UK to support Indian World War veterans

The UK government unveiled plans to offer support to Indian soldiers who fought for Britain during the two World Wars but lost out on pensions and other benefits.

UK International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt said the government was keen to rectify the injustice faced by Indian and other Commonwealth war veterans, many of whose families live in harsh conditions, the Press Trust of India reported.

Ms Mordaunt was speaking as guest of honour at a function organised by the Punjabi Society of the British Isles in London last week.

“I will announce a new programme that will take care of these servicemen and veterans and their widows for the rest of their lives,” she said.

“And I think that is a great example of the values and the shared humanity among the members of the Commonwealth that the Punjabi Society exhibits.”

The programme will be a partnership between the Royal British Legion and the Department for International Development’s UK Aid operation.

On Thursday, Ms Mordaunt announced funding of £12 million (Dh57.2m) to help thousands of impoverished war veterans across the Commonwealth who served with the British military.

The money will be used to provide two meals a day and regular cash transfers to 7,000 veterans and war widows.

Britain was yesterday to give India the “war diaries”, official records of units for which Indians fought, from its archives. The diaries would almost all be accounts produced by British officers.

Among the other functions and events that are planned for the centenary commemoration of Armistice Day is the unveiling of a war memorial at Villers Guislain, a village in the north of France.

There, in 1917, cavalry brigades of Indian soldiers threw themselves at German guns in the Battle of Cambrai. Dafadar Gobind Singh, from a small village in Rajasthan in north-west India, was awarded the Victoria Cross for that battle.