Duty, Honour & Izzat

5 reviews for Duty, Honour & Izzat

1. 

   Rated 5 out of 5

   Hardeep k Jheeta – April 29, 2019

   A powerful read that will take you from ashamed, and sad to passionate and empowered! Every home should read this book to unbury the stories of all those selfless souls who fought for the Empire, yours and mine!

2. 

   Rated 5 out of 5

   Ken Hardie, Member of Parliament – July 20, 2019

   To think of the sacrifice Sikh soldiers made only a matter of days after Canada turned away their countrymen on the Komagatga Maru says a lot about their character and bravery. Steven, who makes his home in our riding, has been tireless in his effort to preserve this history and to tell the story, which he did with creativity and impact. We made sure it was part of our local commemoration as we observed the 100th Anniversary of the Armistice ending World War One.

3. 

   Rated 5 out of 5

   Robert Bell – October 15, 2019

   I just finished reading “Duty, Honour & Izzat, From Golden Fields to
   Crimson – Punjab’s Brothers in Arms In Flanders”. Wow! Impressive book,
   should be required reading for all!

   Whilst not glorifying war the author, Steven Purewal, & illustrator,
   Christopher Rawlins, manage to tell the sadly largely forgotten story
   of the contribution of the Punjabi community in World War I.

   The book is especially relevant for Canadians as it shows us much about
   Canadian history. It highlights sad mistreatment of the Punjabi
   community & shows how that is tied into the broader story. It also lifts
   our spirits by showing how even during the bad times many transcended
   the bounds of culture & race to work together for the common good. It
   shows the importance of Izzat.

   The graphic novel chapter early in the book was an especially effective
   way of tying the facts of history that followed into a cohesive whole &
   most importantly to the world of today.

   To be honest the book was not what I expected. I had seen the cover art
   & was impressed. I did not expect the excellent artwork to continue
   throughout the book. At the risk of sounding superficial I would buy the
   book just for the illustrations! The text is very informative & …
   “educational” does not quite capture it that suggests dry history. I
   would say the text is “full of wisdom & insight”, this is living history
   with explicit lessons for today.

   I have read many books on the war, this one is unique & a must read!

4. 

   Rated 5 out of 5

   Mark Fairburn – October 15, 2019

   Reading this book was a tremendously rewarding experience for me.

   Living in a small English village for the first part of my life I was brought up in a parochial environment, but heading into further education I had my first experience of meeting and culturing strong relationships with people from Punjab. Their warmth and friendship coupled with their high moral integrity has always been a source of strength.

   I was naively unaware, before reading this book, of some of the tremendous sacrifices that the Punjab people have undergone in the name of establishing peace.
   The thought of hundreds of thousands of men leaving loved ones behind to fight in an unfamiliar battle ground against an enemy that they have never known is an incredible feat of strength and courage unparalleled by any other race.

   This book re-surfaced the feelings that I experienced when I visited Vimy Ridge. The conditions that the men endured during this period is unthinkable and can never be truly appreciated. Steve Purwell’s book presents a great forum for educating the reader the sacrifices that these men gave to a country that should never forget the people who died to help others maintain their freedom. I think that it is imperative that everyone should understand the magnitude of war effort that Punjab provided without personal gain.

   The book is a testament to the strength, duty and honour of the Punjab people and I am grateful, through Stevens book, that I have become aware of yet
   another example of what makes the Punjab people such a great people.

5. 

   Rated 5 out of 5

   Trista Grant-Waddell, PhD (Canadian Military History), Ottawa, Canada – November 2, 2019

   Steven Purewal’s Duty, Honour & Izzat. From Golden Fields to Crimson – Punjab’s Brothers in Arms in Flanders, with illustrations by Christopher Rawlins, tells the story of the Indian Army in the First World War. Purewal’s book aims to remedy a significant omission from the history of the British Empire’s effort during the First World War; namely, the contribution of Indian, and largely Punjabi, forces who fought on behalf of the British Empire. Even the best historical account will omit facts, dates, and people, either from a desire to maintain narrative coherence that supports prevailing wisdom regarding the event being recounted, or simply due to the limitations of the author. Purewal counteracts this tendency in Western accounts of the world wars with a well-researched volume that is both beautiful and informative. And while the Indian role in the First World War is the book’s central topic, it ranges further afield to provide insight into the Indian martial tradition and the role of Indian forces in other wars. New scholarship that explores the outer parameters of its central topic provides future researchers with new avenues to pursue; Purewal’s book opens up the discourse on Punjabi contributions to Imperial military causes, and provides many paths down which future historians can, and should, tread.

