Faith and War: Sikhs in World War One

Here's a presentation I gave ahead of the first screening of "Indians in the Trenches" at Goldman Sachs, London on 28th May 2014.

In this part, I narrate briefly the Sikh contribution during World War One and why it was so significant.

The trailer is also below - and the film will be released this August.

** If you'd like to host such a presentation contact us via dothyphen1 AT gmail DOT com **

BBC World War One At Home

The BBC's series "World War One At Home" has a special episode on "Sikhs In The Trenches.

You can listen to it via this link here or the image below.

A special programme on  "The Empire’s Army" will be broadcast on BBC Coventry and Warwickshire on Monday 2nd June at 8.15am and a longer more in depth edition at 11.30am the same day.

Sikhs in the Canadian Expeditionary Force

Fellow researcher Marika Pirie (mentioned below) alerted me to this fantastic Library and Archive of Canada website where you can search for those who fought in WW1.

Over 600,000 men and women enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force - and this surprisingly included some Sikhs!

Searching for the surname "Singh" I've come across 9 - of course not all "Singhs" were Sikh, as it was a surname also used by some Rajput Hindus.  The names are listed below, please do contact me if you know or have any to these soldiers.

Marika alerted me to one particular soldier:

Born in Punjab in January 1883, Waryam Singh was a labourer who joined the 38th Battalion of the Canadian Overseas Expeditionary Force in Ottawa in May 1915. 

Being in his 30's, what he did to get to Canada would be interesting to find out!


While the first two pages of the Attestation soldiers undertook is now online, more details will be released on the site later this year about each soldier.  It'll be interesting to find out more about Waryam Singh.

Update:  click here for an interesting article about another Canadian Sikh who served.

Comrades of WW1

We get a lot of questions and messages on Twitter via @SikhsAtWar

One such person is Marika Pirie from Canada, who shared with us this rare postcard showing a British and Indian soldier.

The individual on the right is a Sikh, the beard and turban certainly show this to be the case.  But the chakkar on the turban seems more crescent shaped that circular - highly likely a mistake on the part of the artist.

If you have any images you'd like to share with us on this blog - please do so via dothyphen1 @gmail.com