UNITED NATIONS – UN Chief Ban Ki-moon honoured over a million Indian soldiers who fought in the World War I at a commemorative event here and released a photo book authored by the Ambassador to the Permanent Mission of India to the UN featuring war memorials from across the world.
“India, then part of the British Empire, provided more than one million men. More than 60,000 died in action, along with so many others from Africa, Asia and Europe. All too often, the histories ignore this enormous sacrifice,” UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in his remarks at the event yesterday.
Ban along with President of the UN General Assembly Ambassador John Ashe released the 113-page book “Indian War Memorials of the First World War” that contains a brief overview of the many battlefields where Indian soldiers made the ultimate sacrifice.
Ambassador to the Permanent Mission of India to the UN Asoke Mukerji said the event coincides with the 100th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi’s letter of August 14, 1914 to the British Government, in which he had said that India’s voluntary participation in the war effort was “an earnest of our desire to share the responsibilities of membership of this great Empire, if we would share its privileges.”
