What If That Was Enough?

Eighty years after Europe’s liberation, I find myself asking who we remember, and who we leave behind. This is a reflection on forgotten soldiers, fragile freedom, and what it means to belong to a continent that never claimed you.

An Indian air force pilot from Punjab in England

Eighty years since the liberation of Europe. Over two million Indian soldiers fought in the war, the largest volunteer force in history at the time.

I have been thinking: what does that really mean for this continent? What does it mean to commemorate freedom, while so often forgetting those who fought, and fell, to secure it from the clutches of Nazi fascism?

And more importantly: how does it acknowledge, embrace the memory of those who stood in its defence, even when they did not belong to it?

I have been told, more than once in interviews, that I lack a ‘European perspective’. I usually accept it with grace. I never ask what exactly is meant. Perhaps because I already know, and I do not wish to make anyone uncomfortable.

But I often think of the Indian soldiers who landed in Normandy during the Second World War. And not only Normandy. They fought in Italy, in France, in Britain, in Greece and in Cyprus. In the colonies of European empires across North Africa and the Middle East. In the Atlantic and the Pacific.

Thousands of miles from home. In a war not of their choosing. For a continent that, even now, often overlooks their sacrifice.

Did they have a ‘European perspective’?

I doubt it.

What they had was courage. A sense of duty. And a belief in freedom. Even as they served under the flag of the British colonial empire that denied them their own.

Indian soldiers from Punjab train in gas masks during World War Two.

In my own quiet way, I have tried to carry that spirit forward, through my research, writing, volunteering, journalism, and through work committed to defending democracy and human dignity.

I may not always sound European enough, or carry the expected passport.

But I do understand what it means to stand for the values that re-constituted this continent, even when one comes from far beyond its borders.

Sometimes I wonder: perhaps, that ought to be enough.