Scotland’s First National British Indian Army (BIA) Memorial
Artists impression of Scotland’s First BIA Memorial Colourful Heritage, a charity based in Scotland were granted planning permission by Glasgow
Born in Hyderabad, she entered the University of Madras at age 12 and earned a poetry scholarship to King’s College London and Girton College, Cambridge in 1895. While studying in England, she met influential figures including Mahatma Gandhi, Annie Besant and W. B. Yeats, became involved in the suffragist movement and spoke at the Oxford Majlis, a debating society for Indian students.
After returning to India, she pursued both literary and political careers. She became an active voice for Indian independence and women’s suffrage, and joined the All India Home Rule League. Naidu frequently travelled between India and Britain, combining political work with literary engagements, and accompanied Gandhi to the Round Table Conferences in London in the early 1930s.
In 1925, she became the first female President of the Indian National Congress. Following independence in 1947, Sarojini Naidu was appointed the first female Governor of what is now Uttar Pradesh, serving until her death in 1949. Known as the Nightingale of India, her poem below pays tribute to the service of Indian troops in the First World War.
The Gift of India (1917)
Is there aught you need that my hands withhold,
Rich gifts of raiment or grain or gold?
Lo! I have flung to the East and West
Priceless treasures torn from my breast,
And yielded the sons of my stricken womb
To the drum-beats of duty, the sabres of doom.
Gathered like pearls in their alien graves
Silent they sleep by the Persian waves,
Scattered like shells on Egyptian sands,
They lie with pale brows and brave, broken hands,
They are strewn like blossoms mown down by chance
On the blood-brown meadows of Flanders and France.
Can ye measure the grief of the tears I weep
Or compass the woe of the watch I keep?
Or the pride that thrills thro’ my heart’s despair
And the hope that comforts the anguish of prayer?
And the far sad glorious vision I see
Of the torn red banners of Victory?
When the terror and tumult of hate shall cease
And life be refashioned on anvils of peace,
And your love shall offer memorial thanks
To the comrades who fought in your dauntless ranks,
And you honour the deeds of the deathless ones
Remember the blood of thy martyred sons!
Sarojini Naidu
Artists impression of Scotland’s First BIA Memorial Colourful Heritage, a charity based in Scotland were granted planning permission by Glasgow
The Lascars – thousands of seafarers from the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, the Arab world and Africa.
This year’s South Asian Heritage Month theme is powerfully reflected in the service of 2.5 million Indian soldiers who volunteered for the British Indian Army during the Second World War. As the largest volunteer force in history, they came from many faiths and ethnic backgrounds across the Indian subcontinent.
Mohammed Ali Anwar was a Captain Doctor with the British Army during WWII. His grandson Faryal Iqbal recalls a life of service where traditional Pakistani values merged with Western medical training.
