Bowman Ghee - The Indian Contingent

The Indian Contingent

The Indian Contingent

The Forgotten Muslim Soldiers of Dunkirk

Ghee Bowman

First published 2020

The History Press
97 St Georges Place, Cheltenham,
Gloucestershire, GL50 3QB
www.thehistorypress.co.uk

Text Ghee Bowman, 2020
Foreword Yasmin Khan, 2020

The right of Ghee Bowman to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 0 7509 9542 9

Typesetting and origination by The History Press
Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd

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For Rebecca

In my mind, I ultimately see you now as an eternal wanderer of English verse,

the eardstapa, far beyond all exile and mortality,

forever alive and forever at peace, striding those woods,

your countenance shining with a soft ethereal light.

From In Memoriam: Muslim Peace Memorial, Woking, 2018 by Omer Tarin.

Written and read in July 2018 to honour a great-uncle, Sepoy Sikandar Khan of 82nd Punjabis who died in Britain and is commemorated at the Muslim Peace Memorial Garden at Horsell Common in Woking.

Indian soldiers names were not always written down in full, nor accurately transliterated. There were many variations of the common name Muhammad, for example. Generally I have followed the variant used in any given document, so you will find Mohd, Muhammad, Mohammed used here. Soldiers are identified by the rank they held at the time, even if they rose to higher rank later (as many of them did).

These men were part of a special force attached to the BEF that was called Force K6. After their landing in Britain they were more often known as the Indian Contingent. I have used both terms.

The RIASC was part of what was generally known by Britishers as the Indian Army, the soldiers coming from India and all its officers (until 1919 at least) from the UK. This is a somewhat contested term it was not a national army in the sense that Boses Indian National Army was, so some writers of South Asian heritage prefer to call it the British Indian Army, or even simply the British Army. In general, though, I have stuck with tradition and referred to the Indian Army and the British Army as separate entities. Even when they were attached to the BEF in France or British infantry divisions in the UK, K6 never stopped being part of the Indian Army.

The war in which they fought has been referred to by some critics as the imperial war, and it certainly had many imperial dimensions, but I have used the more common and widely recognised term Second World War.

India refers to the pre-Partition territory, which includes the modern states of Pakistan and Bangladesh. I have used place names from that time: Bombay rather than Mumbai, for example.

K6 locations and routes in France

K6 locations in Britain