India 1914 website is a part of our ‘Remembering Indian Soldiers’, a project supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Palan Foundation.

Remembering Indian Soldiers is working to profile the legacy of Indian soldiers and their important contribution during World War 1. The project is looking at Indian soldiers from all the various communities and regions regardless of their race or religion. One of its primary aims is to share the heritage with the various ethnic communities, in particular with the Dharmic (Hindu, Jain, Buddhist) and Zoroastrian community in the United Kingdom.

This shared history is relevant as in today’s multi-faith Britain with more than a million people from these faiths have made the UK their home.

The Indian contribution during World War 1 was considerable, but much of the story is missing from the public domain. India provided the largest voluntary force ever assembled in history with around 1.5 million individuals. Remembering Indian Soldiers will help broaden the engagement and understanding of World War 1 among these communities, as well as within the wider public sphere. We will put particular emphasis on engaging with the younger generation by providing a ‘relevancy’ framework of how their ancestor’s contribution to the world stage impacted the future paths of the two nations in terms of independence, migration and national identity.