India and the Western Front

Page 2 of 7

• 1. The Indian Corps in France
• 2. Military censorship
• 3. Motivations
• 4. Religion
• 5. Discovering Europe
• 6. Impact and commemoration
• 7. Find out more
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Military censorship

The reports of military censorship reveal much about Indian soldiers' experiences on the Western Front. From late 1914, a team of censors monitored the Indian soldiers' correspondence, with the chief censor producing a weekly report that commented on its contents. Appended to the reports were excerpts from about 100 letters, translated into English, each one giving the name, rank, and religion of the soldier concerned. The censorship reports, with their translated excerpts, have survived, although most of the letters themselves have now been lost.

The soldiers probably did not write all their letters themselves. Most Indian soldiers were illiterate, since the Indian Army recruited overwhelmingly in rural parts of the country. Instead, the troops might have asked scribes, such as the company clerk, to write their letters for them and to read out the letters they had received.

'...people who were not themselves literate could still use writing in strategic ways.'

The soldiers quickly worked out that their letters were being monitored, and in response they occasionally resorted to coded language. For example, one man wrote home that 'the black pepper is very pungent, but only a little remains' - meaning that the Indian troops ('the black pepper') were fighting very fiercely, but had suffered heavy losses, and implying that enlistment was therefore unwise. The censor deciphered most of these codes fairly easily, although some of the more subtle ones, including veiled incitements to murder, may have eluded him. These letters suggest that people who were not themselves literate could still use writing in strategic ways. As one might expect, the letters of these peasant-soldiers were rich in rural and agrarian imagery. For example, one wounded man, his courage failing, described himself as 'like a man who, once burnt, is afraid of a glow-worm'.

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