00:05
[Music]

00:22 
Stephen 
This project aims to get volunteers
00:25
participants involved in carrying out
00:27
original research about the Indian army. 
00:30
To contribute to an exhibition that
00:34
will go to to Wycombe to Banbury and to
00:37
various other museums across Oxfordshire
and Buckinghamshire. 

00:38
Priya
The participants that have been involved 
00:42
in the project
they've they've come from a diverse
group of people 
00:48
mostly local Oxfordshire
people but also students 
00:51
from as far
away as Birmingham Slough and East
00:53
London and we've had people from the
00:55
local Hindu Sikh and Muslim backgrounds
00:57
as well as established soldiers of Oxfordshire Volunteers

01:01
Gyan
As a youngster I did
read the history of the Second World War
01:07
by Winston Churchill so I knew a lot
01:09
about the Second World War but I never
01:11
knew anything about the First World War.

01:23
Akansha 
My basic background is, like I am a fashion 
01:25
designer, I'm into sales and marketing as well.
01:28
My thing, mainly into this I input
01:31
is like about what globally they were wearing 
01:33
and the climate condition with what they were wearing.
01:34
The materials were
sent to the Manchester to make the uniforms.
01:43
So all the while we were thinking, 
01:46
and some research books we read,
01:47
it like it is being made in India the uniforms were
01:49
but it was made in Manchester back here.
01:53
So that is a big
fact I learned about that, during the
research.


01:56
[Music] 

01:59
Kanta
My knowledge about the Indian army was
02:02
that they were involved but I wasn't
02:06
really aware on what scale.
One of the
things that has sort of, I've been made
02:14
aware of, or I have become aware of, is
02:17
the suffering and what the Indian
02:20
Soldiers had to go through. 

02:27
Chinta
Numerically
I'm astounded at the contribution that
02:29
was made by Soldiers from India.

02:38
Stephen
The participants brought a whole range of
02:40
knowledge to this project, some knew a
02:43
little others knew quite a bit.
02:47
The key to a project like this, is to bring
02:49
everyone up to the same stage of
02:51
learning, so that they can all contribute
02:53
to the interpretation. So the first
02:56
stages of the exhibition were about
02:57
immersing the participants by listening
03:01
to talks by watching films and by
03:03
carrying out original research.
03:07
In the Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum there's
03:09
an untapped military archive there about
03:11
the 1st Battalion of the Oxon and Bucks
03:13
light Infantry in Mesopotamia and many
03:16
Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire people
03:18
are unaware of the fact that those
03:21
Soldiers from the Counties fought
03:23
alongside Indian Troops.


03:26
Priya
The Soldiers of
Oxfordshire Museum archive is really
03:29
incredible, we've had a real privilege of
03:31
working with the archive and it has
03:33
material that people haven't seen for
03:34
maybe a hundred odd years, one of the
03:37
most amazing finds we had was these
03:40
intelligence letters, we think in Arabic
03:42
captured from Ottoman Soldiers. 


03:49
Anveer
I didn't
fully appreciate like the scale and the
03:51
extent of the fighting so like that's
03:53
what the research this project has
03:55
helped me learn just how much like
03:58
Indian sacrifice there was and how
04:01
people of all ages and different groups
04:03
participated in the war effort like from at home
04:04
and like from fighting, 
04:07
and how long it took for like the
04:08
recovery of India afterwards.

04:12
Rupinder 
It was kind
of touched upon when I was at University.
04:13
Cause I did a few courses on India.
04:14
So they did speak about the War. 
04:17
I feel like coming here, my knowledge is
04:19
sort of expanded, I didn't understand
04:21
before how much of an impact it had on
04:23
the on the Indian people and also how
04:26
many different identities there were, I
04:29
obviously knew there was different
04:30
religions involved but even within the
04:32
religions there's so many different
04:34
factions from where they came from and
04:37
their backgrounds, cultural.

04:40
Sumon 
So I found
out about a Bengali Doctor who actually
04:45
fought in Mesopotamia and I got more
04:49
details on his life which I wouldn't
04:51
have if I haven't been involved in the
04:53
project, yeah!

05:01
Chinta's reading
I am his eighty year old grandmother. 
05: 03
I am lying on my deathbed.
05:06
If Kalyan was alive, he would have definitely been near me.
05:10
The fruit of his love – my great grand-daughter: 
05:14
God has also taken her to his lap.
05:19
To write about his life after his death is a 
painful experience for me.
05:24
But if I don’t write about him, who would?


05:35
[Music]

05:40
Rupinder 
How far the Indians went from their own
05:43
country, people who have never travelled
05:45
before, they had had to go to the other
05:47
side of the world to fight they've had
05:49
to integrate with different cultures,
05:51
different surroundings, I think that's
05:53
what really shocked me.

05:57
Sumon 
I think, I would
like people to understand and respect
05:59
the Indian contribution to the War.


06:03
Anveer
There have been different community
06:04
groups of different ages and all like
06:06
participated in it, and I think it really
06:08
highlights our different aims. So for
06:10
young people like myself, we might not
06:11
know a lot about it, but we're interested in it,
06:13
so we want to learn and there are
06:15
older participants in the group who 
06:17
actually know a lot more about what
06:19
happened and they themselves are quite
06:21
frustrated at the fact that histories
06:22
don't incorporate it yet. So what we're
06:24
trying to do is merge everything, so that
06:26
it's informative and interesting for all
06:28
age groups. 


06:31
Gyan
I'd like to see that people
06:32
actually see the involvement of the
06:34
Indian Army, there were about one and a
06:36
half million Indian Soldiers, so in that
06:39
sense therefore, the contribution to the
06:41
Empire was huge.


06:44
Priya
What we have to recognize is that Britain wasn't
06:47
able to win World War 1 or World War 2
06:49
on it's own, it had Indian Soldiers
06:51
and other Soldiers from the Empire and
06:53
later the Commonwealth to help them and
06:55
if anything, what's great about our
06:57
project is we get to see how British
07:00
Soldiers from Oxfordshire and
07:01
Buckinghamshire came together with these
07:03
Indian Soldiers to fight in the Middle
07:06
East for example and it's an aspect of
07:09
our history that has both local and
07:11
global connections that kind of have
07:13
been forgotten, but are really important
07:15
for us to bring out, if we really want to
07:16
understand the history of the War and of
07:18
Empire and and even our local
communities.


07:24
Chinta
I didn't realize that we would get
07:27
so engrossed in it, it's become quite an
07:29
absorbing event, so we're
07:33
really pleased to be part of it.
07:38
[Music]