British Indian Army Turban

[RobDekk]

I would suggest that the fact that India is 'now' acknowledging the part played by the Indian Army in 1914-1918 has far more to do with the centenary and little to do with a 'century of denial'. The role of the IA was known and celebrated throughtout India and Pakistan certainty up to 1947 and [probably after, and has never ceased to be recognized in the armies of those countries, whatever the politicians and general public may have felt about it over the years. This is a typical piece of modern journalism: because the reporter has never heard of the thing or phenomenon being described, and may feel that she/he is not alone in that, the thing must be 'lost', a 'mystery' or, even better, something which has been deliberately hidden by some unnamed group for an unstated but probably nefarious reason. Sigh!

On the contrary, the English language Indian press has been covering the story in the same light. This just happened to be an article I came across on the day.

[pzrwest]

Cool Indian head gear! Weren't there Indian soldiers in the TR as well as British? Were they from different sects ie. Hindou and Sek

[The City Gent]

I suspect that members outside of the UK may not be able to play this programme ( although it was broadcast on the BBC World Service initially) and it pre-dates the kullah/pagri in the thread as it focuses on POW's of the Great War, but it is still of major interest to anyone with an interest in the Indian Army.


For those of us here that do have such an interest try this link. Might be worth trying a VPN if you can't access it.

The Ghostly Voices of World War One

Hidden away in the backrooms at Humbolt University and the Ethnological Museum in Berlin are some of the most remarkable sound recordings ever made. They date back to World War One and capture the voices of some of the ordinary men who fought in ‘the war to end all wars’. They were recorded by German academics who realised they didn’t have to go abroad to research the world’s many different languages. Instead, they were able to focus on captured soldiers from the furthest reaches of the British Empire, who were being held at prisoner of war camps all over Germany. Among them were a group of Hindus, Sikhs and Indian soldiers imprisoned at camps on the outskirts of Berlin. They performed poems, songs and stories which were recorded using Thomas Eddison’s latest invention.

How these men lived out the rest of their lives has been cloaked in obscurity. On a quest to discover what happened to them and how they died, and armed with the recordings, Priyath Liyanage travels from Germany across the world to some of the villages in northern India where these men lived. It proves to be an emotional journey, resurrecting memories which had long been forgotten. These old soldiers may be long gone but their voices live on.

[Peter_Suciu]

Cool Indian head gear! Weren't there Indian soldiers in the TR as well as British? Were they from different sects ie. Hindou and Sek

There was the Legion Freies Indien (Free Indian Legion), which was created by Subhas Chandra Bose.

After the Indian Mutiny (1857-59) the British tried to organize the Indian Army's regiments and units on the basis of religion and regional or caste identity, whereas the Indian Legion was organized as mixed units so that Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs all served side-by-side.

Photos show that turbans were worn, mostly by the Sikhs. And this is the key to understanding turbans. By World War II only the Sikhs continued to wear turbans.

As I noted in my article on my website, as well as the piece I wrote for Military Trader, Sikhs don't wear the kullah, but wrap the turban directly on the head. Hindus and Muslims did wear the kullah.

The final thing to understand is the Sikhs aren't Muslims and aren't Hindus either. Sikhs tend to be confused with both.