking about the production of photographs of colonial soldiers, but aside from that the main issue that arises is that most of the representation of those soldiers comes in the form of Indian men. Soldiers from other colonies are hardly featured. Overall, institutions hail Indian and West Indian soldiers as heroes who sacrificed themselves for the British cause and did not get enough in return. Poor treatment during the war and the lack of reward after the war are recurring themes, though not always thoroughly explored. Institutions place the difficulties colonial soldiers faced firmly in the past, and sometimes heavily imply that the racism these men battled has been defeated. Because of this, their white audience does not have to analyze present society or their own actions and opinions. Furthermore, the integration of colonial stories in mainstream programming is still meagre. These stories still tend to stand alone, and while placed in a wider context, that context does not always include them in return. I would argue that there is no malicious intention in the lack of attention given to either Indians or West Indians by individual institutions, or in the appeasing tone used to describe the present. Rather, it is a form of cultural aphasia, as introduced by Ann Laura Stoller. She described it as “a disremembering, a difficulty speaking, a difficulty generating a vocabulary that associates appropriate words and concepts to appropriate things.”258 In the case of colonial soldiers, it is not the case that they have been actively forgotten. Britain’s imperial past still plays a large part in public imagination, but that imagination is often romanticized, as we saw in the case of the Imperial War Museum. Atrocities and hardship perpetrated on former colonies are not part of the main public discourse, not remembered, and as a result there is no common language to discuss them or the contributions of colonial soldiers. Institutions have to do double work when representing colonial soldiers during the Centenary: they have to explain the role

258 Ann Laura Stoller, “Colonial Aphasia: Race and Disabled Histories in France”, Public Culture 23 (2011) 125.

they played, and explain the largely undiscussed framework of violent imperialism and systematic, institutional racism. A similar situation exists in the Netherlands deals with its colonial past. As Paul Bijl wrote in 2012: “the Dutch aphasiac condition produces an inability to see the nation as the former metropolis of a colonial empire and to acknowledge the lasting racial hierarchies stemming from its past.”259 In the case of Britain, I argue that they do see themselves as the former metropolis of a former empire, and proudly so, but that culture fails to face the lasting racial hierarchies that imperialism created. Acknowledging the present is vital in remembering this past – what have we learned from it if we do not? – and because they put the appeasement of contemporary racial tensions before confronting these tension head-on, these institutions fall short in their representation of the contributions made by the colonies and their soldiers.

259 Paul Bijl, “Colonial memory and forgetting in the Netherlands and Indonesia”, Journal of Genocide Research 14 (2012) 451.

Chapter Four Community remembrance

As described in the first chapter of this thesis, a battle over British national identity is waging in the UK. Dennis Grube observed in 2011 that politicians are struggling to define Britishness. Since Britishness stopped being strongly identified by religion and started being identified by morality in the nineteenth century, its definition has become more difficult to pin down. There is no clear “other” to contrast against, and fundamentally British values as defined by politicians, such as fairness and justice, should in fact be universal values.260 In recent years, however, some politicians have explicitly stated an “other” in their rhetoric. Headed by Nigel Farage, UKIP pointed to the European Union as the “other” that Britishness should be contrasted against. UKIP is impelled by (racist) British nativism which, as Heather Jane Smith describes it, aims to “justify and reward to superiority of the ‘native’” and is “driven by a defensive nationalism which arises during times of national crisis.”261 The current national crises are the aftermath of the Great Recession, the refugee crisis, and Britain’s imminent departure from the EU. While in theory UKIP claims to have a non-racist character and mainly argues against the influx of Eastern European immigrants, its members routinely have racist outbursts.262 Where politicians keep the othering of racial minorities to a dog whistle, racial minorities are confronted with this othering on a regular basis. In a 2009 study by Vadher and Barrett among British Indian and Pakistani young adults, many of the respondents reported being defined by white British people as Indian or Pakistani, rather than British.263 This corresponds with a 1997 study where respondents regarded their Britishness mainly as a legal title, because they felt “that the majority of white people did not accept them as being British, with racism, discrimination and ‘jokes’ being constant reminders of white people’s denial of their membership of the category.”264 The respondents expressed the same sentiment in the 2009

260 Dennis Grube, “How can ‘Britishness’ be re-made?” The Political Quarterly 82.4 (2011). 261 Heather Jane Smith, “Britishness as racist nativism: the case of the unnamed ‘other’”, Journal of Education for Teaching 42.3 (2016) 300. 262 Karine Tournier-Sol, “Reworking the Eurosceptic and Conservative Traditions into a Populist Narrative: UKIP’s Winning Formula?” Journal of Common Market Studies 53.1 (2015) 146. 263 K. Vadher and M. Barrett, “Boundaries of Britishness in British Indian and Pakistani young adults”, Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology 19 (2009) 449. 264 Ibidem, 444.

study, that “many of them could not escape the fact that skin colour would always be there to allow others to reject them from the British category.”265 Indian and Caribbean immigrants have faced this othering since their arrivals rose substantial after the Second World War. In 1948 ten members of parliament wrote to Prime Minister Clement Attlee: The British people fortunately enjoy a profound unity without uniformity in their way of life, and we are blest by the absence of a colour racial problem. An influx of coloured people domiciled here is likely to impair the harmony, strength and cohesion of our public and social life and to cause discord and unhappiness among all concerned.266

The reception must have seemed especially chilly to arrivals from the Caribbean, who as children in school had been constantly assured of their place in the British Empire and of their own Britishness. They were encouraged to think of themselves “not as conquered peoples but also as the conquerors, as Britons in their own right who shared with Britons a proud narrative.”267 This contrasted with white British people who had been taught to identify themselves against the dark-skinned peoples they had conquered. Long-term colonialism and a British education system in the Caribbean meant that at arrival, West Indians spoke fluent English and had knowledge of British literature, culture, and history. Because the colonial period was shorter in South Asia, immigrants from India and Pakistan were and are still less likely to speak English (well) and have a harder time integrating culturally. Religion is also a factor in this, as most Caribbeans are Christian, but South Asians have to deal with the added struggle of being part of a minority religion, be it Islam, Hinduism, or Sikhism. As a result, West Indians are more likely to live spread out and marry white Britons, whereas South Asians live in their own communities and marry within their own groups.268 These differing degrees of cultural and social integration have resulted in differing levels of economic success. Especially Caribbean men are subject to high levels of unemployment, while Indian men are economically successful because of their close communities providing employment opportunities.269

265 Ibidem, 450. 266 Tony Kushner, The battle of Britishness: migrant journeys, 1685 to the present (Manchester 2012) 175. 267 Anne Spry Rush, Bonds of Empire: West Indians and Britishness from Victoria to decolonization (Oxford 2011) 40. 268 Rushaan Maxwell, Ethnic minority migrants in Britain and France: integration trade-offs (Cambridge, MA 2012) 36-43. 269 Ibidem, 77.

As noted in Vadher and Barrett’s study, second generation British Indian and Pakistani young adults have an unanswered desire to be seen as British. Aside from the racial barrier they also identify a historical boundary for their Britishness. As Kevin Maxwell expressed it in The Independent: “Every time 11 November comes around I feel uncomfortable about it. It’s not that I don’t support Remembrance Day, but as a person of colour I never know how to feel part of it.”270 While people need “a historical or mythological story about the nation in order to be able to identify with the nation,”271 the opposite might also be true. For racial minorities to be identified as British, white British people might need historical and mythological stories about those minorities in order to be able to identify them as British. Without these stories, history acts as a boundary for minorities. As one young Indian responded to Vadher and Barrett: I don’t have any respect for British culture in the sense that they tend not to acknowledge other countries, and historically they’ve invaded lots of other countries by force, including India, and forced their own traditions on other people and shown disrespect to other countries.272

While the institutions in the previous chapter never clearly expressed why they thought it is important for them to commemorate the contributions of colonial soldiers – other than the fact that they were there – this is why. Vadher and Barrett: “To develop a national identification with a nation whose officially sanctioned and codified history ignores the contributions which other peoples have made to that nation, or ignores the exploitation, enslavement and massacre of other peoples during that nation’s history, may effectively exclude those groups whose ethnic heritage is derived from the peoples who have been treated in these ways.”273 Turning now to the community commemoration of Indian and West Indian soldiers, this thesis will look at four West Indian and four Indian remembrance projects. The projects have been selected for online availability, as many of them took place in the past and a lot of projects do not leave an internet trail. These projects have online resources and reports, which will be described before being analyzed with the following questions in mind: who are doing the remembering? What are they remembering and why? What position is being taken when it comes to Britishness?

270 Kevin Maxwell, “Why Remembrance Day makes me feel excluded as a person of colour”, The Independent 8- 11-2015 (23-5-2017) http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/the-remembrance-day-poppy-is-for-all-the-black-and- asian-soldiers-who-have-died-for-us-not-just-the-a6724656.html. 271 Vadher & Barrett, 451. 272 Ibidem, 451. 273 Ibidem, 451.

West Indian Remembrance

The West India Committee

Founded in 1735 in order to protect Britain’s commercial interests in the Caribbean, today the West India Committee is a charity which aims “to improve the general welfare of the peoples of the Caribbean and the societies in which they live and work.”274 They fund cultural projects and disaster relief, and as part of the Centenary have developed a website about the Caribbean contribution to the First World War. Funded by a £75,100 grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, the website provides a gallery of images,275 an archive of diaries, minute books, circulars, and newspaper cuttings,276 as well as download links for a book and education pack for young teens, and a complete casualties list.277 The gallery and archive provide interesting material, but no contextualizing information. In order to find out more about most of the material in the WIC’s online archive, one must turn to the e-book. This book, The Caribbean’s Great War, tells a concise history of the West Indies during the First World War in seventy pages.278 Scholars (among them Richard Smith) and unnamed volunteers have put the book together based on the WIC archive. The book not only tells the story of West Indian soldiers but also of the monetary and material contributions of the islands. The immediate threat of the war, which in public imagination is far removed from the Caribbean, is illustrated by the presence of the German navy in the area. Before diving into the material of the war itself, however, a short but thorough investigation of race and class on the islands is made. While not afraid to discuss racism and exclusion, the book adds nuance with descriptions of native Caribs, Creoles, black people, white people, those of mixed race, and indentured servants from Asia. The images from the archives are used to illustrate the West India Regiment, the circumstances of the West Indies Regiment at the Western Front, and the campaigns in the Middle East and Africa.

