No beef, no pork, ginger-garlic and chapatis mandatory: A look at Indian troops' diet during WWI

A boy and a girl meet in a crowded Amritsar market. He is buying yoghurt, she is buying badiyan (dried spiced dumplings). A not quite relationship builds, broken off when she gets married. Years later, as a soldier, Lahna Singh, he meets her as his officer’s wife. She begs him to safeguard her husband and son in the great war they are all being sent to fight in Europe.

This is from Chandradhar Sharma Guleri’s ' Usne Kaha Tha' (She Has Said), one of the first Hindi short stories. It has descriptions of battlefield life, a ribald song with innuendos about cloves and pumpkins, unexpected action in the form of an Urdu-speaking German spy and a moving climax where Lahna fulfils the request, sacrificing his own life. He dies dreaming of mangoes he will never eat.

Guleri wrote this just months after World War I started in August 1914. It was a sign of how confident the British were that colonial troops could give them swift victory that they were immediately moved to Europe, in September 1914. The special arrangements made for these troops were a sign of how they were valued — or of the fear that news of problems might cause unrest in India, which was being emptied of its army, guarantor of the British Raj’s stability.

The big issue was food. In Matthew Richardson’s history 'The Hunger War'', he quotes an overwhelmed sounding British officer: “The Brahmin will not touch beef; the Mahomedan turns up his nose at pork; the Jain is a vegetarian. The Gurkha loves the flesh of the goat. And every Indian must have his ginger, garlic, red chilli and turmeric and his chupatties of unleavened bread.” By contrast, British soldiers had basic rations of tinned beef, bread or biscuits, jam and tea.

Tinned mutton didn’t work, possibly because one supplier had a bull’s head logo, leading to immediate doubts among the Hindu troops. Frozen meat was suggested as an alternative, but in December 1914 the Times of India (ToI) quoted a Subedar’s response: “I think Sahib, the regiment will be willing to eat the iced sheep provided one of them is always present to see the animal frozen to death.” The troops had to be assured about halal (for Muslims) or jhatka (for Hindus and Sikhs) slaughter and, for this, live animals were imperative.

This caused scenes like the one witnessed by a ToI writer of “a flock of sheep and blunt-faced herd goats driven through a French boulevard by Punjabi Mussalmans”. One yelled at an old French lady in the way: “ Budhi budhi nikal jao!” In Guleri’s story, a soldier dreams of their leave: “We’ll kill an animal together and then eat till our stomach is full …”

As it became clear that the war would not be over soon, maintaining these standards became harder. Richardson says food issues were one reason Indian troops were withdrawn from Europe. It might seem like food habits saved them from the horrors of the Western Front, but most were redeployed to Mesopotamia, where conditions were as bad, just less publicised. At the five-month siege of Kut-al-Amara almost 30,000 Allied soldiers, mostly from India, died, many from starvation. This was despite some of the first-ever attempts at air-dropping emergency provisions, including atta.

The siege was notorious for the conduct of the commanding officer, Major-General Charles Townshend, who took great care of his dog, but never bothered visiting his troops. It’s little wonder that after surrendering to the Ottoman Army, some Indian soldiers proved receptive to Turkish attempts to stir up anti-colonial feelings.

Some Sikh soldiers, similar to the ones in Guleri’s story, never returned to Punjab, but went to North America, building new lives far away from the British. Armistice Day on November 11 commemorates the end of the war, which started 110 years ago. It also marks a key point in India’s struggle against the Raj.