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A British memorial to forgotten `natives'

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON NOV. 6. Nearly five million "natives" including Indians, who fought for the British Empire in the two World Wars and were then forgotten, received a token recognition today when the Queen inaugurated the Memorial Gates, near the Hyde Park corner in the heart of central London.

Several soldiers, including the old and infirm Umrao Singh, who came all the way from India, were present when the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh formally opened the Gates on a grey and rainy afternoon.

Baroness Shreela Flather, chairperson of the Memorial Gates Trust, said the monument was a "reminder" to the British people that their freedom owed "much to the dedication of so many whose contribution has gone unrecognised and unappreciated". This is the first time Britain has remembered what The Guardian described as the "unsung heroes" from the Indian subcontinent, Africa and the Caribbean. Many were bitter as they recalled how they were forgotten by the British Government. A former Colonel, Chanan Dhillon (79), who nearly lost his life fighting for the Empire, said, "I came to the VE day here in Britain in 1995 and there was no mention of the Indian forces... A country or a nation should be grateful to a soldier."

A Caribbean war veteran, George Blackman (105), said the soldiers from the colonies experienced racism. "They called us darkies," he said. And once the war was over, they were abandoned. A Jamaican, who was with the Royal Navy, said all the natives got was a "Thank you very much. Goodbye." The Memorial Gates were welcome but "what we need is official recognition", he said, echoing his fellow "soldiers of the empire".

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