Indian POWs in the Ottoman Empire during WWI
with Vedica Kant & Robert Upton
hosted by Chris Gratien
Vedica Kant is a graduate of Oxford University's Middle Eastern Studies program
Robert Upton is a PhD candidate in the Department of History at Oxford University
Chris Gratien is a PhD candidate studying the history of the modern Middle East at Georgetown University (see academia.edu)
Episode No. 86
Release date: 28 December 2012
Location: Feriköy, Istanbul
Editing and production by Chris Gratien
Images and bibliography courtesy of Vedica Kant
The audio clip at the beginning of the podcast is a rare recording of the voice of a Punjabi POW in Germany during World War I named Mal Singh. In the recording, which was made in December of 1916, Mal Singh expresses his desire to return home after having been imprisoned by the German army. To hear the entire recording, click here. (Source: Amin Mughal Links)
Note for the listener: This podcast is based on primary source research. It also makes use of publicly available information and draws from the following works below, which are also mentioned during the course of the episode. For the purposes of academic citation, we encourage you to consult these works as well.
Select Bibliography
Santanu Das (ed.), Race, Empire and First World War Writing (New York: Cambridge. University Press, 2011)
David Omissi, Indian Voices of the Great War: Soldier's Letters, 1914-18 (Palgrave, 1999)
Cemalettin Taşkıran, Ana Ben Ölemedim: I. Dünya Savaşında Türk Esirlerleri (İş Bankası Yayınları, 2011)
S. D. Pradhan, ‘Indian Army and the First World War’ in DeWitt C. Ellinwood and S. D. Pradhan, India and World War I (New Delhi, Manohar, 1978).
Briton Cooper Busch, Britain, India, and the Arabs (University of. California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London, 1971)
India's Contribution to the Great War (Calcutta, Government of India, 1923)
Select Images
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| Indian Troops Manning Lewis Gun on Mesopotamian Front, 1918 Source: Imperial War Museum Photographic Archive |
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| Indian military engineers in Mesopotamia, World War I Source: Imperial War Museum Photographic Archive |
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| Moslem Indian Guard at the Mosque of Omar [Dome of the Rock], 1917 Source: Library of Congress |
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| Indian cavalry passing through Haifa following the city's capture, 1918 Source: Imperial War Museum Photographic Archive |
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| Indian Troops, World War I Source: Imperial War Museum Photographic Archive |
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| Indian Soldiers in France, c1914-15 Source: Library of Congress |
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| Indian Troops at Gas Mask Drill, World War I Source: Imperial War Museum Photographic Archive |
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| Wounded Indian Soldier on Western Front, World War I Source: Imperial War Museum Photographic Archive |
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| Indian soldiers at Rufiji, German East Africa, 1916 Source: Imperial War Museum Photographic Archive |
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| Ottoman Prisoners of War in Bellary, India, 1916 Soruce: 7/24 Magazin |
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| Ottoman Prisoners of War in Burma, World War I Source: Vedica Kant |
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| Letter from Ottoman prisoner of war in Burma to wife in Istanbul, 1916 Source: K-Haber |
Comments
I usually enjoy your pod casts and find them greatly informative. But this one was very biased, and unfortunately you went along with it. A crumbling Ottoman Empire, fighting in 3 different fronts (west, east, and south) during WW I, would not place a welcome mat for the invading Indian army from the south and would not give their POWs a five star resort treatment! How inconsiderate! Perhaps Ms. Kant should investigate if and how the Ottoman POWs were dumped into acid ponds and blinded by the British in their Egyptian prison camps, and the countless Ottoman population and army perishing from hunger and misery while retreating from the advancing British front. We Turks are quite accustomed that our history is often analysed in the west with a eurocentric bias and selective memory. But I hope that you can remain as objective historians.
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