The First World War, Indian Sepoys, and the Ethics of Postcolonial War Commemoration

This chapter attempts to enable a dialogue between Postcolonial Studies, First World War Studies, and Memory Studies to examine the commemoration of Indian sepoys in the United Kingdom at the Great War centenary. It argues that their contribution to the war effort was symbolically recognised in the years 2014–2018. However, the commemoration practices did not interrogate the racialised politics of the imperial army. Neither did they address the deliberate agenda of the forgetting of non-European soldiers in the aftermath of war. Next, the chapter offers an analysis of Major Tom’s War (2018) by Vee Walker . The novel is based on the memories of the author’s grandfather who served in the British Indian Army during the war and befriended his Sikhs subalterns. It demonstrates how the book reclaims the memory of Indian sepoys on the Western Front. Depicted as heroes and martyrs, fighting for a shared cause with their British officers, in Walker’s novel, the Indian sepoys die willingly for a righteous cause. Major Tom’s War thus proposes a vision of multicultural harmony, yet fails to address the racial hierarchies and discriminatory politics of empire. This chapter concludes with a reflection on the ethics of postcolonial war memory in the context of centenary interventions.