Historical Inequalities in Commemoration: The Imperial War Graves Commission and the Indian Dead during and following the First World War

The project will provide the first study of the IWGC's treatment of the Indian dead of the Great War. Since its creation in 1917 the IWGC/CWGC has prided itself on its commitment to equality in commemoration. Not only was there no distinction of military rank in their graves and memorials, there was also no distinction between the dead of the colonies, the dominions and the British metropole. All had died as members of the British Empire, and the Empire, through the IWGC, would commemorate them all equally. However, the television documentary The Unremembered: Britain's Forgotten War Heroes (C4:2019) claimed that the IWGC had not always lived up to its founding standards, summarized in the Kenyon Report (1918) as 'all, whatever their military rank or position in civil life, should have equal treatment in their graves'. The Unremembered demonstrated that many thousands of the colonial dead in east Africa had not been commemorated by name and that many of the cemeteries that contained their bodies may have been abandoned. Imperial ideologies thus appeared to have shaped commemoration, separating African troops and labourers from the white British soldiers in death as in life.
In response, the CWGC formed a committee to investigate global historical inequalities in commemoration after the Great War, publishing the Report of the Special Committee to review historical inequalities in commemoration in April 2021. The Report found that between 45,000-54,000 (primarily Indian and African) dead of the Great War had been treated unequally - some commemorated collectively on memorials rather than in individual graves, and others (recorded as missing) named in registers rather than in stone. Additionally, the Special Committee estimated that between 116,000 and 350,000 dead may not have been commemorated at all. In some instances, across Africa, the Middle East and India, imperial ideologies were allowed to shape the operations of the IWGC, with the perceived 'state of civilisation' of the dead often determining their treatment in death and commemoration. The Report also found that in recent years when the CWGC uncovered inequalities in commemoration it had corrected these, but that 'despite identifying problems and quietly putting them right, it is fair to say that the CWGC has not gone looking for them.' Among its recommendations was the suggestion that the CWGC should continue to search for the non-commemorated dead, seek to further understand and be transparent about these 'difficult histories', that recovered names should be inscribed on physical memorials, that digital memorials should be considered, and that the CWGC should engage in a programme of engagement and education, working closely with communities under-represented in commemoration (Connelly and Noakes have advised the engagement and education team at the CWGC).
This CDA will extend the work of the Special Committee, which focused on the work of the IWGC across Africa and the Middle East in the Great War's aftermath. It will draw on the archives of the CWGC, material in the National Archives, the Indian Office at the British Library and the cemetery and records at Neuve Chapelle to examine the commemorative treatment of the Indian dead on the Western Front and elsewhere. The Western Front was the focus of the IWGC's work in the aftermath of the Great War, and some 4,653 Indian troops and labourers who have no known grave are commemorated on the Indian memorial at Neuve Chapelle, France. Over 8,550 of the 140,000 men sent by Imperial India to the Western Front were killed. However, the Indian Army provided another six expeditionary forces for theatres outside Europe, and treatment of the dead of these units will provide the sources for comparison with the treatment of those who died on the Western Front.