From the Punjab to the Western Front

Dan Snow's History Hit

History Hit

History

4.7 • 12.9K Ratings

🗓️ 24 November 2021

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Over a million Indian soldiers served during the First World War, but many of the records of the soldiers who fought valiantly for the Allied cause had been lost - hiding their stories from history. Until now. Discovered in a basement of a museum in Lahore, Pakistan, where they had been left unread for 97 years, these newly recovered documents have allowed historians to put the men of the Indian Army back into the story of the allied war effort.

To explain the significance of the records that have been found, Dan is joined by Amandeep Madra OBE. Amandeep is the co-author of five books about Indian history, Chair of the UK Punjab Heritage Association and has worked with the University of Greenwich to digitise the files. Amandeep and Dan discuss what the records contain and how they were discovered, some of the stories they have revealed and how this new information is allowing families across the world to shed light on the vital contribution and sacrifice made by their ancestors to the allied victory during the First World War.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Paven, welcome to Dan Snow's history here.
0:03.0	Drinder Fussle wore over a million Indians
0:05.3	served in British Imperial forces.
0:07.6	They served nearly every theatre they served on the Western front.
0:10.4	They served in Eastern Mediterranean,
0:12.5	Sloanica and Galipoli.
0:13.3	They served in East Africa,
0:14.4	the Middle East and some harrowing campaigns there in Mesopotamia in particular.
0:19.2	But all too often, the records,
0:21.4	the service records of these individuals,
0:23.6	these men who fought and died and were wounded and so forth,
0:26.5	they've been lost.
0:27.4	They haven't been treated with the same care and attention as their comrades from the UK.
0:32.8	Thankfully, and this is a great story,
0:35.2	we have recently discovered an archive.
0:37.4	An archive is discovered in a basement of a museum in Lahore.
0:40.8	It's an astonishing story.
0:42.7	It has allowed us to fill in some gaps in our history
0:45.5	to put these men back into the story of Britain at Senpai during the First World War,
0:50.0	to recover these lost stories.
0:51.8	It's very, very exciting.
0:53.5	On the podcast, I'm going to talk to Amundi Madhira.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from History Hit, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of History Hit and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.