Coolies on the frontline

Book review of The Coolie's Great War: Indian Labour in a Global Conflict (1914-21)

In the centenary year of World War I in 2014, scads of books appeared on India’s contribution to that “Great War”. Most of them drew on the trove of letters that sepoys on the Western and Mesopotamian fronts wrote to paint a poignant picture of ordinary Indians who crossed the kaala paani in the service of the superpower of the day. It was all politically correct, subaltern history that had segued into a justification for greater self-government by leaders of the Indian national movement. Ignored in these accounts were the non-combatants —stretcher-bearers, muleteers, sweepers, washermen, cooks and labourers collectively known