The circle has closed for Sunney Palahey, a dentist from Leicester, after researchers confirmed his great-grandfather’s name will finally be added to the official list of war dead. Kesar Singh, who went to war and never returned, is one of nearly 10,000 soldiers from pre-partition India whose sacrifice has been unrecognised for more than a century.
The names of 9,909 British Indian Army servicemen are now being added to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) casualty database in the biggest update to its records in more than 80 years. UK volunteers spent years combing through unique registers compiled in the state of Punjab shortly after World War One – scores of cracked, fragile, leather-bound volumes filled with handwritten records, each embossed with a village name, now lining shelves at the Lahore Museum in Pakistan.
“Nearly 10,000 forgotten WW1 soldiers from pre-partition India are finally being added to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission database.”
Around 1.4 million people from the subcontinent – now India, Pakistan and Bangladesh – served in the British Indian Army in the war. In the years after the conflict, officials visited every town and village in Punjab in an effort to record the names and fates of each of the 320,000 servicemen who came from that state alone. Following India’s partition in 1947, Punjab was split between the two new nations.
Members of the UK Punjab Heritage Association initiated the project to digitise and analyse the records, a process that has taken several years. Jasmin Basra, a PhD student at the University of Greenwich, took part in the painstaking research. 'As a Punjabi myself I feel really proud that I can do this part for the community,' she said. She unexpectedly stumbled across the names of two of her own relatives: a great-great-grandfather and his brother who also served in WW1 fighting for the British Indian Army. 'That connection was emotional,' she said. 'As a second-generation British Punjabi, there is almost a disconnect from Punjab as well as not being fully connected to British history.'
For Sunney Palahey, the recognition has brought a deep sense of closure. 'It's been recognised by an authority, which it never was before,' he said. 'He is now an entry in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. All the sacrifices seem to have been worth it.' He said he now feels proud to be part of a global community of those connected with service in WW1. Work is now being done to trace British descendants of the soldiers whose sacrifice has finally been acknowledged.