Home Office workshop

While preparing for our exhibition, I got a call asking if I would like the opportunity to present our project at Home Office as part of their Home Office Sikh Association.

It was great opportunity to work with The Home Office at this event as it allowed us to speak about the research and work we have undertaken regarding South Asian Servicemen. At the event there was a range of guest speakers and a chance for us to bring our pop up exhibition to showcase the range of stories we have been researching. The event was for the Sikh celebration of Vaisakhi, and the letters we included for the workshop were from Sikh soldiers from First World War. Myself and Paula presented our project and talked about why we had looked at the South Asian stories that were not being told. Paula picked images of Indian troops with the British Troops in fields eating food and where they were sat together for a photograph outside a church in France. When discussing the true impact of the war by South Asian Soldiers it is known that they were the largest that volunteered during the First World War. In our presentation we spoke about how the letters we found and researched where Sikh soldiers were writing home and asking God to protect them while this war is going on.

A wounded Sikh to his father

Brighton Hospital

18th January 1915

Tell my mother not to go wandering madly because her son, my brother is dead. To be born and to die is God’s order. Some day we must die, sooner or late, and if I die here, who will remember me? It is a fine thing to die far from home. A saint said this, and, as he was a good man. It must be true.

In the workshop we had a range of letters from the Sikh soldiers and got the audience to read them in their groups and interpret how this connects with the Sikh values. A noticeable theme in the letters was faith - it was very important to the Indian soldiers as they knew if they died then they would be a million miles from home and if they survived then the horrors that they have faced will not be forgotten so quickly. Even today’s Sikh community are unaware that these letters exist. We spoke about the role Princess Sophia Duleep Singh had during the First World War as a nurse and how important it was to the men that were injured at Brighton hospital. She also volunteered at the Red Cross and arranged Flag Days where money was raised for the injured Indian soldiers. This event was to help raise awareness of how Sikh values can connect to the research that we had found. After our presentation a group from Slough had come to perform Kirtan and Sikh Hymns.

Our exhibition helped in telling the wider stories of the war and the diversity of the war that was once considered white. It was not just the Indian Soldiers that were treated unfairly, all soldiers were as war is not a nice place for any soldier. It was tough and demanding for all involved.

Our exhibition helped in telling the wider stories of the war and the diversity of the war that was once considered white.