India’s Role in the First World War

India was not a bystander in the First World War. Over a million Indian soldiers served overseas for Britain. Their sacrifice, and Britain’s broken promises afterward, directly shaped India’s own freedom movement.

Must KnowNeed to Know

• India contributed over one million soldiers to the British war effort during the First World War, 1914-1918.
• The Indian Expeditionary Force fought in several theatres, including France, Mesopotamia, and Gallipoli.
• India also supplied huge amounts of money, raw materials, and equipment to support Britain’s war effort.
• In return, Britain made vague promises of eventual self-government, formalised in the 1917 Montagu Declaration.
• Post-war disappointment with Britain’s actual reforms fed directly into the growing non-cooperation movement.

Good to KnowGood to Know

• Tens of thousands of Indian soldiers died in the war, with major losses in campaigns like Mesopotamia and Gallipoli.
• The 1917 Montagu Declaration promised “responsible government,” but only through gradual, unspecified stages.
• The Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms of 1919 followed, introducing limited dyarchy in Indian provinces, seen by many as inadequate.
• The Rowlatt Act, passed the same year, extended wartime repressive powers into peacetime, angering Indians further.
• Not all wartime opposition worked within the British system. Raja Mahendra Pratap set up a Provisional Government of India in exile at Kabul, Afghanistan, in December 1915, with Maulana Barkatullah as prime minister. It won no formal recognition and achieved little in practice, but it fed British fears of German-backed conspiracies, which helped shape the security thinking behind the Rowlatt Act.
• This mix of wartime sacrifice, vague promises, and continued repression is often cited as a key trigger for Gandhi’s rise to leadership.

Test Yourself

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1. Raja Mahendra Pratap established a Provisional Government of India in exile during the First World War, based in which country?

Afghanistan

Germany

Turkey

Japan

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Great to KnowGreat to Know

• Indian troops’ overseas service exposed many soldiers directly to nationalist and anti-colonial ideas circulating globally at the time.
• The gap between India’s wartime sacrifice and its post-war treatment is a recurring theme in nationalist writing of the period.
• India’s WWI role is often contrasted with its very different, larger-scale WWII contribution two decades later.
• The Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 1919, following the Rowlatt Act, is often studied as the direct fallout of this broken post-war promise.
• Historians treat WWI as a genuine turning point, after which mass nationalist politics replaced earlier, more limited elite-led demands.
• The Provisional Government’s home minister, Ubaidullah Sindhi, was also linked to the Silk Letter Conspiracy of 1916, a parallel plot to organise a pan-Islamic uprising against British rule. British intelligence intercepted its letters, part of a wider web of wartime anti-colonial plots that included the Ghadar Movement and the Berlin Committee.