274 “The Caribbean’s Great War: Teaching Guide”, West India Committee (18-5-2017) http://westindiacommittee.org/caribbeansgreatwar/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/CGW-teaching-aid-.pdf. 275 “Galleries”, West India Committee (18-5-2017) http://westindiacommittee.org/caribbeansgreatwar/gallery/. 276 “Archives”, West India Committee (18-5-2017) http://westindiacommittee.org/caribbeansgreatwar/archives/#. 277 “Downloads”, West India Committee (18-5-2017) http://westindiacommittee.org/caribbeansgreatwar/downloads/ 278 “The Carribean’s Great War”, West India Committee (18-5-2017) http://westindiacommittee.org/caribbeansgreatwar/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/The-Caribbeans-Great-War- PDF.pdf.

The education pack is less brave in its discussion of racism and imperialism. Aimed at students ages 11 to 14, its “main objective is to instill an understanding of the Caribbean’s contribution to the First World War. The aim is to encourage students to “think about the impact of the First World War on the wider world and the roles played by various UK’s minority communities.”279 The education pack stresses the patriotism of West Indians. The poor treatment of West Indian soldiers is mentioned but the underlying causes are not examined. The teaching aid gives suggestions for evaluations in English, history, or art and media lessons. The lessons are provided in a book of 29 pages, which provides a simple historical overview and a timeline of the history of the Caribbean up to 2002. There are a few assignments in the book, but teachers are encouraged to make their own lesson plan based on the material provided.

The Empire Needs Men

The HLF granted £10,000 to Narrative Eye to develop the project The Empire Needs Men, which focuses on the contributions of black people to the war effort. Community researchers and descendants of soldiers produced an exhibit and a booklet. Narrative Eye helped people develop research skills and expand their knowledge of the First World War to Africa. The booklet and exhibit helped spread this knowledge to people who had not been able to participate in the project itself. The exhibit was a success and toured around libraries in London, and the project was awarded the Haringey Council’s Celebrating Diversity Award in 2014.280 Narrative Eye has been leading projects about black history and literature for the past ten years. The organization is dedicated to promoting equality and social change through education. We are dedicated to the production and promotion of creative works that document and challenge the inequalities and injustices faced by African and African Caribbean people in the UK. […] We are committed to creating new and creative ways that enables African and African Caribbean people to participate fully in society and increase their social mobility, prosperity and employability. We are committed to raising the level of cultural awareness amongst Black Britons to enable them to overcome their social exclusion.281

279 “The Caribbean’s Great War: Teaching Guide”, West India Committee (18-5-2017) http://westindiacommittee.org/caribbeansgreatwar/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/CGW-teaching-aid-.pdf. 280 “The Empire Needs Men”, Heritage Lottery Foundation 7-5-2014 (18-5-2017) https://www.hlf.org.uk/our- projects/empire-needs-men. 281 “The Empire Needs Men”, Narrative Eye (18-5-2017) http://narrative- eye.org.uk/The%20Empire%20Needs%20Men%20Booklet.pdf 1.

The booklet they produced with the community focuses on imperial and colonial aspects of the First World War, and reflects the literature examined in the second chapter of this thesis. It has four segments: the West Indian experience, the black British experience, the African experience, and the African American experience. In every segment black heroes are named and highlighted to contrast the descriptions of coerced recruitment and poor treatment. West Indian soldiers are described as being “assigned the dirty, dangerous jobs of loading ammunition, laying telephone wires and digging trenches. Conditions were appalling.”282 More than any other commemorative project so far, The Empire Needs Men points directly at racism and imperialism as direct causes of poor treatment. When discussing the Taranto Rebellion, the writers stated: “They were effectively imprisoned. As a result of racism, not only were they assigned the hard labour but also the demeaning labour such as cleaning toilets for white troops. They were also refused day passes and recreational time.”283 In the black British experience, the influence of racism was again explicitly discussed, as well as the race riots that happened after the war. The booklet concludes with a section on Pan-Africanism and ruminations about the importance of remembrance. In “Why we need to remember?” [sic] Sheraine Williams pointed to the importance of preserving history for future generations, since “if it were not for the writings inside the walls of the pyramids, we would not be aware of the greatness of our Kemetian/Ancient Egyptian ancestors.”284 In the final pages of the booklet, Selena Carty focused on the importance of remembering the labor, service, honor, devotion, and love of her ancestors with the poem “Test & Will”: We will Research to Remember We will Document to Remember We will tell stories to Remember We will Cherish, Honour, Love & Remember ALL who have come before us

May them and us never be forgotten, may our memories never be forgotten. Ase.

282 Ibidem, 4. 283 Ibidem, 5. 284 Ibidem, 22.

Black Poppy Rose

The BlackPoppyRose organization was started in 2010 and was a partner in the project The Empire Needs Men.285 Selena Carty and Sheraine Williams, who contributed to the TENM booklet, are both part of BPR. Its main product is the Black Poppy Rose, a variation on the traditional Red Poppy worn to commemorate the First World War. The Black Poppy Rose commemorates the contributions of black, African, West Indian, and Pacific Islander soldiers and communities to the war effort since the 16th century, because African/Black/West Indian/Pacific Island communities have consistently contributed to civilisation, even in the face of adversity and in spite of mankind's most abhorrent treatment and atrocities against us. Throughout history, many of our generations have been displaced; our memories, our pain and our loss are universal. Whilst we do not wish to focus on negative aspects of history, we feel that it is important that our ancestors are recognised for their dues, of which many lost their lives in the process.286

The organization mourns the lack of representation in mainstream history, and wants to highlight the contributions of black communities and people throughout history. In 2016, the organization sold over 3,500 pins, visited over twenty cities for talks and workshops, documented graves and monuments, expanded their work to Sierra Leone, and laid wreaths at remembrance services.287

Figure 10 The Black Poppy Rose

285 BlackPoppyRose (19-5-2017) http://www.blackpoppyrose.org/wp/. 286 “Why do we need a Black Poppy Rose?”, BlackPoppyRose (19-5-2017) http://www.blackpoppyrose.org/wp/home/whytheblackpoppyrose/. 287 “Highlights of 2016”, BlackPoppyRose (19-5-2017) http://www.blackpoppyrose.org/wp/highlights-of-2016/.

In addition to talk and workshops, BlackPoppyRose provides services to do genealogical research. With their “Family History Exploration,” people can create a family history book based on family trees and stories from living relatives. Life stories, migration, traditions, meanings of names, occupations, recipes and herbal remedies are all included. The significance of knowing your history is again stressed on the website: “Knowing who you are will give you the key to your past to help you unlock your potential.”288 On Remembrance Day 2016 BlackPoppyRose organized a remembrance service. Selena Carty wears a military jacket and cap, and says that the two minutes silence they will observe with the rest is of country is for all communities - African, European, Native American, Indian, and Asian - but that their pin highlights a specific community, whose history is not covered and not told. After the silence she leads the couple dozen attendants through a breathing exercise, before asking an elder permission to speak, thereby incorporating non-western traditions. In her speech she explains that the world back then was a white man's world, and asks her listeners not to condemn their own ancestors for joining in the war when they did not have a real choice. This is a time to honor them, and Carty points to her own son to stress how important it is to do this; their children will pass down these stories, and have something to build on. “If they have nothing to remember, what can they build? How do they understand themselves? How do they internalize what it means to be black, or an African, or a West Indian, or whatever we choose to call ourselves?” Carty asks. “History can make us whole.” During a libation ceremony Williams call upon cultures and peoples from all continents, and stresses that asking for equal treatment should be a requirement, not something to be ashamed of. Finally, people are asked to call out names to be remembered.289

288 “Family Legacies Exploration”, BlackPoppyRose (19-5-2017) http://www.blackpoppyrose.org/wp/home/family- legacies-exploration/. 289 “BlackPoppyRose @ BCA, Brixton - 1st African Remembrance”, YouTube 16-2-2017 (19-5-2017) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7ArAt3Ruas.