   While the book focuses on the First World War, particularly on the Western Front, it also recounts the Indian Army’s infantry and cavalry in other theatres of the First World War, other international campaigns of the Indian Army, and the evolution of the Indian Army structure and traditions, albeit in less detail. It discusses the history of several First World War campaigns, provides snapshots in valour on individual soldiers, and maps the difficult and racially-charged environment that these colonial forces had to navigate. Additionally, Duty, Honour & Izzat seeks to provide disenfranchised Indo-Canadian youth with heroes from their own culture and past, in an attempt to interest modern Sikh youth in their cultural and historical roots and, as a by-product, make youth gangs and the drug trade less appealing.

   The book covers a great deal of material, and could easily fall victim to attempting to do too much in its 150 pages. However, it never entirely loses its way due to the employment of well-executed narrative devices. Primarily, the connective tissue of the text’s vignettes is thematic (the unsung role of Indian military forces in broader conflict); but both the visual aspects (through the sumptuous and stylistically varied illustrations and layout, and, most originally, the comic), and format (the use of maps, poetry, trivia, wartime adverts, and first-hand quotations off-set from the main text) keep what is arguably very dense text from becoming overwhelming to the reader.

   The comic is a clever device to draw in interested readers who may be daunted at the prospect of reading this book, which is stuffed to the seams with facts and figures. The comic, as well as the illustrations, temper the density of the small typeface and amount of content, however at times the number of items on a page can be overwhelming. Additionally, the comic itself, while adding to the overall intent of publicizing the valorous contributions of the Punjabi soldiers in World War One, also reinforces the idea that basic human respect, free of the taint of racism, is something that may need to be earned, rather than something that is naturally due. When Ed Jones’ son strikes Hari, it seems that the son is remorseful only because he learns that Hari had saved his father’s life in a demonstration of uncommon bravery in wartime. Hari is worthy of respect due to his actions on the battlefield (and, the subtext seems to say, despite his turban). It is a simplistic treatment of a complex problem, but as a means to acknowledge the everyday, pedestrian racism faced by the book’s target audience of Indo-Canadian youth, it is likely a very effective device.

   For Canadian readers, the story of India’s call to arms in defence of Great Britain during the First World War will resonate. In the well-established historiography of Canada’s role in the First World War, a mythology has been built around the idea that Canada, as a former colony of the British Empire and a nation of limited population, answered the motherland’s call and fought valiantly, and disproportionately well. Canada, it is said, entered the First World War as a colony, and emerged a battle-proven nation that had been “forged by fire.” India and Canada, both harbouring British colonial roots and a martial tradition at least partly derived from the British military example, have a great deal in common in this sense. They fielded a sizeable number of soldiers (India significantly more than Canada), and both suffered a devastating number of casualties. Duty, Honour & Izzat highlights those instances when Indian troops fought alongside Canadians in historic battles of the Western Front, including Ypres, the Somme, and Vimy Ridge. These are the battles that are said to have shaped Canada’s military tradition, and imbued the young country with a sense of nationhood. Recounting these battles from the perspective of the Indian Army runs the risk of sensationalizing its contributions in the name of publicizing them, as has been the case in recounting Canada’s role in these battles as well.

   World War I is used as a vehicle to tell the story of the evolution of the Indian Army, its origins, comportment on the battlefield, battle honours, and relationship to Empire. It is an ambitious undertaking, and Purewal must take pains to ensure that the desire to praise and publicize these exploits does not outstrip historical accuracy. There is no sense here that Purewal has committed this sin, however. This book is well-researched and documented, and Purewal has drawn from war diaries, House of Commons Debates, and other key primary sources, as well as an extensive selection of secondary sources. In the rush to commit remembrance, it is easy to fall into adulation, so it is critical that historians cleave to primary source material whenever possible. This is particularly true when the author’s objective, at least in part, is to create historical icons of the “fiery spirit of the Punjabi” and the “stalwart Sikhs” for the idolization of current and future generations. History with an agenda is often unbalanced, and if this book has a fault it is that is it an unflaggingly positive account of the heroic and valorous efforts of Indian forces in various conflicts across the globe. That being said, Purewal is methodical in providing evidence of collective and individual examples of valour – such as the poignancy of the Honour Roll for Infantry and Cavalry members, and the discussion of the important force multiplier that was the Indian Cavalry on the Western Front.

   As Purewal points out in his Introduction, the story of the British imperial effort during the First World War is seldom depicted as a multicultural one. Even the historical accounts of the plucky Canadians at war typically restrict the reader’s view to the white Canadian soldiers who fought alongside other white Imperial and European partners. Purewal’s book widens that view, to the benefit of not only the history of the Indian Army, but to the benefit of the accepted narrative of how the British Empire and its partners fought, and ultimately won, the First World War.