Forgotten stories of Indian soldiers during World War I

July 9, 2014

World War INew Delhi, Jul 9: Heartwarming stories, including romantic ones, about Indian soldiers who fought in the First World War as part of the British Army, culled from archives and personal testimonies, feature in a new documentary.

The upcoming feature-length film Mademoiselle France Pleure (Miss France is in Tears) attempts to piece together the lesser known fact about the 1.4 million Indian soldiers and civilian workers who came to France and Belgium to defend France’s freedom against invasion.

“The soldiers faced various hardships, casualties and diseases in the war. The feature-length documentary attempts to show their specific situations within the British Army and hospitals,” says Vijay Singh, an Indian filmmaker and novelist based in Paris.

Mr. Singh, who has shot critically acclaimed feature films such as Jaya Ganga and One Dollar Curry in the past was in New Delhi recently to announce the project and firm up plans to shoot in countries including India, France, Austria and Belgium.

“Everybody remembers India’s freedom struggle, but very few or in fact nobody would remember the contribution made by Indian soldiers during the World War I about the role played by Indian soldiers during the World War I,” says Mr. Singh.

The filmmaker attempts to show various tragicomic situations faced by the French and the British while feeding Indian soldiers according to their strict religious beliefs and the hospitality of French hostesses, which won the hearts of Indian soldiers during their convalescence in French barns.

With the initiative of the French government and embassy, Mr. Singh, says he has been successful in gathering testimonies from the archives and descendents, in France, India, Belgium and the UK of the brave soldiers out of which 10,000 did not even return home.

There are accounts of the soldiers who fell in love with French women during their stay in France and had children with them.

“In one such camp when the Indian soldiers were going to the battlefield, the French women carried placards which read — “Miss France in Tears”, says Mr. Singh explaining the title of his documentary.

Mr. Singh’s film also features a 71-year-old woman whose grandfather was an Indian. The woman’s narrative is among the numerous interviews, which make up the documentary.

A part of the feature film was shot in Chamba, Uttarakhand where the Gabbar Singh Negi Mela is still held every year on April 21 for the past 94 years with assistance from the Chatwal Regiment of the Indian Army.

The filmmaker has interviewed people who recount that the French were spellbound when they saw the Sikh soldiers combing their hair or tying their turbans and the spectacle of Indian soldiers having a bath in between two trains or even the khaki shorts they donned.

“What astonished the French was the huge cavalry and cattle that the Indian regiment had arrived with. Special costumes that were nothing but long leggings arranged for the Gorkhas made them look like minions,” Mr. Singh says.

The upcoming documentary is set to include a high profile ceremony of the Neuve Chapelle Battle Memorial (a memorial which has been set up to pay tribute to the Indian soldiers in France) in 2015.

“It would be a ceremony to commemorate 100 years of the World War I. The event would be marked by a parade and different events to commemorate the historic day (July 14) when World War 1 began” Singh says.

The soldiers wrote about their experiences in around 600 letters when they were in hospitals, records of which are maintained in the Haryana Academy of Art and Culture.

“Soldiers used to send one rupee from their monthly salary to the academy, which went towards education of students,” says the filmmaker.

Mr. Singh says he researched for the past three years for the film, which is set to be made in various languages and would be produced by France Television.

The glimpses of the footage which the director showed in the programme were a product of a three-year-long research.

The footage have been obtained from the French Production House, the British Production House, the Imperial War Museum and the British Library.

“Not many pictures have been available of the Indian soldiers except the ones from the hospitals where King George V had gone to visit them,” Mr. Singh says.

Mr. Singh has used rare film footage, photographs, portraits, Indian war songs, sound recordings, interviews with the descendants of the soldiers.

“This is a remarkable example of what India and France can do together. The history of both the countries is not known in detail and this documentary will promote the relationship between both the countries,” says an official from the French Embassy, where Singh showed some photographs from his upcoming film at an event recently.

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Agencies
May 5,2020

Jammu and Kashmir, May 5: Awarding the prestigious Pulitzer Prize to three Indian photographers, the Pulitzer Board at Columbia University claimed that it was for their work in Kashmir as "India revoked its independence".

The award to Channi Anand, Mukhtar Khan and Dar Yasin in the feature photography category for their pictures for the Associated Press was announced on Monday.

The prizes, considered the most prestigious for US journalism, are associated with the university's Graduate School of Journalism where the judging is done and is announced, although this year it was done remotely.