Great War to Race Riots

The final Caribbean project this thesis will examine is Great War to Race Riots, a seventeen month creative heritage project led by Writing on the Wall.290 Writing on the Wall is a Liverpool community organization which celebrates all forms of writing, be it journalism and nonfiction or creative writing and poetry. In 2015 and 2016 it worked with all communities in Liverpool to promote individual and collective creativity.291 Its director, Madeline Heneghan, local writer Emy Onuora, and poet Levi Tafari based their work for this project on an archive with materials focusing on the period 1919-1921, collected by Joe Farrag. The project leaders worked “with community members to explore, preserve and catalogue the archive, and to respond creatively to its incredible resource.”292 The project extended beyond the archive, however, as participants researched black settlement in Liverpool in the decades before World War One. Community members learned about archive research, cataloguing, digitization, preservation, and curation, as well as placing documents in their historical and social context, locally, nationally, and internationally. Poet Levi Tafari led the creative side of the project, in which participants interpreted the archive through poetry and storytelling. In addition to writing archive research and writing workshops, a workshop to create black poppies was organized “to commemorate those men who are named in the archive and black men from Liverpool who served in the First World War.”293 To accompany its online archive, which is presented chronologically and contains letters and other written materials,294 Great War to Race Riots published four short articles to provide historical context. “Roots of a multicultural city” tells of Liverpool’s black history before the First World War, and emphasizes how slavery helped the city grow into the powerful trading harbor it became.295 The second article, “The Great War and Empire,” describes how the war brought economic opportunities for black people living in Liverpool but also hardship in war. The impact of the Empire is mainly described in the confrontations between black men, who

290 Great War to Race Riots (21-5-2017) http://www.greatwar-to-raceriots.co.uk/. 291 “What We Do”, Writing On The Wall (21-5-2017) http://www.writingonthewall.org.uk/what-we-do.html. 292 “The Heritage Project”, Great War to Race Riots (21-5-2017) http://www.greatwar-to-raceriots.co.uk/the- heritage-project.html. 293 Ibidem (21-5-2017). 294 “Document Gallery”, Race War to Race Riots (21-5-2017) http://www.greatwar-to-raceriots.co.uk/document- gallery/1919/may-1919.html#!12_05_1919. 295 “Roots of a Multicultural City”, Great War to Race Riots (21-5-2017) http://www.greatwar-to- raceriots.co.uk/historic-context/section-1-roots-of-a-multicultural-city.html.

were emboldened by their war experience, and white American and South African soldiers, who came from highly racially segregated societies: “In Liverpool this tension between blacks and South Africans spilled over into pitched battles between wounded servicemen in Belmont Road military hospital. In a precursor to later instances of ‘stop and search’, black servicemen were regularly harassed by Police on the pretext of demanding to see their papers.”296 “Race Riot!” is introduced by a quote from Jacqueline Jenkinson: “Several delicate balancing acts are required in discussing the specifics of the racial riots in Liverpool. The first is to avoid reducing the Black community to the role of helpless victims in the face of white aggression, and the second is to regard the 1919 riots as part of the long term history of the Black population in the city.” The article describes the underlying causes of the race riots, events, and reactions from government officials, who put the responsibility with the white mobs.297 Finally, “Aftermath” describes how black men were offered money to resettle, but the money wasn’t enough to board poorly maintained ships leave their families in Liverpool.298

Indian remembrance

Battle of Saragarhi and World War I Sikh Remembrance & Commemoration in Wolverhampton

On September 14, 2014, members of the Sikh community in Wolverhampton gathered to commemorate the battle of Saragarhi and World War One. According to the news site wn.com, “The event was both to raise the awareness of the role played by the Sikhs in military conflicts over the centuries and pay a fitting tribute to those who stood firm time after time when it seemed that the odds would defeat them.”299 The coverage of the Sikh Channel, a program of 58 minutes, was uploaded to YouTube.300 The remembrance features both members of the Sikh

296 “The Great War and Empire”, Great War to Race Riots (21-5-2017) http://www.greatwar-to- raceriots.co.uk/historic-context/section-2-the-great-war-and-empire.html. 297 “Race Riot!”, Great War to Race Riots (21-5-2017) http://www.greatwar-to-raceriots.co.uk/historic- context/section-3-race-riot.html. 298 “Aftermath”, Great War to Race Riots (21-5-2017) http://www.greatwar-to-raceriots.co.uk/historic- context/section-4-aftermath.html. 299 “Battle of Saragarhi and World War 1 Sikh Remembrance & Commemoration Wolverhampton”, wn.com 28-9- 2014 (21-5-2017) https://wn.com/battle_of_saragarhi_and_world_war_1_sikh_remembrance_commemoration_wolverhampton_14092 014. 300 “Battle of Saragarhi and World War 1 Sikh Remembrance & Commemoration Wolverhampton”, YouTube 28-9- 2014 (21-5-2017) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpO5LeiYGxY.

community and local, white politicians and the police chief. The Sikh presenter talks about remembering events that helped shape the world of the 20th century, while the police chief holds a short speech about shared history and fighting for what is right and protecting human values. Labour politician Rob Marris holds a longer speech, which he starts with a traditional Sikh greeting. The host mentions that he has called Marris an honorary Sikh in the past, for the work he has done for the community. Marris emphasizes the sacrifices and heroism of the Sikh soldiers during past conflicts, especially World War One. They were loyal to the British Empire, and Sikhs living in the UK today benefit from a dual cultural heritage, because Marris stresses that Sikhism and Britishism are complementary and beneficial. When Marris takes the microphone again at the end of the ceremony, he repeats these themes but add to them as well. He mentions the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 1919, perpetrated by the British against Sikhs living around Amritsar, and stresses that loyalty is a two-way street. The British have not held up their end of the loyalty the Sikhs have shown: “Unless we remember that history, we will repeat it. And that is not what we want. We want cohesion and friendship and pride in all communities in their cultural heritage and their cultural background.” Another white, male speaker mentions the common causes Britons and Sikhs fought for in the past, against fascism and imperialism. He also talks about the contributions the Sikh community has made to Wolverhampton in the past half century: economically, culturally, and in the strengthening of the community. A Sikh man echoes these statements, saying that Sikhs fought in World War One for the betterment of humanity in Europe, and that it is important for the wider community, not just Sikhs, to remember this. To add to his point, he recites a quote from Churchill about the debt the British have to the Sikhs. Other Sikh speakers also emphasize these points: Sikhs have made contributions not just to their own community, but also to the UK and the rest of the world, to humanity itself. The image and high standing of Sikhs today are because of those who came before and made sacrifices, and that is why it is important to remember them. But in order for non-Sikhs to remember them, Sikhs have to step outside of their temples and be active in the wider community. As an example, one man says that Sikhs have lived in Wolverhampton for a long time, but not everyone there knows why Sikhs wear turbans. This is why they are grateful for the presence of politicians and the police chief, the latter of which says he thinks it’s important for the police force to represent its community and that events like these build common understanding and relationships.

Part of the ceremony is exclusively for the community, however, as speakers recite Sikh prayers and speeches in Punjabi. Because this event was broadcast on the Sikh Channel, there are no subtitles. In addition to speeches, there is a musical presentation of the battle song which became the Sikh national anthem. The presenter concludes the ceremony by expressing hope for more events like these in the future.

Sikh Museum - Brighton Exhibit

The Sikh Museum is an online museum which can be found at SikhMuseum.com. From the website it is not clear which organization is behind the museum. Its goal is to provide “a world- class virtual online repository of the Sikh experience in the form of ground-breaking detailed exhibits about various aspects of Sikh heritage.”301 Because there is no physical location, the museum is accessible 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The organization asks community members to contribute source materials, research, or money to their effort. As of writing this there are ten online exhibits, with topics ranging from the traditions of Sikh weddings to portraits of Sikhs during World War One. For this thesis, the most significant exhibit is “Doctor Brighton’s Pavilion.”302 “Doctor Brighton’s Pavilion” gives a complete overview of the stay of Indian soldiers in the Royal Pavilion in Brighton, as well as in Kitchener’s Hospital. Facilities and medical treatment, religion and cast, the kitchens, visits by dignitaries, and recreation are all covered with the help of historical sources, such as photographs, drawings, postcards, and letters written by soldiers. In the section “Analysis of the Brighton Indian Experience,” the internal life of soldiers is explored, as well as the role of imperialism and media messaging. Indian soldiers were very loyal to the King, and this was used to boost morale, by turning every royal visit into a media circus which could be used to send propaganda material to India. The exhibit explicitly discusses the racial and social hierarchy in place at the time, which this thesis has covered in chapter three. The Sikh Museum also explores how Indian soldiers experienced this hierarchy in Brighton:

301 “About”, Sikh Museum (21-5-2017) http://www.sikhmuseum.com/about.html. 302 “Doctor Brighton’s Pavilion”, Sikh Museum (21-5-2017) http://www.sikhmuseum.com/brighton/index.html.

“Emphasizing the paternalistic nature of relations in the Indian Army, one soldier likened the bedside manner of British medical officers to the ‘kindness of fathers to sons.’”303 The Sikh Museum does not limit itself to the experiences and remembrance of Sikh soldiers; it also gives attention to other Indian religions and ethnicities. Its remembrance section includes a combined honor roll for Sikh and Hindu soldiers, and a separate honor roll for Muslim soldiers. The Muslim cemetery is also covered extensively, though less than the Chattri memorial for Sikhs and Hindus in Brighton. For all subjects goes that there is nothing explicitly said about the modern meaning to remembering these men.

Empire, Faith & War

Empire, Faith & War is a project from the United Kingdom Punjab Heritage Foundation, which was formed in 2001 by a group of young, British-born Sikhs who sought to make sense of their own heritage. They realized that museums, academic institutions, and private collections and libraries around the UK held key elements of their history, and had not been appreciated: “There was a lack of awareness even within the holding institution and a definite lack of clear signposting.” With the help of heritage experts, community groups, major heritage sector partners, and volunteers, UKPHA creates websites, exhibits, lecture series, television and radio programs, and books.304 To mark the World War One Centenary, UKPHA launched the project EF&W in partnership with the Imperial War Museum and with a £50,000 grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, with matching funds raised by the organization itself. In 2014, at the opening of an exhibit which accompanied the project, UKPHA chair Amandeep Singh Madra said: “By telling the Sikh story we want to change that and remind the world of this wider undervalued contribution of the non-white British Empire. This is British history and a story that helps explain much about modern Britain as well as filling in a tragically missing piece of First World War history.” The exhibit was held between July and September 2014 in the Brunei Gallery at School of Oriental and African Studies in London.305 Since then, UKPHA has organized several events around

303 “The British Raj and Imperial Benevolence”, Sikh Museum (21-5-2017) http://www.sikhmuseum.com/brighton/doctor/analysis/raj.html. 304 “About”, UKPHA (21-5-2017) http://ukpha.org/about/. 305 “Empire, Faith and War: The Sikhs and World War One”, SOAS 9-7-2014 (21-5-2017) https://www.soas.ac.uk/gallery/efw/.

