The Diplomatic Dimensions of Military History

Editor Anubhav Roy

In the last decade, India’s monumental yet long-overlooked contributions to the Allied victories in World Wars I and II have begun garnering the commemorative and discursive attention that they deserve. With the unearthing of fresh shreds of evidence of the Indian soldier’s stunning valour and course-altering feats on unfamiliar, distant, and gruelling battlefields — especially those of war-ravaged Europe — the mainstream comprehension of how Indians impacted the World Wars, and how the two watershed conflicts in turn impinged on India’s future, has only become more layered. In 2023, several of these intricacies, ranging from how European schoolchildren now view the subject to how the wars shaped independent India’s diplomatic priorities, were discussed at an international conference on the titular theme organized by the United Service Institution of India (USI) and the Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA), two of India’s oldest think-tanks. This volume is an edited compilation of the essays and papers presented by seasoned experts and practitioners at that event.

Editor Anubhav Roy

Anubhav Roy, PhD is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Military History and Conflict Studies (CMHCS), United Service Institution of India (USI), New Delhi. Previously, he was an Assistant Professor of International Studies at Amity University, Noida. He has been associated with an array of private and government research projects, and his papers have been published in multiple Scopus-indexed journals. His research interests primarily stem from the domains of modern global history and the international relations of South Asian nation-states.

Contents

Introduction

1. Keynote Address by the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS)
Gen. Anil Chauhan
2. Towards a New India in Europe: Indian Servicemen on the Western Front and their Legacies, 1914-20
Dominiek Dendooven
3. Teaching History and Diversity in Conflict: Educating Schoolchildren about the Role of Indian Soldiers in France in World War I
Louis Teyssedou
4. The Indian Labour Corps near Nancy and in Lorraine in Eastern France, 1917 – 1919
Jerome Janczukiewicz
5. World War I and the Emergence of Indian Diplomacy
Vineet Thakur
6. Indian Soldiers at Dunkirk in World War II
Ghee Bowman
7. India and the Strategic Framework of the Western Indo-Pacific
Asoke Mukerji
8. India and the World: Participation and Commemoration of Indian Troops in World Wars I and II at Flanders and France
George Hay