Besides a certificate, the prizes carry a cash award of $15,000, except the public service category for which a gold medal is awarded.

The public service prize went to The Anchorage Daily News for a series that dealt with policing in Alaska state.

In making the award to the three, the Board said on its website that it was "for striking images of life in the contested territory of Kashmir as India revoked its independence, executed through a communications blackout".

Besides making the false claim about "independence" of Kashmir being "revoked", the board that includes several leading journalists did not explain how their photographs could have reached the AP within hours of the incidents recorded "through a communication blackout".

India's Central government only revoked Article 370 of the Constitution that gave Jammu and Kashmir a special status and it was not independent.

Indian journalists were allowed to operate in Kashmir, while only non-Indian journalists were barred.

The wording of the award announcement calls into question the credibility of the Pulitzer Board that gives out what are considered prestigious journalism awards.

The portfolio of pictures by the three on the Pulitzer web site included one of a masked person attacking a police vehicle and another of masked people with variants of the Kashmir flag, besides photos of mourners and protesters.

One of the finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for explanatory journalism was a reporter of Indian descent at The Los Angeles Times, Swetha Kannan, who was nominated for her work with two colleagues on the seas rising due to climate change.

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Agencies
May 26,2020

New Delhi, May 26: As India ranked 10th in the global infection list, overtaking Iran, which was an early hotspot of coronavirus, India's top medical body has said the human trials of COVID-19 vaccine may begin at least in six months.

Dr. Rajni Kant, Director Regional Medical Research Centre and Head at the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said, "The virus strain isolated at the National Institute of Virology (NIV) laboratory in Pune will be used to develop the vaccine, and this strain has been successfully transferred to the Bharat Biotech International Ltd. (BBIL). It is expected that the human trials of the vaccine will begin in at least six months."

Queried on the focus areas as India inches closer to 1.4 lakh COVID-19 cases, Kant said we should not get anxious about the rapid increase in numbers, especially in the past week, which saw 5,000 Covid-19 cases daily, instead focus on protecting the most vulnerable group.

"We should not fear from increasing Covid-19 cases. The elderly and people with comorbidities need protection. This is the highly vulnerable group, and we need to deploy resources and develop strategies to keep the mortality rate as low as possible in this group," said Kant.

Initially, it was assumed that the country would require thousands of ventilators, but last week, the health ministry said only 0.45 per cent of COVID-19 cases need ventilator support.

Kant insisted the focus should be on five per cent to 10 per cent serious patients. "We are testing more than one lakh daily and our case fatality rate is already one of the lowest in the world. In absence of vaccine, people should follow social distancing guidelines," he added

On the significance of the recovery rate, Kant said the increasing recovery rate of the COVID-19 patients, which is at 41 per cent, is a bright spot in India's fight against deadly viral infection.

Queried on large scale COVID-19 cases in Mumbai, Delhi and Ahmedabad, Kant said the population density in these regions is very high, which proves to be the just right environment for the viral infection.

He insisted on developing robust cluster management strategies in the hard-hit coronavirus spots, and the movement of people should be curtailed in these areas.

"Currently, a lot of people are moving around easily and avoiding social distancing norms. The first phase of the lockdown was very effective, but now things have changed," added Kant.

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Agencies
January 11,2020

New Delhi, Jan 11: The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear the curative petition of two death row convicts in 2012 Nirbhaya gang-rape case on January 14.

A five-judge Bench of Justices N V Ramana, Arun Mishra, R F Nariman, R Banumathi and Ashok Bhushan will hear the petition filed by Vinay Sharma and Mukesh.

The duo had moved a curative petition in the top court after a Delhi court issued a death warrant in their name and announced January 22 as the date of their execution.

Besides them, two other convicts named Pawan and Akshay are also slated to be executed on the same day at 7 am in Delhi's Tihar Jail premises.

They were convicted and sentenced to death for raping a 23-year-old woman on a moving bus in the national capital on the night of December 16, 2012.

The victim, who was later given the name Nirbhaya, died at a hospital in Singapore where she had been airlifted for medical treatment.

A curative petition is the last judicial resort available for redressal of grievances. It is decided by the judges in-chamber.

If it is rejected, they are legally bound to move a mercy petition. It is filed before the President who has the power to commute it to life imprisonment.

The court after issuing a black warrant in their name gave them two weeks' time to file both the curative and mercy petition.

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