Why I Wrote a Book About My Grandparents

My grandmother was British. My grandfather was Indian.

And I mean like Indian from India. I have to clarify because, you know, Christopher Columbus.

My grandfather, Raj, was a Sikh by birth. He wasn't traditional though as he didn't adorn a turban or have long hair. He was actually quite British- even by how he sounded and acted. As he was commanded by his father, he left India at the ripe age of 18 years old for a progressive future on the distant lands that was England. He attended Cambridge and after not being able to deal with the rules of such a prestigious school, he left and was accepted to King's College in London.

My grandmother, Norah, was forced into the role of being mother to her younger siblings when their mother passed away. When the youngest sibling reached maturity my grandmother went to London to work at St. Mary's Hospital as a nurse.

They lived a mere 2 miles from one another. But this isn't where their story starts, not yet.

And then Britain declared war on Germany.

Raj joined the war effort fighting with Britain's army, at first. He had worked his way slowly up the ranks however it was made clear that he could not be an Indian officer in charge of British enlisted men and was told by a superior officer, “You chaps have your own army.”

Norah felt charged to join the war as a military nurse after seeing the casualties that were brought back home. She wanted to do more and thus she was posted to a hospital ship in the middle of the Mediterranean.

Raj was assigned to the 3/1st Punjab Regiment and fought alongside British and Indian men. He was eventually promoted to Major, and as a company commander in Italy, led Muslim soldiers into battle. Most of the men under his command were merely boys, at the green age of 18 and 19. One by one, Raj saw his men- his friends- be picked off by the enemy. Death robbed them of ever seeing their home and family ever again.

Norah dove into the icy cold waters one January night as she watched a nearby hospital ship be swallowed up by flames, a deliberate attack by German planes. The ship moaned and creaked as it fell and sank deep into the dark waters. Norah pushed past debris to find survivors, if there were any.

As the war went on, hope began to fade from Raj. His best friend was killed and he nearly was killed himself. As the familiar smell of cordite hung in the air, Raj was taken to a hospital in Naples to be treated for his wounds.

Norah was losing faith; how could a god let any of this destruction happen to his people? She began her shift at the evacuation hospital she now worked at in Naples.

You can see where this is going, right? She was a nurse. He was a patient. Nurse. Patient. You get it.

So why is this all important? Why do I think this story needs to be told. For one, because it's never been told before.

I don’t remember growing up and cracking open a textbook in school and reading that India was an ally in the war, let alone detailed ANY of their contribution to the war effort. As students we were taught that it was the US and the UK who were the big heroes and Germany, Japan, and Italy were the zeroes. But I knew India fought after being told my grandfather's stories my whole life. However, doing research for the book proved to be difficult because when you Google "allies in WWII" the only contributors listed are the aforementioned. Why is India's contribution missing? Has India's role in bringing down the Nazis been forgotten?

Did India actually contribute anything?

*Cracks knuckles*

Let's discuss.

India was one of the biggest proponents of advancement in the North Africa and Italian campaigns in the West during the war and in the ultimate defeat of Japan in Asia. There were about 70 million soldiers in the allied and axis powers combined, 2 million of them were US soldiers fighting in Europe while a staggering 2.5 million were Indian.

How do that many people get left out of textbooks?

Of course, during the time of the war India was still under British rule and so when they declared war on the Axis powers, India did as well. Political parties from India demanded liberation before they were to fight in the war but the UK refused. Supplying not only ferocious fighters, but India provided financially as well. Billions of Pounds were drained from the wealth of India and into the pockets of the United Kingdom to finance the war. Is it possible to argue that if Britain had not received help from India that they might not have made it through the war? I don't think it's a stretch to say, yes.

Forgotten with India, are the Muslim soldiers that fought alongside the British. Over 40% of the Indian Army consisted of Muslims. That’s right, before “Muslim” became a controversial word, they were seen as allies who helped the world in defeating the Nazis.

World War II claimed the lives of over 20 million people who served in the military. 87,000 of them were Indian. It seems that any of India’s involvement has been swallowed up and been allotted to the UK or overshadowed by “big players” like the US.

And as a women I am desperately asking: among all these masculine brother-stands-with-brother war movies, where oh where are the stories of women during the war? Because I ain't buying that it was just men who volunteered for the greater good. And after all, I have my own grandmother's story to stand by. She saw the war first hand, she rescued those on the brink of death. Where are those stories?

I can't be the only one too who is asking these questions; who is asking Hollywood and the media to tell a different story.

So to answer the question as to why tell their story can be summed up by this: a war memorial in Nagaland, India that aims to commemorate the soldiers that died to stave off the Japan assault during WWII has a simple message inscribed, When you go home tell them of us and say: “for your tomorrow we gave our today.” There are 1,420 Indians buried there.

It is time to hear the stories of these brave men and women.