The Indian corps arrived in Europe just in time for the First Battle of Ypres. Regular soldiers all, they fought an enemy of whom they knew little, and in a cause not their own. This full history draws on a range of sources, including interviews.

Four days after the declaration of war, an Indian corps of two infantry divisions and a cavalry brigade was ordered to embark for the Western Front. Clad in in tropical uniforms, those men endured one of the bitterest winters on record and fought in every major battle of the next two years. In a country they had never seen, against an enemy of whom they knew little, and in a cause that was not their own, they fought for the honor of their country and their regiments. This book draws upon a mass of unpublished sources and extensive interviews by the author in India and Nepal--it must be remembered that Gordon Corrigan (fluent in Nepali) was a commanding officer in the Brigade of Gurkhas.

Recasts the role of the Indian Army on the Western Front, questioning why its performance was traditionally deemed a failure.

This is the first cultural and literary history of India and the First World War, with archival research from Europe and South Asia.

Over a million Indian soldiers fought in the First World War, the largest force from the colonies and dominions. Their contribution, however, has been largely forgotten. Many soldiers were illiterate and travelled from remote villages in India to fight in the muddy trenches in France and Flanders. Many went on to win the highest bravery awards. For King and another Country tells, for the first time, the personal stories of some of these Indians who went to the Western Front: from a grand turbanned Maharaja rearing to fight for Empire to a lowly sweeper who dies in a hospital in England, from a Pathan who wins the Victoria Cross to a young pilot barely out of school. Shrabani Basu delves into archives in Britain and narratives buried in villages in India and Pakistan to recreate the War through the eyes of the Indians who fought it. There are heroic tales of bravery as well as those of despair and desperation; there are accounts of the relationships that were forged between the Indians with their British officers and how curries reached the frontline. Above all, it is the great story of how the War changed India and led, ultimately, to the call for independence.

The eighteenth century was a time when British were just beginning to find their way in the cultural landscape of India. The early Orientalists were the pioneers who mapped out this landscape, the knowledge generated by them represented India as not only different but also inferior to the West. This perception of Indian inferiority extended to the military sphere as well. The inability of vast, yet undisciplined Indian armies to stand up to miniscule forces of drilled European infantry and field artillery convinced many in the British camp of an invincible timidity' in Indian soldiers.

Across the Black Waters is widely rated as an outstanding novel. It is a simple story about the ultimate futility and sorrow of war. It is a journey not just from a small village in Punjab to Flanders, from father to soldier, field to front — but from a soul that nurtures to one that kills. Overlooking the claims of war classics like All Quiet on the Western Front, the British Council selected and adapted this novel into a play to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War I. "The foremost of Indian novelists." — Daily Telegraph "His descriptions of brutality match in compassion and outrage, and perhaps also in poetic flair, those of Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sasson, or David Jones." — Alastair Niven, British Literary Critic