United Nations: UN Chief Ban Ki-moon honoured over a million Indian soldiers who fought in the World War I at a commemorative event here and released a photo book authored by the Ambassador to the Permanent Mission of India to the UN featuring war memorials from across the world.
“India, then part of the British Empire, provided more than one million men. More than 60,000 died in action, along with so many others from Africa, Asia and Europe. All too often, the histories ignore this enormous sacrifice,” UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in his remarks at the event on Wednesday.
Ban along with President of the UN General Assembly Ambassador John Ashe released the 113-page book ‘Indian War Memorials of the First World War’ that contains a brief overview of the many battlefields where Indian soldiers made the ultimate sacrifice. The book provides details of the various war memorials across India, Europe, West Asia and Africa that honour individual Indian soldiers who gave their lives in defending international peace and security during the great war.
Ambassador to the Permanent Mission of India to the UN Asoke Mukerji said the event coincides with the 100th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi’s letter of August 14, 1914 to the British Government, in which he had said that India’s voluntary participation in the war effort was “an earnest of our desire to share the responsibilities of membership of this great Empire, if we would share its privileges.” Mukerji said a 100 years later, the same sentiment prevails among the vast majority of the membership of the UN, who have been willingly sharing the responsibilities of the world body “in the hope that they would be allowed to share in its privileges as well.” Ban said the world’s current conflicts may be “pale in comparison” to the two world wars but the “tragedy is just as profound.”
“Yesterday’s(Wednesday) terrible lessons remain to be learned fully,” he said lamenting that humankind appears not to have had enough of “such bloodshed” even after witnessing the sufferings of the Auschwitz and Hiroshima. “The world must never forget the roll-call of carnage of the First World War. Let us also remember that although the so-called ‘Great War’ was fought in Europe, soldiers came from all over the world,” Ban said. The UN Chief quoted a letter by a Garhwali soldier in early 1915 in which he had written that the bullets and cannon balls come down like snow and the number of soldiers who have been killed in battle “cannot be counted”.
Ban welcomed the release of the photo book on the war memorials, saying memorials are “points of pilgrimage” and a “fitting tributes to valour and sacrifice.” “I hope the images in the pages of this book will prompt further reflection not only on the wars of the past, but today’s multiple crises,” Ban said.
The memorials in the book include India Gate in New Delhi, Mazargues War Memorial in Marseilles, the Haidar Pasha Memorial in Istanbul, the Zehrensdorf Indian Memorial in Germany and the Damascus Indian Memorial in Syria.(PTI)
