As Dominique Waag delivered his lecture on
‘War and Colonies’ at Chowgule College in Margao, browsing through invaluable
pieces of history in the form of carefully preserved pictures of Indian
soldiers during the war, the images that unfolded, made him emotional on a
couple of occasions. Over the past one year, Waag has collected rare pictures
of Indian soldiers at the war in the form of letters, postcards and pictures
from various museums, private collections and the internet. His strong urge to
find out more about these soldiers has also made him refer to the French army
records service, where millions of invaluable records tell the stories of war,
most of which aren’t known to many Indians.
Waag says, “A total of 1.3 million Indian
soldiers fought the war for the British king. My interest about Indian soldiers
stems from the fact that I have been hearing stories of Indian soldiers from my
family right from my childhood. Apart from being very different from the
Europeans, Indians were known to be extremely brave and loyal to the king. Some
of the letters that we found bear a testimony to this fact.”
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Waag adds, “The French soldiers were
fighting on their own ground, but the Indians were far from their family and
home. I’m quite sure that these soldiers left their little villages in India,
went to Mumbai, sailed the sea for four weeks and arrived in a different
country. It would be interesting to find more letters of these soldiers.”
According to Waag, apart from the stories
of war, another aspect that is not very visible is the love blooming between
the Indian soldiers and European women. Waag says, “Language wasn’t a barrier
as gestures took care of that. Most of these letters were destroyed but it is
known that there were a lot of love stories that happened there. This is
something for the next historians to explore.”
