Colonial military recruitment in Punjab
Colonial military recruitment linked Punjab to employment, political relationships and training institutions, as shown by records and historical analysis.
Punjab
History · A guide to the archive
Recruitment, war and colonial control
Read five connected histories through recruitment analysis, training records, wartime correspondence, an admission dispute and dated Lahore orders.
How to approach this subject
Choose an entry, then follow a paragraph citation to the named source. Establish who created the record and what it was intended to do. Read a rule as a prescribed action and seek further evidence before describing compliance. Keep the date of an award notice separate from a later commemoration. A selected letter can show what its writer communicated, while its preservation and mediation still matter. An abandoned proposal needs to remain separate from a completed action. Use these guides to compare types of evidence and to keep a particular person, institution or location visible within a wider historical question.
An intentional selection
Begin with these entries
Punjabi soldiers in the First World War
Read Punjabi wartime service through a named military citation, hospital regulation and letters home, keeping later commemoration distinct from the events.
Punjab and Europe
Punjabi soldiers in the Second World War
Punjabi-connected soldiers served in varied roles during the Second World War. Transport records and family correspondence reveal different experiences.
Punjab and overseas
The Komagata Maru incident
Read the Komagata Maru admission dispute through a court appeal and a separate policy study, distinguishing exclusion orders from an abandoned testing plan.
Vancouver
Martial law in Punjab in 1919
Martial law in parts of Punjab in 1919 can be studied through dated Lahore orders and later debates over compensation.
Lahore and Punjab