Last November here in Britain the annual remembrance took place of the country’s war dead. Up and down the country on Remembrance Sunday services are held to remember those who have given their lives in the two world wars and many other wars since then, including the current conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. And this week the Commonwealth war dead were remembered at a special ceremony in London.
It was attended by former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher amongst other dignitaries and representatives of former colonies and British ethnic minorities including the UK Sikh community as well as veterans and serving military.
It is organised by the Commonwealth Memorial Gates committee who have shifted the date from November to coincide with Commonwealth Day. The ceremony is centred around the chattri and memorial gates just off Hyde Park Corner, a tribute which was only erected a few years ago after much campaigning.
As fitting as it is consider the contrast with the very large and prominently placed memorials to the Australian and New Zealand war dead a stone’s throw away on the much better suited location of Hyde Park Corner and it’s hard not to think that the contribution of the non-white commonwealth has never been adequately marked.
Having said that the gates with their lit flames and the chattri with the names of VC holders engraved into its domed ceiling, do offer a moving and well structured monument. It’s their location off the busy Hyde Park Corner and its relentless traffic that disturb the ceremony and the minutes silence at 11am, marked by the bugle of a Gurkha playing the Last Post that grates.
Shame. The commemoration of the contribution of some five million Africans and Asians who fought in the two world wars deserves better.
However the ceremony and permanent monument at least do provide a focal point for remembrance and have placed these nations contribution to the UK then and now into the minds of the British establishment and mainstream society.
But whilst not so obviously remembering civilian deaths, or those who conscientiously objected, the undoubted importance still of 11th November - and now hopefully the Commonwealth Day service - in the British psyche is evident and serves as a point of painfully acute opposition to the lack of remembrance offered by Indian institutions to their fallen and survivors.
World war two Indian veterans receive no special pension as far as I am aware, having fought for their then colonial rulers who equally have washed their hands of their once loyal servants, a total disgrace; whilst their dead comrades have no major monument or service dedicated to them in India. India Gate was built by the British to honour the Indians who fought and fell in the far flung fields of Europe, where again monuments stand to fallen Indians, and elsewhere.
In Britain TV documentaries on the BBC acknowledged the massive support given by troops from undivided India and the rest of the Empire in the world wars and talk has even been of increasing Sikh recruits into the British Army. The reawakening of Britain’s acknowledgement of what it owes to its former colonies is an encouraging development.
But beyond monuments and nostalgic documentaries what else is being done to thank those veterans who still survive? Surely what is now required is proper education that explains this massive contribution to the wider public and future generations in order to allow ethnic minorities and their place in British society as equal citizens to be better understood and respected by themselves and others – as well as for proper recognition for the surviving veterans, because to them we owe everything.
For pictures of the ceremony see http://www.flickr.com/photos/timgrewal/sets/72157623680535298/
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You have hit the nail right on the head. It needs to be taught in schools that the war dead and heroes are not just whites European, that Asians and blacks fought and died too! Doing a quite, low profile event which had little or no meida coverage is not acceptable in this day n age were turban Sikhs have to fight to wear the turban and the kirpan, there was once a time when a turban Sikh recieved respect from fellow soilders and civilians from both British and Europeans worlds that respect has now been replaced with fear which is a shame.
Taran Singh.