Abstract
This thesis examines the commemoration of Indian soldiers who died during the First World War by the Imperial War Graves Commission, Britain's official government body overseeing all imperial commemoration efforts. For the soldiers of the Indian Army their war experience was split between the Western Front in Europe and Mesopotamia in modern-day Iraq. They were also far more ethnically, religiously, and lingually diverse than their British and Dominion counterparts. In order to examine how geography, religion, and the imperial relationship affected Britain's commemoration of India's war dead, this study uses the Commission's own records to recreate how the IWGC created its policies regarding Indian soldiers. The result shows that while the Commission made nearly every effort to respect India's war dead, the complexity of their backgrounds hampered these efforts and forced compromises to be made. The geography of the war also forced a clear definition between the memories of Indian soldiers who died in Europe and those who fell in Mesopotamia.
Notes
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Graduation Date
2018
Semester
Spring
Advisor
Gannon, Barbara
Degree
Master of Arts (M.A.)
College
College of Arts and Humanities
Department
History
Degree Program
History
Format
application/pdf
Identifier
CFE0007098
URL
http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/CFE0007098
Language
English
Release Date
May 2018
Length of Campus-only Access
None
Access Status
Masters Thesis (Open Access)
STARS Citation
Sims, Roger, "To The Memory Of Brave Men: The Imperial War Graves Commission And India's Missing Soldiers Of The First World War" (2018). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 5820.
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd/5820