I was fortunate to be invited to a seminar on Remembrance Sunday titled '160 Years Shoulder to Shoulder - Exploring 160 Years of the Anglo Sikh Relationship'.
The seminar documented the contribution of Sikh soldiers who despite being involved in their own disputes with the British Raj at the time, travelled to Europe to assist the Allied troops in WW1. The war was being fought in a land foreign to the Sikhs and which also had no immediate bearing on them. However, the Sikhs recognised that threat was universal and that innocent victims were being caught up in the German invasion.
The audience were shown a video telling a story from WWI. German scientists had made an 80-second audio recording of a Sikh soldier captured at the Battle of Flanders. The starving soldier Mal Singh, yearns to return to his home in the Punjab, the "land of butter and milk." This was a fascinating discovery and the audience was captivated by the video. It was discovered that Mal Singh was released by the Germans and eventually returned to his homeland. The researchers managed to locate his grandson in India and were able to play the recording of his grandfather to him and his family. A very moving story indeed.
An extract of the video can be found here: Sikh Heritage