Britain and beyond, including a battlefield tour, memorial services, workshops, school visits, and music performances.306 As part of the outreach, “citizen historians” are recruited at events. The citizen historians are given training and don’t have to be Sikh, because non-Sikhs are encouraged to join this interactive project as well. According to the website, the goal is to recruit 1000 citizen historians.307 The stories uncovered by these volunteers are presented on an interactive map of the Punjab, where soldiers are pinned to their place or birth rather than to the location of their service or burial.308 The information provided in these pins is elementary, with stories told in a separate website section “Soldier stories.”309 The eighteen stories iterate lives before, during, and sometimes after the war, providing personal stories and further reading. In addition to these written stories, there are thirteen audio interviews with survivors and descendants.310 To help (often first-time) researchers, the project provides tools to get started.311 The website also offers twelve articles about historical events, individual heroes, and memorials. The articles are based on detailed research and some are written by professional historians.312 Blog posts give news updates, and go beyond the First World War, with for instance interviews with World War Two veterans.313 The desired messaging is clearest in the learning resources provided by Empire, Faith & War. There are two packets, one for primary schools314 and one for secondary schools.315 Both cover the same ground, but the secondary school material dives deeper and asks more challenging questions. This is especially significant because the primary school material does not shy away from complex subjects. The thorough lesson plans, with five lessons for primary school students and six for those in secondary school, start with a brief overview of Sikh history

306 “Events”, Empire, Faith & War (22-5-2017) http://www.empirefaithwar.com/whats-happening/events/. 307 “About”, EF&W (21-5-2017) https://www.empirefaithwar.com/about#about/intro. 308 “Soldier Map”, EF&W (21-5-2017) https://www.empirefaithwar.com/tell-their-story/putting-sikh-soldiers-on- the-map/soldier-map. 309 “Soldiers’ Stories”, EF&W (21-5-2017) https://www.empirefaithwar.com/tell-their-story/citizen-historians-in- action/soldier-stories. 310 “Spoken Histories”, EF&W (21-5-2017) https://www.empirefaithwar.com/tell-their-story/citizen-historians-in- action/spoken-histories. 311 “Getting Started”, EF&W (21-5-2017) http://www.empirefaithwar.com/tell-their-story/putting-sikh-soldiers-on- the-map/getting-started-soldiers-map and “Helpful Guides”, EF&W (21-5-2017) http://www.empirefaithwar.com/tell-their-story/research-your-soldier/helpful-guides. 312 “Articles”, EF&W (22-5-2017) http://www.empirefaithwar.com/whats-happening/articles/. 313 “Blog”, EF&W (22-5-2017) http://www.empirefaithwar.com/whats-happening/blog/. 314 “Education Pack Key Stage 2”, EF&W (22-5-2017) http://www.empirefaithwar.com/learning- resources/education-zone/education-pack-key-stage-2/intro. 315 “Education Pack Key Stage 3”, EF&W (22-5-2017) http://www.empirefaithwar.com/learning- resources/education-zone/education-pack-key-stage-3/intro.

led by a narrative about the Koh-I-Noor diamond. Students are asked to enter a discussion on whether Britain should return the diamond to India, who have asked for it back. Secondary school students are also asked to think about the perceptions Britons had of Sikhs before the First World War, and how within half a century the Sikhs went from fighting against the British to being some of their bravest soldiers. Lesson two for primary schools and two and three for secondary schools are about British perceptions of Sikhs and Indians during the war. Students have to analyze drawings and think about whether these images might have been made from a photograph or whether the painter used his imagination. The propaganda use of these images is explained, and students have to think about what emotions the images were meant to stir in their British audience. The teacher’s guide for primary schools discusses social Darwinism and racism, and explains why Punjabis were sought after recruits. It seems to be up to teachers to decide how much of this to include in lessons, and how much representation to give to these subjects. This is not the case for secondary school students, who are confronted with these concepts and the treatment of Sikh and Indian soldiers by the British. The lesson plan proposes a debate between two groups of students about whether the propaganda was right, and whether British people did or did not think highly of colonial soldiers. Lesson three for primary schools and lesson four for secondary schools are about the German perception of Sikh and Indian soldiers. After getting into the heads of ordinary Germans, students are presented with German propaganda material depicting Indian soldiers, and asked to compare it with the British propaganda they saw in the previous lesson. Then the students are shown portraits drawn and painted by the German artist Egon von Eickstedt, who made these portraits of prisoners of war in the Half Moon Camp. The students are not told these were made by a German until after they have done an analysis. Once they have done this, they are taught about the anthropological research Germans did on their prisoners of war, which included portraits and measurements, and how this work contributed to the scientific racism that the Nazis practiced. Primary school lesson four and secondary school lesson five are about the perceptions Sikhs had of themselves by the end of the war, and how the war changed their view of themselves. The students work with historical sources, mainly letters and interviews with survivors from the 1970s. This corresponds with literature covered in chapter two of this thesis.

The lesson for secondary schools ends by covering the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 1919. The final lesson for both levels is about modern remembrance. Primary school students have to design their own memorial, while secondary school students receive an overview of Sikh history since World War One, and how Sikhs in different places have different feelings towards Britain. Student are asked to discuss how important is may be for British Sikhs to remember the First World War, or that maybe the Second World War is more important. Finally, students receive commissions from the fictional American Sikh Society and British Sikh Society and from the real body of the Indian government to design a modern memorial.

Unknown & Untold: The story of Britain’s WW1 Muslim soldiers

Unknown & Untold: The story of Britain’s WW1 Muslim soldiers is a project from nonpartisan think-tank British Future and the organization New Horizons for British Islam. As an activist group, New Horizons “wants to challenge narrow and closed attitudes and counter prejudice wherever it is found.”316 The organization promotes free speech, democracy, and human rights. The project took place between September 2015 and July 2016 in Birmingham, Leicester, and Woking, and at the Sandhurst Military Academy.317 As part of the project, citizen historians were guided through research into Sikh, Hindu, and Muslim Indians, Muslim and non-Muslim youths interviewed descendants of Muslim World War One veterans, a seminar was held at Sandhurst, and inhabitants of Woking were made aware of the Muslim World War One burial ground within their city. The event at Sandhurst attracted both Muslim and non-Muslim, civilian and military people. Its speakers stressed the sacrifices made by Muslim soldiers both during the First World War and later, up to the present. The audience received a lecture by historian Andrew Wren about Indian contributions on the Western Front. The timing of the event was significant for both Muslim and non-Muslim Britons, as it took place in the last week of June 2016, in the middle of Ramadan and right before the centenary of the Battle of the Somme.318

316 “About”, New Horizons (22-5-2017) http://www.nhorizons.org/about. 317 Unknown & Untold (22-5-2015) http://ww1muslimsoldiers.org.uk/. 318 Steve Ballinger, “Today’s Army”, Unknown & Untold (22-5-2017) http://ww1muslimsoldiers.org.uk/todays- army/.

Unknown & Untold, too, has a lesson plan. Intended for secondary school students, it consists of six lessons. In the first lesson, students meet a white British and a Muslim Indian soldiers, and try to understand their motivation for joining the war and for their actions during the war. Lesson two asks whether we can know what Indian soldiers were really thinking and feeling at the Western Front. Students analyze letters from soldiers to enter their world, and engage in a debate about why it is difficult to know what was going on in the minds and hearts of these soldiers. The third lesson is about German perceptions of Indian soldiers. How did Germans view themselves? How did their opinions of Indians change through the First World War? Lesson four is about remembrance. Memorials for Indian soldiers are compared and students have to propose a restoration of the Woking Muslim burial ground before comparing it to the current restoration design - the Islamic Peace Garden. In lesson five students learn about the contributions from Dulmial, a Punjabi village, and why a Scottish canon ended up there to commemorate the war. Finally, in lesson six, students do their own research and present it to their class. Research questions include how Indian soldiers were treated on the front line, how they were treated if they arrived in Britain wounded, how Britons viewed Indians, and how Indian soldiers are remembered in memorials. The lesson plan provides a long list of sources students can look at, including the Brighton exhibit by SikhMuseum.com.319

Analysis

There is one thing all community remembrance projects that this thesis covered share, and that is an emphasis on the sacrifice and contributions made by colonial soldiers, and the importance of remembering them. Differences do exist between the ways Caribbean and Indian communities commemorate the war, as well as nuances within the communities. This section will examine these differences and try to explain them.

