Ep 33: The Indian Contingent: The Forgotten Muslim Soldiers of Dunkirk- Guftagu with Ghee Bowman

India Colonised

In this episode of Guftagu, we've with us Dr Ghee Bowman, author of the book, "The Indian Contingent: The Forgotten Muslim Soldiers of Dunkirk".

Dr Ghee Bowman is a historian, teacher and storyteller based in Exeter, England. He has also worked in the theatre, for NGOs and in education in the UK and around the world. This book, his very first, sprang from research he undertook to explore Exeter’s multi-cultural history which landed him onto three photos of Indian soldiers wearing pagris in Devon. This furthered him to The National Archives, an MA at Exeter University and then a PhD. His five-year-long study of the Second World War’s Indian contingent took him across five countries.

As the title suggests, the book brings to light an omitted chapter of the historic Battle of Dunkirk that is the crucial role played by Indian soldiers in the evacuation of the Allies from a precarious battlefield. The Indian Contingent, through rigorous research and engrossing narration, traces the journey of Force K6 of the 25th Animal Transport Company of the Royal Indian Army Service Corps from their arrival in France on 26 December 1939, their captivity under the Germans to their return to India on the verge of partitio

Interestingly, 2020 marked the 80th anniversary of the dramatic evacuation of 338,000 Allied troops from Dunkirk in May 1940, as the German army closed in. This wartime legend is also the subject of the award-winning 2017 film Dunkirk but, as is only too evident from the film and other accounts of the Second World War, the presence of Indian soldiers is neither known nor remembered, at least in the western world. Bowman’s narrative of individual soldiers’ lives in rural and urban Punjab, interwoven with his descriptions of the war, draws on his painstaking research that includes rare archives, diaries, photographs and, indeed, memories passed on to descendants. The book leads up to the aftermath of the war and the new realities. This interview explores and examines the provided stances in the book along with other broader perspectives of the event.

Indian Army Special Newsreel (1940): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yq6E1luxLQQ

There is a series of such amazingly curated interactions with authors and scholars on the history of the subcontinent. Check out our website www.indiacolonised.com for more blogs and podcasts exploring the tales of India's contemporary history. Do follow us on our social media sites for more exciting updates.