AFVOA Newletter August 2020

Section 5 - Memoirs CV 2 No. 02 / 2020 Page 106 of 237 11 War & Poetry Lt Gen V R Raghavan, PVSM UYSM AVSM Genre: Poetry ll wars have found expression in poetry. However, the First World War of 1914 -18 witnessed an outpouring of poetry, particularly in English, which has not been bettered. It led to the creation of the literary genre of war poems in the English language. The Great War as it was termed, was on a scale which dwarfed all previous wars in history. It was also the first such war of the modern age in which Indian troops participated in large numbers. It was the time when the Indian freedom movement was at its peak. Indian casualties were also in very large numbers. Sarojini Naidu was a poet of repute and a political leader of high standing at the time. She was disillusioned, as were millions if Indians, at the lack of recognition of Indian sacrifices and little sign of the British empathy towards the Indian freedom aspirations. Her anger is apparent in the poem written in 1915. ‘The Gift of India’: Sarojini Naidu Gathered like pearls in their alien graves Silent they sleep by the Persian waves, Scattered like shells on the Egyptian sands, They lie with pale brows, broken hands, They are strewn blossoms mown down by chance On the blood-brown meadows of Flanders and France.......... The five stanza poem ends as: (when) “you honour the deeds of deathless ones, Remember the blood of thy martyred sons.” Naidu perhaps anticipated Indian soldiers being forgotten even as British are honoured. England’s youth in hundreds of thousands had gone to war as patriotic duty. Many of them were from elite backgrounds with superior education and they were aghast at the human costs of the war fought with machine guns, barbed wire and gas. They produced extraordinary poetry based on their experiences. Lawrence Binyon wote one of the moving poems, which became the mainstay of funeral eulogies. A