West Indian Remembrance

Contribution, sacrifice, and loyalty are the running theme in West Indian remembrance, but racism and poor treatment are not far behind. Overall, the discussed projects do not shy away from difficult topics such as slavery and imperialism. In fact, it seems to be a crucial part of

319 “Schools”, Unknown & Untold (22-5-2017) http://ww1muslimsoldiers.org.uk/schools/.

talking about the remembrance of the First World War. This fact put the institutions covered in chapter three of this thesis in a precarious position: how to talk about past wrongdoing by Britons while maintaining unity in remembrance? For the institutions, the answers was to place problems with racism in the past. Members of the community and their organizers do not have to play this role, and it shows. Aside from the West India Committee, which almost could have been placed in either chapter three or chapter four, most projects make the past directly significant to the present. The Empire Needs Men and BlackPoppyRose are activist groups and both have expressions of pride and anger. The anger comes at being robbed of history and heritage, which are important to build community and individual confidence. Without history no future, and the implication is that this past has been withheld from black people to keep them from growing and keep them small despite the fact that they have a proud heritage. Both projects aim to connect people with their past, both on a community level and on a personal level. BlackPoppyRose offers to produce books with family histories, and in the booklet of TENM its founder Sheraine Williams talks not only of the proud but hidden history of black people dating back to the Egyptians, but also of feeling a disconnect with British history: I remember as a child on the 11th November at 11am every year, everything would come to a standstill in a unified one minute silence. Whether you were at school, on the train, in the workplace or in the street, the importance this very exact moment commanded was enormous. I remember sitting at my table and thinking "Why are we doing this?” I didn‘t understand how it related to me.320

She continues by listing the reasons why it does relate to her, namely the millions of black people who fought in the First World War. For BlackPoppyRose and TENM, black soldiers performed a double act of heroism, by not just fighting courageously in the battle, but by also standing upright in the face of racism and poor treatment. These two projects are geared towards the community, and even the call for more representation in mainstream culture to highlight the contributions of black people throughout history seems to be primarily for the benefit of black people. They are the ones who will gain a future from knowing their past, which is bigger than any gain white people may get. They are asserting their right to, as Gregory Streich puts it, “argue that we – individually and

320 “The Empire Needs Men”, Narrative Eye (18-5-2017) http://narrative- eye.org.uk/The%20Empire%20Needs%20Men%20Booklet.pdf 22.

collectively—must remember the past lest we fail to learn from it, since they are not obligated to silently stand by while governments and some historians whitewash the past.”321 This is illustrated by the attendance of the BlackPoppyRose 2016 remembrance service, where only one white person can be seen in the video: a mother with a black child on her arm. The call by Selena Carty to be kind to their ancestors even if we might not agree with them joining the war effort, because it was a white man’s world where black men did not have free choice, illustrates that there is strife in the community about this. It suggests that Carty is in the middle of those who remember without much criticism and those who are opposed to remembering the black involvement in the war. By the nature of this opinion we do not see it reflected in the community remembrance. The importance of this critical, angry stance is not to be understated. Sara Ahmed writes about critical race theory, queer theory, feminist theory, and postcolonialism in her book The Promise of Happiness. In it she explores the modern landscape of happiness, where studies are rife about who is happy, where they live, and what their circumstances are. Positive psychology has given individuals a duty to seek happiness: Not only does happiness become an individual responsibility, a redescription of life as a project, but it also becomes an instrument, as a means to an end, as well as an end. We make ourselves happy, as an acquisition of capital that allows us to be or to do this or that, or even to get this or that. […] Positive psychology involves the instrumentalization of happiness as a technique. Happiness becomes a means to an end, as well as the end of the means.322

But, as Ahmed writes, the face of happiness “looks rather like the face of privilege.”323 Those who are not happy with their circumstances are themselves to blame. In the case of immigrants Ahmed describes this as follows: It is important to note that the melancholic migrant’s fixation with injury is read as an obstacle not only to his own happiness but also to the happiness of the generation to come, and even to national happiness. This figure may even quickly convert in the national imaginary to the “could- be-terrorist.” His anger, pain, misery (all understood as forms of bad faith insofar as they won’t let go of something that is presumed to have gone) becomes “our terror.” To avoid such a terrifying end point, the duty of the migrant is to attach to a different happier object, one that can bring good fortune, such as the national game.324

321 Gregory W. Streich, “Is There a Right to Forget? Historical Injustices, Race, Memory, and Identity”, New Political Science 24 (2010) 531. 322 Sara Ahmed, The Promise of Happiness 10. 323 Ibidem, 11. 324 Ibidem, 144.

Happiness and contentment are thus an important factor in modern integration. This was also the case of imperialism. European imperialism was justified by the argument that European powers brought civilization - and with it happiness - to their colonies. Ahmed: “We might expect that this history of happiness has become a rather unhappy history: that shame about the colonial past, and the violence of this past, might have involved a withdrawal of commitment to utilitarian logics. And yet I would argue that contemporary race politics in the UK involves not only a direct inheritance of this history but a social obligation to remember the history of empire as a history of happiness.”325 Immigrants from former colonies still deal with this history, Ahmed argues, as British assimilation includes a happiness test: “Migrants as would-be citizens are thus increasingly bound by the happiness duty not to speak about racism in the present, not to speak of the unhappiness of colonial histories, or of attachments that cannot be reconciled into the colorful diversity of the multicultural nation.”326 Overall the desire to be part of British society and Britishness is more present than any anger or expression of unhappiness. Even Sheraine Williams explains the need to know the history of black soldiers in the context of Remembrance Sunday. The BlackPoppyRose remembrance took place on Remembrance Sunday and stressed that respect was being paid to all soldiers who fought and died in the war, including white ones, even if the focus was on soldiers of color. The Great War to Race Riot project is explicitly about integrating black history into the mainstream history of Liverpool, to assert the place and citizenship of the city’s black inhabitants. The contributions of the wartime generation of West Indians is an affirmation of the Britishness of their descendants, just as the soldiers themselves had wanted to prove their loyalty to King and Empire with their sacrifice. As Richard Smith put it: “Alongside other diasporic communities in Great Britain, West Indians migrants have affirmed their citizenship in the former imperial power through the recovered memory of ancestral sacrifice in the world wars.”327 This is also reflected in the National Army Museum video where visitors were asked whether they would serve in the British Army today. Non-white respondents, especially men, were more likely to say they would serve their country if needed. They needed to assert their Britishness, while white respondents were free to criticize the army and refuse military service because of their secure status as British.

325 Ibidem, 130. 326 Ibidem, 158. 327 Smith, “The multicultural First World War”, 357.

Indian Community Remembrance

Just as West Indians, the various Indian communities have affirmed their citizenship through the remembrance of ancestral sacrifice. The particularities are different, however. Indian remembrance is marked by a higher degree of integration with British institutions and the white British community. The Wolverhampton remembrance ceremony is an example of this: in addition to important members of the Sikh community, representatives of the wider British community are present and invited to speak. This is very different from the remembrance by BlackPoppyRose, where almost exclusively black people were present. The focus of the Wolverhampton remembrance was less on coming together to share a common identity and history, and more about stepping out to share the Sikh identity and history with the wider community. Both Sikh and white British speakers did this, by emphasizing the history and values that Sikh and British identities share. The loyalty of the Sikhs to the British Empire is mentioned multiple times and never criticized. It is presented as part of the Sikh identity to fight for change the world for the better. This even leads to the interesting statement by one Sikh speaker that the Sikh fought with the British against imperialism. Furthermore, the presenter at the remembrance states that it is the responsibility of Sikh to step outside of their temples and share their history, because otherwise it won’t be remembered. This will help the rest of Britain who the Sikhs are. White Britons also express the necessity of remembering wartime and peacetime Sikh contributions. The sentiment being that Sikhs have displayed tremendous loyalty and made significant contributions to the war effort during both World Wars, and that they should be proud of their heritage while participating in wider British society. Their history is British history, as Amandeep Singh Madra said at the Empire, Faith & War launch, and helps explain modern Britain. This does not mean that Sikhs lose their own culture and sense of community, as is illustrated by the part of the ceremony which was conducted in Punjabi. The other two Sikh projects reflect a similar attitude, but have more room for critical analysis due to their format. As has been discussed in chapter three of this thesis, it is difficult to combine a remembrance ceremony for fallen soldiers and veterans with a critical look at the institutions they served. The Brighton exhibit of the SikhMuseum.com discusses racism and imperialism, but in turn does not make any explicit statements about the present. By not mentioning modern racism, Sikhs can hold up half of Sara Ahmed’s happiness test:

The happiness duty is a positive duty to speak of what is good but can also be thought of as a negative duty not to speak of what is not good, not to speak from or out of unhappiness. It is you who should let go of the pain of racism by letting go of racism as a way of understanding that pain. It is as if you have a duty not to be hurt by the violence directed toward you, not even to notice it, to let it pass by, as if it passes you by. To speak out of the consciousness of such histories, and with consciousness of racism, is to become an affect alien.328

By talking about past imperialism and racism, minorities may fail part of the happiness test but they are able to express their identity as different from that of white Britons. By not talking about modern problems, these Sikh institutions still assert themselves as part of the wider British community. UKPHA also steppes around modern racism, even if it does an intense examination of racism, racist anthropology, and imperialism before and during the First World War. It offers the most comprehensive and challenging lesson plan of any project examined in this thesis. The community participation with citizen historians is open to all people and allows Sikhs and other Punjabis to explore their own past, giving them ownership, as well as encouraging people without Punjabi heritage to take interest in a history not covered by mainstream curricula. While the project steps outside of the metaphorical temple, it keeps its core Sikh, just as the Wolverhampton remembrance. The main product, the interactive map showing soldiers at the location of their origin in the Punjab, will be most interesting for people (with family) from the region. This is not a problem, however, because this is a project to preserve Punjabi heritage and there are enough projects that have mapped World War One battlefields. The final Indian heritage project, Unknown & Untold, is specifically about Muslim Indian soldiers and has a different strategy. The strained position of Muslims in Britain informed the way the project was approached and presented. Sacrifice is still a central theme, but there is more connection to the present. New Horizons for British Islam draws direct lines between Muslim values and British values, and all the lesson plans are introduced by the following words: This lesson could contribute to teaching about British Values [sic] where pupils are required to learn about mutual respect for and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs and for those without faith.

