Fighting Another Man's War

 

The heavy sound of artillery no more a nuisance to his half deaf ears, he shoots on at the faceless enemy on the other side of the line. It has been six months since he had entered the battle, and a year since he had left home. Nostalgia had now become the greatest demoralizer. He sits in the barracks, cold to the bone, and recalls the summers in his small family home in Lucknow. He is scared to hope for another feel of the tropical summer sun, as he knows that the way the battle is progressing, he could be dead by dawn.

On the day of his 17^th birthday when he had expressed an interest in starting his own business, his father had said,” Pawan Singh Bhadoriya, your forefathers were warriors! They fought alongside kings to keep intruders away from their lands. Your grandfather and I served in the army as it was our duty as kshatriyas. Now it comes upon you to carry on our legacy.” The irony that in doing so, he would be fighting for the intruders wasn’t lost in his mind, but he did as his father had said. A year later, he had successfully enrolled in the British Indian army.

Not even a year had passed in service when he started hearing talks of the Great War. For him, the war was something that was being fought on foreign soil by foreign armies. But little did he know that he and his men in arms would play a major role in the turn of the war. Two months into the First World War, he received his deployment letter. He was to fight in France in the 7^th Meerut Division. After a brief goodbye, he was on a ship to a faraway land, accompanied by thousands of other soldiers, all connected by a common fate.

On 14^th October 1914, his ship docked at Marseille. As soon as he got off the ship,  an unfamiliar rifle was pushed into his hands, which the Brits called Lee Enfield, and he was to use it in the oncoming battle. Directions to be followed were being shouted at in different languages from every corner, and everything was in a complete state of confusion. The place was chaotic. But even through this chaos, he managed to sprout many strong friendships. However, through the course of the war he was destined to lose many of these forever. His division fought in one place, and then another and in the March of 1915, they were taken to fight the battle of Neuve Chapelle. In the early days of battle, the soldiers were able to keep up with the enemy fire, but towards late September, things started going downhill. Bombs, bullets, lack of medication, and weather had taken the lives of many soldiers and officers. The rest who remained, fought their hardest, but they were running low on ammunition. With a stark shortage in food, water, and other necessities, and with no backup coming, their future was uncertain.

“Retreat! Retreat! The Germans are advancing!” Morning has come, and he had survived the night. On hearing of the retreat, he is filled with new hope. “ Maybe, the war for me is over. Maybe, I will find the get to go back home.” He gets up with a jolt, and starts running for his life. They are to retreat to Mesopotamia. However, that wasn’t to be. Due to the fear of submarine attacks, he and his division are standard in Marseille . It takes over a year for him to finally reach his destination. But on reaching Mesopotamia, all hope is lost, as he is rushed into a new battle, and left to fight another man’s war.

India had contributed over 1.3 million men to fight in the WW1, making it the second largest volunteer army to fight in the war. Over one million men from these served overseas, but only 67,000 returned. A few years back, the bodies of two Indian soldiers were found in France. They were reburied ceremoniously along with their fellow comrades who were buried a century back in the land that they fell.