A total of 9,909 Indian soldiers previously missing from the records of those killed during the First World War were added to the official records in the UK on Monday, after a major research project drawing on rare historical records.
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) said a past historical omission meant that these Army servicemen from pre-Partition India, who fought as part of the British Indian Army during the colonial era in the twentieth century, were never formally commemorated.
These forgotten soldiers have now been acknowledged following the Punjab Registers project, a five-year partnership between the CWGC, UK Punjab Heritage Association and University of Greenwich.
“Over a century after the end of the First World War, our mission endures, ensuring all those who died in the service of the Commonwealth receive the commemoration they deserve,” said Claire Horton, Director General of the CWGC an intergovernmental organisation charged with maintaining war graves and memorials globally.
“The Punjab Registers project is a landmark moment in that mission. The recovery of every one of these 9,909 names helps restore missing chapters in family and world histories. It stands as a constant, timeless reminder that commemoration is not only about the past it is about personal identity, family legacy and recognising the human cost of war,” she said.
Horton said the CWGC remains committed to “meaningful physical commemoration” and working with Commonwealth governments to seek views on a memorial to honour individual soldiers with the “dignity and respect they so rightly deserve”.
“From just hearsay to now discovering the facts about my great-grandfather’s ultimate military sacrifice, in particular the regiment he served in, has been incredibly poignant,” said Dr Inder Singh Palahey, a Leicester-based dentist who spent years searching for information about Kesar Singh, who he knew had gone to war and never returned.
“Upon his death, he left a widow and two young children in poverty. So, the fact that he will now be remembered in perpetuity within global history ensures the whole family sacrifice is recognised: which simply means everything to us,” he said.
The research project involved a process of digitising and analysing a fragile collection of documents held at Lahore Museum, containing the names and service details of approximately 320,000 Punjabi recruits.
Manjinder Nagra, the first British Sikh woman to represent Team England in Rugby, was among those who discovered that her great-grandfather, Jagat Singh, was one of the forgotten soldiers.
“When I attended the annual Chattri Memorial Service in Brighton, held in honour of the soldiers from Undivided India who gave their lives during the First World War, I never expected to receive such momentous news,” said Nagra.
“Learning from the UK Punjab Heritage Association that my maternal great-grandfather will now be officially recognised on the CWGC casualty database was incredibly moving and overwhelming.
“To know that his service and sacrifice are finally being properly acknowledged means so much to our family over 100 years on. In the present difficult times, this recognition feels especially significant. After all these years, he is finally being given the honour, dignity and remembrance he always deserved,” she said.
During the First World War between July 1914 and November 1918, more than1.4 million men from the British Indian Army served on all major battlefronts. One in six soldiers fighting for the British at the time came from pre-Partition India, with half a million of them from the Punjab including Sikh, Muslim,Hindu and Christian servicemen.
However, their contributions and sacrifices were often overlooked in mainstream histories. Early work on the Punjab Registers showed that some soldiers listed as having died during the conflict were missing from CWGC records and commemorations.
Research led by the commission’s official historian, Dr George Hay, uncovered that the majority of the missing casualties were men who had died in non-operational zones within India during the war.
“Due to rulings made by the British Indian government at the time, these men were not afforded war graves status, and so their names were never shared with the commission. This project has overturned that decision,” CWGC noted.
Historian-author Amandeep Madra, chair of the UK Punjab Heritage Association, noted that Britain and Punjab share a long history during the two World Wars and yet much of it was never commemorated.
“Not because they didn’t serve, but because a decision made a century ago excluded their sacrifice from the record. Putting that right means giving families around the world their history back, and properly and equally commemorating the men who died,” said Madra.
Researchers pored over “fragile records” and studied archives “name by name” as part of a major verification process.
A CWGC-funded PhD student at the University of Greenwich, George Williams, and19volunteers from around the world examined 15,935 deaths and compared them with 74,000 existing CWGC Indian Army records. Computer-assisted analysis and reviews by the CWGC and Indian Army specialistsrevealedthat9,909 casualties were missing from the records.
Gavin Rand, Professor of History at the University of Greenwich, added:”This project has not only helped to redress an historical injustice, it has also enabled families and communities in Britain and across the world to connect with and better understand their shared history and heritage.
“The Punjab Registers project shows why research matters.”
The project forms part of the CWGC’s wider Non-Commemoration Programme, established in 2021 to address historical inequalities in commemoration. So far, the programme has identified more than 20,000additional names for commemoration.