The project wants to inspire young Muslims by teaching them about the contribution Muslim Indians made to the war effort and having them interview descendants of these people. The need to assert themselves as British is perhaps greatest for Muslims, because they are one of the least

328 Sara Ahmed, The Promise of Happiness, 158.

integrated groups and seen as dangerous because of this. Muslims especially are pressured to interact with wider British society, because as Sara Ahmed says: The shift from unhappy to happy multiculturalism involves the demand for interaction. Happiness is projected into the future: when we have “cracked the problem” through interaction, we can be happy with diversity. … Multiculturalism might become happy when it involves loyalty to what has already been established as a national ideal.329

Part of this national ideal is military service, which is carried with pride by both Sikh and Muslim Indians. The Unknown & Untold project held an event at the Sandhurst military academy, where the Defense Minister Lord Earl Howe not only honored World War One soldiers, but also presented an award to the family of Lance Corporal Jabron Hashmi, who was the first British Muslim soldier to be killed during the Afghanistan campaign in 2006. Attendant Avaes Ahmed comments that “Hashmi’s story shows that the legacy of Muslim soldiers who fought on the Western Front continues today - it isn’t just confined to history. And black or white, Muslim or Christian, Leave or Remain, on Friday [July 1, 2016] we will all remember the Somme, together.”330 Avaes Ahmed is not the only one to reference Brexit. Steve Ballinger, who reported on the Sandhurst event, writes that “bringing together people of different backgrounds at this event felt all the more important, set as it is against the backdrop of vile attacks on migrants and ethnic minorities by a minority in the wake of Britain’s decision to leave the EU.”331 Speaker Julie Siddiqui references Labour MP Jo Cox, who was killed in the lead-up to the Brexit vote, and says that “extremists on both ends of the scale wish we weren’t doing this - they say that Muslims can’t serve Britain or be a part of it.”332 Imam Qari Muhammad Asim, who led the Muslim delegation at the Remembrance Sunday ceremony in 2016, expressed similar sentiments in a piece for The Independent: At a time when anti-Muslim hatred is on the rise, and a minority has seized upon the Brexit vote as justification for questioning the loyalty of ethnic minorities to Britain, it’s only right that the heroism and bravery of Muslim soldiers who fought in the First and Second World Wars is also remembered. When going through the long list of the fallen, I cannot help but be struck by the symbolism of the religious backgrounds of British soldiers. Christians, Jews, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and others have all died fighting for the British people. On Remembrance Sunday, we

329 Ahmed, Promise of happiness, 122 330 Ballinger, “Today’s Army”, Unknown & Untold (22-5-2017) http://ww1muslimsoldiers.org.uk/todays-army/. 331 Ibidem (22-5-2017). 332 Ibidem (22-5-2017).

should remember the power of Britain's pluralism and that our strength as Brits comes from our diversity and not from our differences.333

This attitude corresponds with Vadher and Barrett’s research, which states that Islam is seen by white Britons as a primary threat to Britishness. In response, British Muslims feel required to display loyalty to Britain. Muslims feel that in the eyes of white Britons, Islam and Britishness are incompatible, even though Muslims feel no strain between the two identities.334

Conclusion

The major cause in differences between the ways black, Sikh, and Muslim Britons remember the First World War is not so much the way in which they participated in the war, but more importantly their different histories of colonization, migration, and integration into mainstream British society. For West Indians, whose ancestors had been exposed to British culture for over three centuries, the British identity became their own identity. Until the 1920s Britain had even “consciously promoted Anglicization through education.”335 Because of this, West Indians attained a high amount of integration at their arrival in large numbers after the Second World War. They shared a history, a language, and religion with the white Britons. Black Britons are more likely to live unsegregated and marry white Britons.336 Gert Oostindie has called this the “postcolonial bonus.”337 The history of black people, however, was (and is) not represented in the mainstream history of Britain. Add to this that slavery and migration were detrimental to preserving personal and community histories, meaning that their history is also not available to black Britons within their own communities. As a result, two approaches to reclaiming history have evolved. The first is a Pan-African approach, which focuses on the history of all black people, and takes pride in a long heritage while attempting to throw of the yoke of colonialism and imperialism. Projects like The Empire Needs Men and BlackPoppyRose have a Pan-African approach, and aim to instill pride in black people through knowledge of their great history by

333 Qari Muhammad Asim, “I'm an imam, and I'll be leading the Remembrance Sunday services for the Muslims who died fighting for our country”, The Independent 11-11-2016 (22-5-2017) http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/remembrance-sunday-muslim-soldiers-world-wars-cenotaph-a7410986.html. 334 Vadher and Barrett, 445. 335 Spry Rush, Bonds of Empire, 36. 336 Maxwell, Ethnic minority migrants in Britain and France, 36-42. 337 See: Gert Oostindie, Postcolonial Netherlands: Sixty-five years of forgetting, commemorating, silencing (Amsterdam 2011).

focusing on the positive aspects of their history. The personal and community histories which were wrecked by slavery and migration are brought back to life through community research and genealogy. But even the Pan-African approach in Britain does not escape the desire to assert the Britishness of black people through their ancestral sacrifice. This is what marks the second approach to black history in Britain. Rather than telling the history of black people in its own right, projects like Great War to Race Riot, The Caribbean’s Great War, and We Will Remember Them try to promote black history as an integral part of British history, thereby asserting the Britishness of black people in Britain. Due to these differences, those who follow the Pan- African approach are less eager to pass Ahmed’s happiness test and more likely to discuss the problem of racism in modern Britain. This is not to say the British approach totally avoids the topic, as GWtRR showed when they compared the way police treated the black inhabitants of Liverpool in 1919 to modern stop-and-frisk policies. Sikhs, on the other hand, have a high degree of cohesion: they share a culture, language, ethnicity, and religion. Only since the Second World War have large numbers of them left the Punjab to move to western countries, and because of this they have a history that has not been torn apart by slavery. Living fairly culturally and socially segregated within the UK, they have been able to curate their own history, which explains the metaphor of stepping outside of their temples to share their story with the rest of Britain and the world. Sikhs do not have to look for the main narrative of their history, only for the evidence of their history in British museums, archives, and libraries, and preserve that evidence. This is an attempt to decrease their own level of segregation, and in this attempt they are enthusiastic in accepting cooperation from major British cultural institutions, as well as politicians, police, and army. The Sikhs, too, assert their Britishness by pointing to ancestral sacrifice. In addition, Sikhs take pride in their martial heritage as brave soldiers who were sought out specifically by the British. They also point to their loyalty to the Empire and Britain, and the common values that Sikhism and Britishness share, such as fighting for what is right. In turn, this sacrifice and loyalty is pointed out by white Britons in powerful positions, who confirm that Sikhs should be proud of their history and heritage, and that they have indeed affirmed themselves as British. Lastly, Muslim Indian Britons are in a more precarious position than either black or Sikh Britons. Similar to Sikhs, they have a low level of social and cultural integration, but unlike Sikhs they are seen as a direct threat to Britishness by white Britons. There is great pressure on

Muslims to prove their loyalty to Britain.338 The need to pass Sara Ahmed’s happiness test is highest for them, and it should be pointed out that Ahmed herself is of Muslim Indian parentage. At the Sandhurst event Untold & Forgotten organized, the service and sacrifice of Muslim Britons in both past and present was used to affirm the Britishness of all Muslims, not just those of Indian descent. It is the proof of loyalty that Muslims use to pass the bar for Britishness, which has been set higher for them than for black or Sikh Britons. Of all three groups discussed here, Muslim Britons are least outspoken about past or present racism or poor treatment, and almost exclusively stress sacrifice and remembrance. It is up to white allies to examine their own checkered, white British past. While all three groups suffer under the rise of racist nativism that accompanies Brexit, Muslims bear the brunt of the blow - with Sikhs suffering from being mistaken for Muslims. For Sikhs, profiling themselves more prominently in mainstream culture means protecting themselves from this onslaught. Yet when it comes to community remembrance of the First World War, the remembrance of and by Muslims seems to be the least developed. There are a few possible explanations for this. First of all, Muslims have a historical narrative that does not involve loyalty to the Empire and British as a turning point, like the Sikhs do. Instead, they have the history of Islam itself which binds them together in their communities. Muslims share Islam and its history, but are otherwise from vastly different parts of the world and do not have a large cohesive community with a shared culture and native language. There are Muslims in the UK who do not have any direct links to the Muslims who fought in the First World War, or they might be less inclined to commemorate the British narrative because of unease at remembering the defeat of the Muslim Ottoman Empire by die Allies. Whatever the reason, organization like New Horizons for British Islam and religious leaders like Qari Muhammad Asim seem to be making a push for more representation and integration. Because the last explanation for low Muslim participation in World War One remembrance is a feeling of exclusion, as Sundar Katwala of the think tank British Future explained to VICE: “Over half of the UK’s 3 million Muslims are under 24 years old. Katwala argues that young people deserve an inclusive narrative and that a shared look at history is a necessary part of a shared society, with equal ownership over what it means to be British.”339

338 Vadher & Barrett, 445. 339 David Gilmour, “We Need to Remember Britain's Muslim Soldiers”, Vice 11-11-2015 (23-5-2017) https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/remembrance-day-uk-muslim-soldiers-wwi-919.

