On to Baghdad: 1
ChrestomatherSisir Sarbadhikari’s Abhi Le Baghdad (On to Baghdad) is in my view, one of the most remarkable war memoirs of the 20th century. In no small…
From Iraq, 1916, to the end of the road, in Ras al-‘Ain, Syria, 1917
After the defeat and surrender of General Tonwshend’s Indo-British forces at Kut al-Amara, Capt Kalyan Mukherji was sent to a prisoner-of-war camp at Ras al-‘Ain. This town is…
Iraq 1915-16: The Siege of Kut al-Amara
After their defeat at Ctesiphon, on November 22, 1915, General Tonwshend's troops (consisting principally of the 6th Poona Division) were driven back to the town of Kut…
Iraq 1915: The Battle of Ctesiphon
The British campaign in Mesopotamia proceeded at a brisk pace through most of 1915. British and Indian troops swept northwards, brushing aside Turkish resistance and advancing confidently…
‘I spit in the face of patriotism’
Within a few months of arriving in Iraq, Captain Kalyan Mukherji had arrived at a devastatingly clear summation of the war. On October 20, 1915, in al-Aziziya, he…
Iraq 1915: ‘A river of blood… why this bloodshed?’
All of Kalyan Mukherji’s letters from Mesopotamia are reproduced in Kalyan-Pradeep. For the most part they are short, hurried and matter of fact. But some of them,…
At Home and the World in Iraq 1915-17: part 2
The tension between the voices of the grandmother and the military historian runs through the length of Mokkhoda-debi’s Kalyan-Pradeep. It is reflected even in the form of the…
The ‘Home and the World’ in Iraq 1915-17: Part 1
Mokkhoda (Mokshada) Debi’s Kalyan Pradeep, (published 1928)is, in essence, the author's tribute, as a grandmother, to her daughter’s son, Kalyan, who was a casualty of the…
From Iraq 1915-17: Lost Treasures of Indian Writing
Race, Empire and First World War Writing (ed. Santanu Das, Cambridge University Press, 2011) is an ambitious collection: it attempts to cover the whole spectrum of non-European…
‘When the War Began We Heard of Several Kings’
Among recent publications on the Indian role in the First World War, one of the most important is a collection entitled When the War Began We Heard of…