The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) has officially commemorated 9,909 Indian Army soldiers who died during the First World War but were previously omitted from official records. This marks the largest single addition to CWGC casualty records since the Second World War.
Background of the Omission
During the First World War, more than 1.4 million men from the Indian Army served on all major battlefronts. One in six soldiers fighting for the British came from pre-partition India, with half a million from Punjab, including Sikh, Muslim, Hindu, and Christian servicemen. Yet many of these men were overlooked in mainstream histories due to rulings by the British Indian Government at the time, which denied them war graves status if they died in non-operational zones within India.
The Punjab Registers Project
The recognition came through the Punjab Registers project, a five-year partnership between the CWGC, the UK Punjab Heritage Association (UKPHA), and the University of Greenwich. The project digitised and analysed a rare collection of documents held at Lahore Museum, containing the names and service details of approximately 320,000 Punjabi recruits.
A CWGC-funded PhD student at the University of Greenwich, George Williams, and 19 volunteers from around the world examined 15,935 deaths and compared them with 74,000 existing CWGC Indian Army records. Their effort was supported by computer-assisted analysis and reviewed by CWGC and Indian Army specialists, revealing that 9,909 casualties were missing.
Impact and Significance
Claire Horton CBE, Director General of the CWGC, stated: “Over a century after the end of the First World War, our mission endures, ensuring all those who died in the service of the Commonwealth receive the commemoration they deserve. The Punjab Registers project is a landmark moment in that mission. The recovery of every one of these 9,909 names helps restore missing chapters in family and world histories. It stands as a constant, timeless reminder that commemoration is not only about the past, it is about personal identity, family legacy, and recognising the human cost of war.”
The Punjab Registers project is part of the CWGC's wider Non-Commemoration Programme, established in 2021 to address historical inequalities. So far, the programme has identified more than 20,000 additional names for commemoration.
Future Steps
Horton added that the CWGC remains committed to meaningful physical commemoration and to working with governments and nations to seek their views on a memorial to honor these individual soldiers with the dignity and respect they so rightly deserve.