Conclusion

In the current political landscape of Britain, the Centenary Remembrance of the First World War takes an interesting position. Commemoration is always social and political, because choices are always made as to whom and what to remember, based on which records, and for whose benefit. In public debate in Britain, two faction are fighting over Britain’s identity and future, and the Centenary has become ammunition in their struggle. On the left are progressive, globalist Europhiles, who urge for a remembrance that does not revolve around Britain and its European allies alone but incorporates the suffering of Germany and the rest of the world. As Jonathan Jones wrote in The Guardian: “It is deeply disturbing that a hundred years on from 1914, we can only mark this terrible war as a national tragedy. Nationalism – the 19th-century invention of nations as an ideal, as romantic unions of blood and patriotism – caused the great war. What does it say about Britain in 2014 that we still narrowly remember our own dead and do not mourn the German or French or Russian victims?”340 The stance of The Guardian against a nationalistic and imperialistic remembrance of the First World War is contrasted on the right by the stance of the Daily Mail. Its writers promote a nationalistic interpretation of the war, and are opposed to the Europhile approach The Guardian takes. In the eyes of the Daily Mail, Germany should remain the villain of the narrative. They were the ones, Robert Hardman argued, who invaded innocent Belgium and invented chemical warfare. 341 When the Brexit referendum was announced these two newspapers took opposing positions as well; The Guardian supported Remain, and the Daily Mail supported leaving the EU. At the announcement of the Centenary in 2012, David Cameron laid out a program that would focus on commemoration rather than celebration, which would have to “provide the foundations upon which to build an enduring cultural and educational legacy, to put young people front and center in our commemoration and to ensure that the sacrifice and service of a

340 Jonathan Jones, “The Tower of London poppies are fake, trite and inward-looking – a Ukip-style memorial”, The Guardian 28-10-2014 (25-11-2016) https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2014/oct/28/tower-of-london-poppies-ukip- remembrance-day. 341 Hardman, Robert, “Why we SHOULD upset the Germans - by reminding them of their Great War atrocities”, Daily Mail 14-1-2013 (30-5-2017) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2262443/Why-SHOULD-upset- Germans--reminding-Great-War-atrocities.html.

hundred years ago is still remembered in a hundred years’ time.”342 The remembrance would have to be for the benefit of all Britons, and by referencing the contributions of colonial soldiers to the war effort, Cameron included them in the narrative of commemoration. Unity, both within the UK and Europe, would be the guiding factor. This does not mean that all remembrance would be unified, because Andrew Murrison, appointed by Cameron to lead the commemorations, predicted that the public would “focus on the local.”343 Historically, the focus of World War One commemorations has been local. Monuments and other places of remembrance were often created by communities to remember their dead and grieve together. For the first time, there was room for the individual in death. The British fallen were remembered by name, where before the First World War common soldiers were buried in anonymous mass graves. The common sacrifice of communities became an integral part of British national identity and has remained so through the modern struggle to define Britishness since it lost its mainly religious character in the nineteenth century.344 As the heritage of white Britons, ancestral sacrifice during the First World War was an equalizer. Before that time, heritage had almost exclusively belonged to the rich and powerful, who had been the only ones to receive a named grave if they fell in battle. This heritage is still not equal, however, as groups of people fall outside the ancestral pool. As a result, their ability to be accepted into the British national identity is hindered. Vadher and Barrett have called this the historical boundary for Britishness. After the Second Word War, there was a rise in British immigration from former colonies, such as India and the West Indies. These new communities have their own distinct identities, though in differing degrees, and pose a problem to British national identity as a whole. They are part of the wider British community, but are not included in the national historical narrative. People on both sides of Vadher and Barrett’s historical boundary need “a historical or mythological story about the nation in order to be able to identify with the nation.”345 Black and Asian minorities cannot identify with Britain because they are not part of the historical or mythological story of Britain, and in return white Britain do not accept them as part of the national identity because they don’t share a mythological narrative with them.

342 “Speech at Imperial War Museum on First World War centenary plans”, gov.uk 11-10-2012 (2-1-2017) https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/speech-at-imperial-war-museum-on-first-world-war-centenary-plans. 343 Andrew Mycock, “The politics of the great war centenary in the United Kingdom”, in: Shanti Sumartojo and Ben Wellings ed., Nation, Memory and Great War Commemoration: Mobilizing the Past in Europe, Australia and New Zealand (Cultural Memories) (Oxford 2014) 102. 344 Dennis Grube, “How can ‘Britishness’ be re-made?” The Political Quarterly 82.4 (2011). 345 Vadher & Barrett, 451.

Over the past two decades, academic and mainstream interest in the participation of colonial soldiers in the war has risen. Their stories have to be paced against the backdrop of imperialism and scientific racism, which determined their position in the British Empire. The inferiority of non-white people was considered to be scientifically proven by the new study of anthropology; they had smaller brains and their way of life indicated that they did not have the ability to create proper forms of religion, government, or law. Imperialism and colonization brought civilization to the uncivilized, and as Sara Ahmed points out, Europeans were of the opinion to be bestowing the ability for happiness along with their civilization: “The happiness of imperial culture is guaranteed as a happiness formula: in making happiness our end, we can impose our end. We can impose our end on those without happiness as their end: barbarism is named simply as the deviation from the end of happiness.”346 The participation of colonial troops meant a threat to the imperial order. The “lower races” might get dangerous ideas from seeing their white masters’ weaknesses in battle and from fighting Europeans on their own continent. France and Britain used their propaganda machines to justify the use of non-white troops – they were in dire need of additional manpower – and Germany reacted in horror, saying that after the war colonial troops would lose respect or their white masters and turn their guns against them.347 The British shared this worry, and were reluctant to allow their colonial troops fight on the Western Front. Only the Indian Army saw action in Europe, before being removed from the front in December 1915 to be reassigned to the Middle East or labor battalions. The British West India Regiment never saw action in Europe, having arrived after the Indian forces were already removed from the Western Front. They were actively kept away from the places where the iconography of the war was created. As Santanu Das describes it: “Colonial troops were depicted, at best, as gallant, courageous, loyal, ferocious, but they were said to lack the qualities of the European master: qualities of leadership, stoicism, decision making; moreover, their sexual appetites were said to be voracious, their battlefield practices savage.”348 In modern remembrance by institutions the positive parts of these description have endured while the negative ones are pointed to as examples of the structural racism which helped keep the Empire in place. The emphasis is on the sacrifice of these people and on their rightful place in the narrative of the First World War: they

346 Ahmed, The Promise of Happiness 125. 347 Koller, “Representing Otherness”, 128-29. 348 Das, “Introduction”, in: Santanu Das ed. Race, empire and First World War writing (London 2011) 18.

belong to British history just as well as the Tommies. Through this, the BBC, Imperial War Museum, National Army Museum, and British Library are creating a historical narrative that tries to smash through the historical boundary of Britishness. The institutions are working to place the stories of colonial troops in the mainstream context of the war, but most are failing to include colonial soldiers to their mainstream narratives in return. At the BBC, NAM, and the IWM, the stories are given a spotlight but stay separate. The British Library is most successful in placing the stories of non-white soldiers in its mainstream coverage. The BL is an independent research institution and has used its extensive access to information and scholars to provide a comprehensive history of colonial soldiers. To a certain extent, the institutions are hindered by their own genres and characters. Respectful remembrance and a critical look at the past and present can be hard to combine. This is apparent when looking at the NAM, which is sponsored by the Department of Defense and therefor in an even more difficult position when it comes to looking critically at the army. At this institution, it is up to the visitors to provide the critical analysis. In the permanent exhibits of the IWM the British Empire is not problematic. A colonial rather than a postcolonial vision dominates, and for its recent renovation it received substantial amounts of money from Conservative politicians and owners of right-wing newspapers. This does not necessary mean that they follow the historiographical ideas of these men, but rather that the IWM has a character these men support: nationalistic and proud of the imperial history of Britain. The BBC has a commitment to diversity and neutrality, and has produced high quality programming when it comes to televisions and radio documentaries. Any issues of race and racism are places securely in the past, however, and difficult questions about the role of race and racism in contemporary society are carefully avoided. Furthermore, in its drama’s The Passing Bells and The Crimson Field it has fallen into two separate traps. In The Passing Bells it depicts the battlefield practices of West Indian soldiers are more “savage” than those of Europeans when one of them shoots a surrendering German soldier. 349 The effect of these scenes is to present the black West Indian troops as less compassionate and more careless than their white counterparts, almost echoing Robert Graves who remarked that, “The presence of semi-civilized colored troops in Europe was, from the German point of view, we knew, one of the chief Allied atrocities. We sympathized.” The responsibility for the barbarity of war is thus shifted to the

349 Das, “Introduction”, in: Santanu Das ed. Race, empire and First World War writing (London 2011) 18.

non-white troops drawn into the conflict through imperial connections.350In The Crimson Field British nurses care for a wounded West Indian soldier who has been rendered mute. Not only does this take away voice and agency – thereby reinforcing century-old stereotypes of silent followers – it reduces the character to “part of a multicultural box-ticking exercise.”351 Overall, British institutions struggle when facing the problem of representing the contribution of colonial soldiers to the war effort. Their most prominent obstacle is British society and its collective memory of the war. Due to a still romanticized vision of the British Empire, where atrocities perpetrated by the British are not always remembered as such, the involvement of colonial soldiers need to be provided with significant context. There is a discrepancy between the way their involvement is remembered in British collective memory and in the collective memory of involved communities. In the case of Britain, there does not seem to be a culture of public guilt or shame; in contrast to other European nations, Britain has not made any public apologies for slavery or their treatment of colonies. Individuals do express these feelings, such as in the National Army Museum interviews, but institutions do not echo them. Nor do institutions reflect on the present circumstances of the descendants of colonial soldiers in Britain. As Gregory Streich points out, this inhibits collective memory, as it is “difficult to achieve under conditions of inequality between perpetrators and victims of injustice. This is especially the case when the injustice in question is seen by some as shaping and reinforcing inequalities in the present and by others as having little or nothing to do with the present.”352 This is the crux of the problem with the commemoration by the studied institutions: a lack of focus on the present. The way the BBC, Imperial War Museum, National Army Museum, and the British Library present their stories about colonial soldiers in geared towards a white, British audience. The institutions all protect their white audiences from racial anxiety, the latter of which, as Shelby Steele described it in 1990, “springs from a knowledge of ill-gotten advantage.”353 While the lasting impact of the First World War on Britain is extolled by politician and historian alike, the impact by and on colonial soldiers and their communities is not explicitly discussed. This is partly due to the cultural aphasia related to this subject, meaning there is not communal language do discuss these topics in. However, as remembrance and

350 Smith, “Multicultural commemoration”, 8-9. 351 Richard Smith, “The Multicultural First World War”, 359. 352 Gregory Streich, “Is there a right to forget historical injustices?”, 533. 353 Shelby Steele, “White Guilt”, The American Scholar 59 (1990) 499.

