More than a century after the guns of the First World War fell silent, nearly 10,000 Indian soldiers whose deaths went unrecognised in official records have finally been restored to history, correcting what historians describe as a long-standing injustice rooted in the colonial era.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) has added the names of 9,909 soldiers from pre-Partition India to its official casualty records after a five-year effort to trace missing servicemen who died during the 1914-18 conflict but were never formally commemorated.

The breakthrough came through the Punjab Registers Project, a collaboration between the CWGC, the UK Punjab Heritage Association and the University of Greenwich, which examined fragile archival records preserved at Lahore Museum.

Researchers digitised and analysed registers containing details of around 320,000 Punjabi recruits before cross-checking thousands of entries against existing CWGC records. The exercise revealed that 9,909 Indian soldiers who died during the war had been omitted from official commemoration.

The CWGC said the omission stemmed from policies of the British Indian government, which denied war graves status to many soldiers who died in non-operational areas within India during the conflict. As a result, their names were never forwarded to the commission for inclusion in its records.

“More than a century after the end of the First World War, our mission endures, ensuring all those who died in the service of the Commonwealth receive the commemoration they deserve,” CWGC Director General Claire Horton said.

She described the project as a landmark effort that restores missing chapters of both family and global history, adding that the commission would continue working with Commonwealth governments on plans for a memorial honouring the newly recognised soldier.

For descendants, the discovery means different

Leicester-based dentist Dr Inder Singh Palahey said his family’s knowledge of his great-grandfather Kesar Singh had been limited to stories passed down through generations.

“From just hearsay to now discovering the facts about my great-grandfather’s ultimate military sacrifice… has been incredibly poignant,” he said, adding that official recognition acknowledges the sacrifices made not only by the soldier but also by the family he left behind.

Former England rugby international Manjinder Nagra also discovered that her maternal great-grandfather, Jagat Singh, was among those omitted from the records.

She said learning that he would now be officially recognised was “incredibly moving”, adding that the acknowledgement finally gives her family the honour and dignity they had waited more than 100 years to see.

The scale of India’s contribution to the First World War has often been overshadowed despite more than 1.4 million men from the British Indian Army serving across Europe, Africa and the Middle East. One in every six soldiers fighting for Britain during the war came from pre-Partition India, with Punjab alone contributing nearly half a million Sikh, Muslim, Hindu and Christian servicemen.

Historian Amandeep Madra, chair of the UK Punjab Heritage Association, said the project was about restoring names that should never have disappeared from history.

“These men were excluded not because they did not serve, but because of decisions taken a century ago. Correcting the record gives families around the world back a vital part of their history,” he said.

The research team, including University of Greenwich PhD researcher George Williams and 19 volunteers, reviewed 15,935 deaths and compared them with more than 74,000 existing CWGC Indian Army records before confirming the missing casualties.

The project forms part of the CWGC’s Non-Commemoration Programme, launched in 2021 to identify those excluded from official remembrance. So far, the initiative has uncovered more than 20,000 previously uncommemorated names, with the latest findings representing one of its most significant discoveries.