Nearly 10,000 Punjabi soldiers who died fighting for Britain during World War I have been officially recognized for the first time after more than a century of omission from the country’s war dead lists. This development stems from a research project that uncovered these soldiers’ names in archives held at the Lahore Museum in Pakistan, revealing a long-overdue acknowledgment of their service and sacrifice.

Kesa Singh, a soldier from British India who fought in what is now Iraq during the Mesopotamia campaign, is among those newly identified. His family had long known of his death but found no official record of his service or passing until this summer. Singh’s great-grandson, Dr. Inder Singh Palahey of Leicester, England, described the recognition as providing a sense of completeness regarding his ancestor’s story. According to archive records, Kesa Singh succumbed to combat wounds sustained while returning with his regiment from Ottoman-held territory, though exact details such as his age and date of death remain unspecified.

During World War I, approximately 1.4 million soldiers from the Indian subcontinent served in the British Indian Army, with around half a million Punjabi men involved in the arduous Mesopotamia campaign against Ottoman forces. Despite the significant scale of colonial troop contributions, British authorities maintained detailed casualty records primarily for British-born servicemen, often excluding colonial soldiers from official commemorations. Historians attribute these omissions to bureaucratic failings intertwined with racial discrimination prevalent at the time.

George Hay, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s official historian, explained that efforts to include Indian soldiers’ names were hindered by colonial administrators who were frequently unwilling or unable to provide comprehensive records. Furthermore, inconsistent definitions of war casualties played a role; unlike British soldiers, Indian personnel who died outside combat zones—for instance, from wounds or disease acquired during service—were generally not included in official memorials or casualty lists.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission, established in 1917, has updated its official register by adding the names of 9,909 Punjabi soldiers identified through this recent research. This represents the largest single revision to its World War I casualty records in eight decades. The commission is also exploring options for physically commemorating these soldiers’ names on memorials.

The recognition effort began in 2014 when historian Amandeep Madra, chairman of the U.K. Punjab Heritage Association, discovered the previously overlooked archive at the Lahore Museum. In collaboration with archivists, university researchers, and volunteers, the group digitized the records and cross-referenced them with existing Commonwealth War Graves records to identify those missing from the official list.

While the addition of these names corrects historical oversights and provides families with a fuller account of their ancestors’ contributions, it does not confer any entitlement to war pensions, as such benefits were administered by the defunct British Indian Government and are no longer available.

The acknowledgment has prompted renewed interest among descendants like Dr. Palahey to delve deeper into military histories, with hopes of establishing more precise details surrounding their relatives’ service and deaths.

This initiative highlights the broader effort to rectify the historical neglect of colonial soldiers and to acknowledge the diverse origins of those who fought in what was truly a global conflict. As Madra noted, the commemoration of these men reflects a more inclusive understanding of history, recognizing that World War I involved individuals from across the world and multiple ethnic backgrounds.