Naz Shah, MP for Bradford West, spoke at Bradford’s Cartwright Hall at a British Future event to explore how greater understanding of the First World War contribution from the Indian Army’s Muslim soldiers could help integration in Britain today.
Tag Archive for WW1 Centenary
On 31 October 1914, Sepoy Khudadad Khan became the first Muslim recipient of the Victoria Cross, the nation’s highest award for bravery. To mark this anniversary, this new film from British Future explores what happened when descendants of WW1 Muslim soldiers came together with descendants of white WW1 Indian Army officers to learn more about their shared history at the National Archives
At the centre of a small village in the mountainous Salt Range region of Pakistan, sits a nineteenth century British cannon. Dulmial – known within Pakistan simply as ‘the village with the gun’ – was presented with the artillery piece in 1925 in recognition of the service and sacrifice of the village’s inhabitants prior to and during the First World War.
British Future’s recent study into public attitudes to the First World War centenary showed that the single biggest increase in public knowledge about WW1 relates to the contribution of soldiers from the Empire and the Commonwealth who fought for Britain. Things Unseen produced two radio programmes looking at the contribution of Muslim and Sikh soldiers, why they fought, and the importance of that historical legacy now.
A new study by British Future shows that the media, government and public bodies have set the right tone for the First World War centenary, and an appetite remains to learn more about Britain’s history.
The installation ‘Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red’, designed by ceramic artist Paul Cummins, which commemorates those fallen during the First World War already covers a huge swathe of the Tower of London’s dry moat, writes Joe Cryer.
As the British government seeks to ensure that centenary activities fully mark the contribution of Empire and Commonwealth soldiers, can it find common ground to reflect Australian and Canadian pride in the birth of a nation, Indian and Pakistani concerns about getting the form of recognition right, and South African scepticism about the contemporary relevance of a conflict fought between long lost Empires, asks Sunder Katwala.
The British public strongly prefer a solemn remembrance of the lives lost in the first world war to a centenary commemoration which places a central emphasis on Britain's victory of the war, according to new Ipsos MORI polling for British Future.
With the centenary of the commencement of the Great War approaching, an opportunity presents itself to remember, to reflect, and to renew our national understanding of the shared histories that draw us together, as well as the way we pass on those understandings and identities to our children, says school teacher Michael Merrick.
Nearly two thirds (60%) of 16 to 24 year olds can’t name the year that WWI ended, and just ahead of the centenary 54% of the same age group can’t name the date of the start of the war, according to new research from British Future.
Irish questions of remembrance and forgetting, identity and reconciliation came very much to the fore as the Battle of Ideas festival audience debated what wearing the Remembrance Day poppy meant to them, writes Sunder Katwala.