For Queen & Country

Sikh Honour in Battle

During the two Anglo Sikh Wars (1845-1849), the British had been sufficiently impressed by the fighting qualities of the Sikhs to raise battalion after battalion of Sikh forces. They enlisted men of the Khalsa Army into their own regiments and into newly formed Sikh regiments

The British ensured that all Sikh men recruited would be obliged to wear their hair and beards unshorn. An 1851 secret despatch, ordered that “...all Sikhs entering the British Army should receive the Pahul [baptism] and observe strictly the code of Sikh conduct.” The Khalsa Army that had previously been the most formidable enemy of the British now became the most fervent of loyalists.

Dramatic confirmation of this reconciliation was received when the Sikhs refused to join the Indian Mutiny in 1857. For four extremely tense months the British raised 18 new regiments in the Punjab, largely Sikh and Muslim. Punjab became, and remained the sword arm and breadbasket of British India.

When the Great War in Europe began to unfold, the drive began to enlist Indian troops to bolster the war effort. With the assistance of influential Sikh leaders Sikhs joined the British Army en-masse. In the depressing trenches of the German and Turkish fronts thousands of young Sikh volunteers fought and lay down their lives, defending land unknown to them, against an enemy that was no threat to them for an ally that occupied their own country. The world was to behold the largest voluntary army ever in action, with 174 000 men from India, Sikhs made up nearly 20% of the British Indian Army despite being only 2% of the population. Commentators noted that the contribution of the Sikh community was ten times that of any other community of India.

As Sikh men, who had fought with their British comrades to free occupied lands in Western Europe, returned to their homes, the realization that they too were still occupied caused the call for change in their own Government. General Dyer finally and irrecoverably severed the relationship in 1919 after the notorious Jallianwala Bagh massacre on thousands of unarmed protestors in Amritsar.

As the allied nations stepped ever closer to a second global conflict, this time with the Japanese and the Germans, Sikh soldiers once again stepped forward. When India joined the war a sharply divided debate ensued and Indians split along the role that they should play. There was widespread violence in many cities as the British quelled demonstrations. However states like the Punjab from where the concentration of recruits into the British Indian Army came – looked on curiously at the events in Delhi. Young Sikh men helped to swell the Indian Army from 189,000 at the start of the war to over 2.5 million at the end of the war.

Sikhs still made up a disproportionate quantity of the forces that India gave to the war effort. Sikh soldiers were deployed to most of the active fronts during the Second World War, but it was in Burma where the Sikh Regiment was largely employed and where Sikh soldiers famously made their mark.

By the eve of the Second World War, Sikhs had fought on the mountains of Afghanistan, the deserts of Mesopotamia and the trenches of Flanders. By 1944, Sikh soldiers were well entrenched in the sweltering swamps of the Burmese Jungles where they played a vital role in arresting the Japanese and forcing them to retreat, winning four VC’s in the process.

Finally, we that live on can never forget those comrades who in giving their lives gave so much that is good to the story of the Sikh Regiment.

No living glory can transcend that of their supreme sacrifice, may they rest in peace.

”In the last two world wars 83,005 turban wearing Sikh soldiers were killed and 109,045 were wounded. They all died or were wounded for the freedom of Britain and the world and during shell fire, with no other protection but the turban, the symbol of their faith.” General Sir Frank Messervy KCSI, KBE, CB, DSO