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Queen lays foundation for memorial to colonial troops

Sanjay Suri in London

Britain will erect a memorial to those soldiers from India, Africa and the Caribbean who died fighting for the United Kingdom during the two world wars.

Tens of thousands of Indians died, and hundreds of thousands were wounded in the two wars.

Queen Elizabeth II came to lay the foundation for one of the four pillars to be erected behind Buckingham Palace across from Hyde Park on Wednesday afternoon.

That she came on the day her mother had been hospitalised was some measure of the seriousness with which the British government views the move to honour the Indian dead.

The move came not from the government, but from Baroness Shreela Flather, the sari-clad member of the House of Lords, who proposed the setting up of a memorial to soldiers from India and the colonies, who had died fighting for Britain.

Queen Elizabeth II, wearing a bright yellow suit and hat for the occasion, made the short drive from her palace to Constitution Hill for the ceremony. It was the Queen Mother who was to have laid the foundation. The queen read out a message on behalf of her ailing mother.

"I am very pleased to lay the foundation stone of this memorial gateway," she said in her message. "Queen Elizabeth and I wished to pay our tribute to all those from the subcontinent, Africa and the Caribbean who lost their lives in two world wars.

"Their courage and fortitude, and the immense contribution they made to victory, will be remembered for years to come. This gateway will, I hope, serve as a fitting monument to their efforts, and will make clear the debt we still owe today to those from across the Commonwealth and beyond."

A few of the soldiers who had fought and survived were there to watch the ceremony. Among them was Colonel Asa Singh, now touching 93. He had joined the British Indian Army in 1927 and fought in World War II in the Middle East, Cairo and France.

"They should have done this a long time ago," said Col Singh, now bound to a wheelchair. "And they should have done this on their own." The memorial was coming now "after too many years and after too much persuasion".

Singh's father had fought in World War I. He was wounded in France and died in a hospital in Brighton.

A handful of other soldiers who survived the war and more than half a century following it were present at the small marquee set up on the side of the road for them to meet the queen. The ceremony was watched by a couple of hundred tourists who had come to see the queen, but weren't sure who she was laying a memorial for.

The real foundation was laid when Baroness Flather heard a remark a caller made on the local Sunrise Radio years ago to complain that the British ought to have built a memorial to honour all those Indians who had died for them.

"That idea stuck in my mind and about six months later I took it up," she said at the foundation ceremony on Wednesday. "I could see that this should have been done, but the way to get things done is to just go out and do them."

Flather and a small group of business people she gathered raised close to £1 million over the last two years for the project. The Millennium Commission chipped in with another million from the lottery money. And that will pay for the memorial gates.

The project was boosted greatly by the interest shown by the British royal family. "A lot of the money we raised was at events attended by Prince Charles and Princess Anne," Surina Narula, who headed the fundraising for the project, told rediff.com

The project will go with an education scheme for young Asians in Britain. "The memorial looks to the future because we want youngsters from families that came from Asia, Africa and the Caribbean to know what a great contribution their fathers and grandfathers and others made to the wars," Lord Slim, who was an officer with the British Indian Army, said.

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