When the world commemorated the 50th anniversary of the culmination of the First World War in 1964, there was scarcely a mention of India’s soldiers anywhere, least of all in India.

This year marks the centenary of the conclusion of the First World War – the Armistice on 11/11, at 11.11 am, ending four years of carnage that had begun in 1914 when the “guns of August” first boomed across the European continent. Across the world, commemorations of this historic event have already begun or are in the process of taking place, particularly for the anniversary of Armistice Day (November 11), where bells will be rung all across continental Europe, and in particular, 3,000 bell towers in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, to honour those who gave their lives in the Great War, “the war to end all wars.”

Back in India, however, the silence and muted commemorations, if at all, are likely to echo as piercingly as the bells that will toll in Europe.

In due fairness, this is not particularly new or surprising. After all, when the world commemorated the 50th anniversary of the culmination of the First World War in 1964, there was scarcely a mention of India’s soldiers anywhere, least of all in India.

But India’s absence from the commemorations, as well as its failure to honour the dead, was not a surprise. Nor was the lack of First World War memorials in the country: the general feeling was that India, freshly freed from the imperial yoke, was ashamed of its soldiers’ participation in a colonial war and saw nothing to celebrate.

The British, on the other hand, were unabashed. They commemorated the war by constructing the triumphal arch known as India Gate in New Delhi. Built in 1931, India Gate is a popular monument, visited by hundreds daily, few of whom have any idea that it commemorates the Indian soldiers who lost their lives fighting in the war. Indeed, historical amnesia about the First World War is pervasive across India.

It is now well known that though the war undoubtedly took the flower of Europe’s youth to their premature graves, it also involved soldiers from faraway lands who had little to do with Europe’s bitter traditional hatred.

Part of the reason is precisely that they were not fighting for their own country. The soldiers were all volunteers: soldiering was their profession. They served the very British Empire that was oppressing their own people back home.

Mahatma Gandhi, who returned to his homeland for good from South Africa in January 1915, supported the war, as he had supported the British in the Boer War. India was wrecked by high taxation – and the high inflation accompanying it – to support the war, while the disruption of trade caused by the conflict led to widespread economic losses. All this while the country was reeling from a raging infuenza pandemic – the 1918-’19 Spanish flu was the most devastating in history, with estimates of global mortality ranging from 20 to 50 million, and the focal point of the pandemic was India, with an estimated death toll of between 10 and 20 million. Poverty, disease and suffering all worsened in India during these years.