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commemoration are always more about the present than about the past, British institutions should have an obligation to represent all of Britain. Racial inequality is not an easy subject to cover, but these institutions overall have proven themselves capable of doing so in the historical context. To not extend this discussion to the present means that as an act of remembrance, the content these institutions have produced lack true value. By presenting the unproblematic racial present they not only diminish the struggles of their Indian and West Indian subjects, their also ignore their communities and descendants who are still battling racial injustice. In order to truly remember these men, the institutions should extend discussion of racism and imperialism to the present and break the cultural aphasia, preferably in co-operation with the communities themselves. This is, as stated before, ``not without risk, but these institution have enough cultural capital to spend some of it on furthering the discussion of difficult topics. Indian and West Indian communities are in a different position than institutions when it comes to remembrance; they struggle with having to find a balance between being their own, separate community, while also belonging to the wider British community. West Indians have a culturally stronger position in British society, due to over three hundred years of colonial exposure to British language, history, literature, and religion. They are more likely to live unsegregated and more likely to marry white Britons. Indians, on the other hand, are more socially segregated and less likely to marry white Britons, but are more successful economically. This is due to the fact that their close communities offer more employment opportunities than are available to West Indians, who have to compete with white Britons and are at a disadvantage due to their race. In remembrance, Indians and West Indians have two main approaches. One is to integrate the history of the community into mainstream British history. Both West Indians and Indians use this tactic. There is a group of black Britons, however, who do not seek to gain significance from being part of the British historical narrative, but who want to have their own defined history, shared with all black people. Two black community remembrance projects studied in this thesis take this Pan-African approach. BlackPoppyRose and The Empire Needs Men are characterized by their critique of imperialism and racism in both past and present, and the aim to give black people a history on which they can build their future identity. As the BlackPoppyRose website states in its “Family History Exploration” section: “Knowing who you are will give you the key

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to your past to help you unlock your potential.”354 The other projects, The Caribbean’s Great War and Great War to Race Riots is more focused on integrating the history of colonial soldiers into the main British narrative. The sacrifices of their ancestors are used to affirm their own Britishness. 355 In the Pan-African approach, too, the sacrifice of ancestors is something to be honored and respected, even if the participants of the remembrance might not agree with the war. The separation between these two groups is a direct result of the colonial and immigration history of West Indian, who identify themselves as British but do not see themselves represented in Britishness. In Indian community remembrance there are two approaches as well, though the differences are not as pronounced. Overall there is more integration and cooperation with large British institution and local politicians. All four projects use ancestral sacrifice to assert the Britishness of their Sikh of Indian Muslim community, but the extent differs. Empire, Faith & War and the Sikh Museum’s Brighton Exhibit do not shy away from critiquing the imperial and racist aspects of the war, but still integrate Sikh and Indian history into British history. The remembrance ceremony at Wolverhampton and the project Unknown & Untold are far less critical, and almost solely focus on asserting the Britishness of the represented communities, Sikh and Indian Muslim respectively. The Muslim community stresses both past and present sacrifice, and one Sikh speaker at the Wolverhampton remembrance ceremony goes so far as to edge towards the Daily Mail narrative of the war, which is to say that Sikhs fought with Britain against the evil imperialism of Germany. All Indian projects sidestep talking about modern day racism. Racial minority immigrants are in a difficult position where they are expected to be happy and content just for being in their new country, and expressing discontent about racism or criticizing the colonial past they can, as Sara Ahmed describes it, “an affect alien.”356 Ahmed has called this the happiness test for immigrants. Muslims are in the most precarious position, as they are seen by white Britons as a threat to British identity, and thus they constantly have to prove their loyalty to both Britain357

354 “Family Legacies Exploration”, BlackPoppyRose (19-5-2017) http://www.blackpoppyrose.org/wp/home/family- legacies-exploration/. 355 Smith, “The multicultural First World War”, 357. 356 Sara Ahmed, The Promise of Happiness 158. 357 Vadher and Barrett, 445.

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and what has been established as the national ideal.358 This explains the great emphasis Unknown & Untold puts on the military service of Muslims, as this is one of the national ideal. Both Indian and West Indian communities have mobilized in different ways, but aside from asserting the groups’ Britishness, the main objective is to “rectify historical injustices” that are not recognized by society, as Streich noted: “The goal is to unsettle, undermine, and alter the “ruling memory” that a nation develops in which injustices of the past are constructed as minimally important, discrete, and non-systematic events or ‘details’ of history, or simply aberrations in an otherwise just society.”359 As noted before, the institutions perpetuate this image of the past, where they could be working – with or without communities – to rectify this. It seems that the fear to incite racial anxiety and white guilt also perpetuates the current situation, as collective guilt makes groups more likely to apologize and offer restitutions.360 The Indian and West Indian communities covered here are not asking for any monetary restitutions, but express wishes for their ancestors to be remembered. In this case, commemoration could function as restitution. Instead institutional commemoration occurs in a “’never again’ mode,” which does nothing to rectify historical injustices, where it could be used as a tool for “edification and catharsis,” as David Rieff described in his In Praise of Forgetting (2016).361 Overall, the remembrance of colonial soldiers is used to affirm the Britishness of their descendants, both by institutions and communities themselves. Criticism of the past is given when possible. It has proven difficult combine with the respectful remembrance of the dead and veterans, and is thus mostly absent in ceremonies and institution that deal directly with this part of remembrance. For Muslim Indians it is hard to criticize the imperialist past of Britain too openly, as they are seen as a threat to Britishness. The only groups who criticize the present positions of minorities are those who take a Pan-African approach, and white allies. At both the Wolverhampton ceremony and in the Unknown & Untold project, white Britons call out modern racism. Institutions have not stepped up in the same way, and are thus not challenging the position of colonial soldiers within history and the position of their descendants in contemporary British society. Communities who do so risk failing Sara Ahmed’s happiness test and ostracizing

358 Ahmed, Promise of happiness 122 359 Streich, 534. 360 Rupert Brown, Roberto González, Hanna Zagefka, Jorge Manzi, and Sabina Čehajic, “Nuestra Culpa: Collective Guilt and Shame as Predictors of Reparation for Historical Wrongdoing”, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 94.1 (2008) 78. 361 David Rieff, In Praise of Forgetting: Historical Memory and Its Ironies (New Haven and London 2016) 50.

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themselves from the wider British community. It seems Steve Cox was right to predict the following in 2013: “We will hear much of ‘sacrifice’ but not of waste.”362

362 “Blinkered view of the first world war”, 13-2-2013 (30-5-2017) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/feb/13/blinkered-view-first-world-war.

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Images

Figure 1 “One of the Lion’s Cubs.” Source: West India Committee

Figure 2 Poppies at the Tower of London. Source: Jonathan Jones, “The Tower of London poppies are fake, trite and inward-looking – a Ukip-style memorial”, The Guardian 28-10-2014 (25-11-2016) https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2014/oct/28/tower- of-london-poppies-ukip-remembrance-day.

Figure 3 The Cenotaph. Source: “The War Memorials of the First World War”, Imperial War Museum (31-5-2017) http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205279961.

Figure 4 Nigel Blundell, “Relaxing before the carnage: Heartbreaking photos of our troops on the eve of the Somme 100 years ago shortly before they went 'over the top' on the bloodiest single day in British military history”, Daily Mail 30-6-2016 (30-5- 2017) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3666866/Relaxing-carnage- Heartbreaking-photos-troops-eve-Somme-100-years-ago.html.

Figure 5 “The Slave Market” (1866) by Jean Léon Gérôme. Source: Clark Art Institute

Figure 6 Monument at Neuve Chapelle, France. Source: Sikh Info (27-2-2017) http://www.info-sikh.com/PageNeuve1.html.

Figure 7 Chattri Memorial. Source: Sikh Museum (30-5-2017) http://www.sikhmuseum.com/brighton/remembrance/chattri/index.html#1.

Figure 8 Basra Monument. Source: 1st Porthill Scout Group's Pages of Remembrance (27- 2-2017) http://remember.porthillscouts.org.uk/site/the-men/joseph-william-heath- simpson/.

Figure 9 African and Caribbean War Memorial in Brixton, London.. Source: Wikipedia (5- 7-2017) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_and_Caribbean_War_Memorial#/media/Fil e:African_and_Caribbean_Memorial.jpg.

Figure 10 A Black Poppy Rose. Source: BlackPoppyRose (19-5-2017) http://www.blackpoppyrose.org/wp/outlets/.

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Abstract

This thesis examines the Centenary remembrance of Indian and West Indian soldier who fought in the First World War as part of the British Empire, and how this remembrance intersects with British national identity. With the recent refugee crisis and the vote to leave the European Union, also known as Brexit, the debate surrounding Britishness and British identity have come to a head. The Centenary – or hundred year – commemoration of the First World War has become a battle ground where Europhiles and Brexiters fight about the national identity and future of the UK. The aim of this thesis is to examine how institutions and communities handle the commemoration of Indian and West Indian soldiers who contributed to the war effort. After a study of experiences of colonial soldiers during the War, the remembrance by the institutions of the BBC, IWM, NAM, and BL is first described and subsequently analyzed. The same in done with multiple Indian and West Indian community remembrance projects. This study finds that institutions make a sufficient effort to represent the contributions of colonial soldiers, as well as their struggles with institutional racism. These critical notes are not transported to the present, leaving them lacking in significance. Indian and black communities identify as British but face varying degrees of racial prejudice and discrimination, and are unable to criticize their treatment openly without facing scorn from white Britons for allegedly rejecting Britishness. Community projects fall into two categories; those who aim to tell a decolonialized story which is not integrated into British history – a strategy implemented by black British activists – and those who aim to tell the stories of colonial soldiers as an integral part of British history. Both communities and institutions use the ancestral sacrifice by colonial soldiers to affirm the Britishness of their descendants who live in the UK.

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