One hundred years after the end of World War I, the immense
sacrifice
and contributions of well over a million soldiers of undivided India are
being incrementally recognised and memorialised the world over. In France, the
centenary celebrations of Armistice Day on November 11 will include
the unveiling
of the second overseas national war memorial for Indian soldiers, by Vice
President M. Venkaiah Naidu. The first such memorial abroad, formalised in
2002, is the Menin Gate in Ypres, Belgium, which is a recognition that more than
130,000 Indian soldiers fought in WWI in Belgium, at least 10,000 of whom
lost their lives on the battlefield. Last month, British Prime Minister
Theresa May pledged to wear a khadi poppy in honour of more than 74,000
soldiers from pre-Partition India who fought on the side of the allies
and died in battle. She particularly noted that 11 of them won the Victoria
Cross for their outstanding bravery and played a crucial role in the war across
continents. Yet far from the ceremonial pomp of officialdom is perhaps the most poignant
symbol of how much ordinary Indian men enlisting in the colonial government’s Army
gave of their lives to fight the German, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman
Empires: the British Library in London has received 1,000 pages of
war-veteran interview transcripts recorded in the 1970s, which include
details of the inhumane treatment, including floggings, denial of home
leave, and brazenly
racial-discriminatory
treatment that 1.5 million mostly-illiterate men from northern India faced
regularly within the allied forces army.
In the early days of the War, troops of the Indian
Army, backed by the political bourgeoisie, were enthusiastic in responding to
the British government’s call for military support from India. This was
because, although the swadeshi movement was underway, the freedom
movement was in a fledgling stage. Even Mahatma Gandhi was
open to Indians enlisting and learning to defend themselves using arms,
as were leaders such as Bal Gangadhar Tilak. However, with the enormous death
toll by the end of WWI, the painful lessons were absorbed and the pressure
for enlistment of Indians in the World War II effort produced an entirely
different outcome — the Quit India movement and the escalation of the freedom
movement. WWI also influenced the collective psyche of the government of
independent India, starting with the tenets of non-alignment that came to embody
a core mantra of the country’s foreign policy ethos. However, while India
remains wary of ‘treaty alliances’ and steers clear of combat involvement in
third-party conflicts, it is the third-largest contributor of military and
police personnel to UN peacekeeping missions. Difficult though the conditions
Indian peacekeepers face must be, they must be thankful that their country
would never put them in the sort of situation that their predecessors
faced from 1914 to 1918.
00. Sacrifice (verb) - Give up (something valued) for the sake of other considerations. give
up, relinquish,,
abdicate, sign away,
01. Memorialised (verb) -
Preserve the memory of; commemorate. keep
alive, keep going, preserve, conserve, sustain, maintain,
continue, extend, carry on, keep up, prolong
02. Immense (adjective) - huge, vast, massive, enormous, gigantic,
colossal, tremendous, prodigious, substantial
03. Armistice Day (noun) - The
anniversary of the armistice of 11 November 1918, now replaced by Remembrance
Sunday in the UK and Veterans Day in the US.
04. Unveiling (verb) - reveal, present, disclose, divulge
05. Recognition (noun) - identification, recollection, recall, official
approval,
certification, accreditation, endorsement, ratification
06. Allies (noun) - A person or
organization that cooperates with or helps another in a particular activity.
07. Crucial (adjective) - pivotal,
critical, key, climacteric, decisive, deciding, determining, paramount, indispensable
08. Pomp (noun) - ceremonial, solemnity,
ritual, display, pageantry, pageant, ostentation, ostentatiousness, showiness, flamboyance, lavishness,
resplendence, splendour, splendidness
09. Poignant (adjective) - Evoking a keen sense of sadness or regret
10. Enlisting (verb) - join uprecruit, call up,
enroll, obtain, engage,procure
11. Inhumane (adjective) - cruel,
harsh, brutal, callous, sadistic, severe, savage, vicious, barbaric,
barbarous
12. Floggings (verb) - beat (someone) with a whip
or stick as a punishment, scourge, flagellate,
lash,
birch,
switch,
tan,
strap
13. Brazenly (adverb) - bold and
shameless way, impudent, ingeniously, wantonly
14. Racial-discriminatory (adjective)
– Racial Discrimination is treating, or proposing to treat, someone unfavorably
because of a personal characteristic, Race includes colour, descent or ancestry,
nationality or ethnic background, or any characteristics associated with a
particular race.
15. Bourgeoisie (noun) – lower class, commoners,
proletarian, plebian, blue-collar workers
16. Enthusiastic (adjective) - eager,
keen, avid, ardent, fervent, zealous, lively, vivacious, energetic, vigorous,
vehement, fiery, exuberant, ebullient, spirited, earnest
17. Underway (adverb) - in
progress, going on, happening, occurring, taking place, extant,
progressing, evolving, growing, developing
18. Fledgling (noun) - emerging,
emergent, arising, sunrise, dawning, beginning
19. Defend (verb) - protect, guard,
safeguard, preserve, secure, shield,
fortify,
garrison, barricade
20. Embody (verb) – manifest, epitomize,
incarnate, organize, systematize, combine, bring together, gather
together, collect
21. Tenets (noun) - principle,
belief, doctrine, precept, creed, credo, dogma, canon, rule
22. Steers (verb) - guide,
direct, manoeuvre, helm
23. Ethos (noun) - prevailing
tendency temper, tenor, essence, quintessence, morality attitudes, beliefs,
principles, ethics
24. Sort of (phrase) - somewhat, moderately, quite, rather, fairly, reasonably, comparatively,
relatively, kind of
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