No beef, no pork, ginger-garlic and chapatis mandatory: A look at Indian troops' diet during WWI
badiyan (dried spiced dumplings). A not quite relationship builds, broken off when she gets married. Years later, as a soldier, Lahna Singh, he meets her as his officer’s wife. She begs him to safeguard her husband and son in the great war they are all being sent to fight in Europe.
This is from Chandradhar Sharma Guleri’s 'Usne Kaha Tha' (She Has Said), one of the first Hindi short stories. It has descriptions of battlefield life, a ribald song with innuendos about cloves and pumpkins, unexpected action in the form of an Urdu-speaking German spy and a moving climax where Lahna fulfils the request, sacrificing his own life. He dies dreaming of mangoes he will never eat.
Guleri wrote this just months after World War I started in August 1914. It was a sign of how confident the British were that colonial troops could give them swift victory that they were immediately moved to Europe, in September 1914. The special arrangements made for these troops were a sign of how they were valued — or of the fear that news of problems might cause unrest in India, which was being emptied of its army, guarantor of the British Raj’s stability.
The big issue was food. In Matthew Richardson’s history 'The Hunger War'', he quotes an overwhelmed sounding British officer: “The Brahmin will not touch beef; the Mahomedan turns up his nose at pork; the Jain is a vegetarian. The Gurkha loves the flesh of the goat. And every Indian must have his ginger, garlic, red chilli and turmeric and his chupatties of unleavened bread.” By contrast,
