COVENTRY, UK—Jagdeesh Singh, candidate for the National Liberal Party (NLP), has called for a war memorial for Sikh soldiers to be installed in a better location in Coventry.
Three generations of Singh’s family served in the British Indian Army, including his great-great grandfather, Bassan Singh, in the 1st Sikh Infantry. His grandfather, Maghar Singh, fought in World War I.
The memorial at the Coventry roundabout is dedicated to those in Sikh regiments who died during both World Wars.
Jagdeesh Singh commended the efforts of activists in building the memorial, but said the location underplays the Sikh role. He stressed the need for a prominent memorial in a more publicly accessible place, where “the ordinary citizen of Coventry can access [it].”
Mr Singh also called for more coverage of the significant sacrifice of the Sikhs in the mainstream media.
He added: “You leave your home and you travel 5,000 miles away to a completely different continent.
My grandfather, and others like him, never even [before] set foot in this country, and they were dying in their thousands for this country.”
These sentiments were echoed by Colonel Robin Vickers, who said that the Sikh community produced some “very fine fighting soldiers”.
He said: “The numbers of their casualties paints a picture: 83,000 Sikhs gave their lives in the First and Second World Wars combined, and over a hundred thousand of them were very seriously wounded.”
