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World War I Sikh-Canadian Soldier Lays at Rest,
Far From Home

KATIE DAUBS

 

 

 



Kemmel, Belgium

Sunta Goojar Singh was the first Sikh to die for Canada in the Great War, but his headstone in a rural cemetery outside Ypres is the only Canadian one without a maple leaf engraved on it.

At the outset of the war, most of the men who enlisted were immigrants -- most obviously the British who felt a strong tie to the homeland. But there were people from many backgrounds, both new and old to Canada.

Among them were 10 Sikhs.

The Sikh population in Canada was small at the outset of WWI, dropping from 5,000 in 1907 to fewer than a couple of thousand by wartime, largely because restrictions, including the head tax, made immigration difficult. Those who were successful usually landed in Vancouver, though many were turned away -- most famously, the ship Komagata Maru was denied entry into Vancouver in 1914 because of racist exclusion laws.

Goojar Singh was born in Lahore, Punjab in 1881 and signed up for service in Montreal. On his attestation papers, “complexion” has been crossed out and a word that looks like “caste” is written in its place: “Rugepoot. E. Indian,” which is perhaps a bungled and erroneous interpretation of a “Sikh“. [Clerks of the period are notorious for mistakenly lumping Sikhs with “Hindoos”.]

“The Sikh community has had a long-standing military tradition,” says Pardeep Singh Nagra, the executive director of Sikh Heritage Museum of Canada, noting that photos of early Sikh pioneers in Canada show them wearing military medals.

One interesting stat: Sikhs made up 22 per cent of India’s armed forces at the outset of the war although they accounted for less than 2 per cent of the population. Goojar Singh had been a member of the Punjab Rifles for three years before he came to Canada.

La Laiterie Cemetery is a regimental cemetery; many men buried here were “trench wastage” -- a term common in WWI to refer to a soldier killed by a sniper or a shell but not in a major offensive.

Goojar Singh’s grave is in the area farthest from the road, under a copse of trees, on the sloping land where the 24th battalion (Victoria Rifles) buried their men.

According to the battalion diary, they finished their tour of nearby trenches on Oct. 4, 1915, with an enemy that was fairly active with “sniping and artillery.” Just beside Sunta Singh’s final resting place, headstones marked W.A. Ward, E.A. Clift, mark the human toll of the diary’s neutral language.

On October 13, the men bombarded the enemy’s line and threw smoke bombs. T.G. Smith, buried to Goojar Singh’s right, died that day.

On October 16, the battalion was relieved: “Our second tour of duty in the trenches, apart from the bombardment was an uneventful one,” the diary notes.

The graveyard and the luxury of hindsight tell another story: six Canadians buried.

While they were resting in billets, working parties were sent to rebuild trenches, day and night. Goojar Singh was likely involved in this work; he was killed in action on October 19.

The bureaucracy wasn’t sure how to classify Goojar Singh in life or death.

On the enlistment papers he belongs to the Church of England, on a death certificate he is Buddhist. At the cemetery, he is listed under “Gougersing” in the registry. His headstone -- which spells his name Goojar instead of Gouger -- is engraved with Gurmukhi (the Punjabi script) that translates as “God is one” and “Victory to God.”

Of the three Sikh Canadian WWI graves in La Laiterie, two have Maple Leafs (the symbol of Canada) and one has a cross. Pardeep isn’t sure why Goojar Singh doesn’t have a Maple Leaf but believes it might be related to the script, which overlaps the area where the symbol usually goes.

There are no photos of Goojar Singh, no letters. The museum does have a letter from another Sikh, Waryam Singh, describing fighting on the Somme in November 1916, where shells and bullets fell like rain and “one’s body trembled to see what was going on.”

“We went over like men walking in a procession at a fair and shouting we seized the trench and took the enemy prisoners. I didn’t think of our safety at all but felt that the Guru Maharaj was fighting in me. He is great and it is thanks to Him that I was able to do all I did … The bravery which we showed that day was the admiration of the British soldiers. After the fight they asked me how it was that I was so utterly regardless of danger,” he wrote.

There is only one name in the visitor book of this cemetery -- Mrs. P. Jackson, April 19, 2014, from Carperby, North Yorkshire. “Beautifully kept,” she writes.

Leaving the cemetery, the highest peak in Flanders (it is generously called Mount Kemmel, though just 156 metres) was a valued strategic prize in wartime. On the way to the top, past the bunkers where British forces were able to observe nearby Ypres and Messines, a grouse squawks and bursts out of the roadside bramble, the effect a cartoonish explosion.

Up the steep incline is the French ossuary honouring the soldiers who died here in April 1918 when the Germans finally broke through.

At a nearby hotel, we are given a room with a view. The man at the front desk says he’d do the same for anyone, from any country. Maybe not Germany, he says, smiling. They did take this place twice.

And as photographer Richard Lauten chimes in, on those occasions they didn’t make a reservation.


[Courtesy: The Toronto Star. Edited for sikhchic.com]
May 3, 2014

 

Conversation about this article

1: Sangat Singh  (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia), May 03, 2014, 6:57 AM.

Every Sikh that fought was a 'Savaa Lakh' no matter where. The anthem he followed was "Nischae kar apni jeet karo(n)" - "Victory for certain, with His Grace!"

2: Gurdarshan Singh (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia), May 04, 2014, 2:08 AM.

Did anyone conduct ardaas or paatth da bhog for these martyrs like Goojar Singh who died during WWI and WWII? Or is it long overdue? Can we propose to have an international Sikh Remembrance Day worldwide for all the Sikh martyrs who were felled during those early wars (1850s onwards).

3: Maninder Singh (India), May 05, 2014, 6:09 AM.

Every individual story of this type of heroism reaffirms the miracles of unflinching faith in HIM. WaheGuru!

4: Indra Ross  (Calgary, Alberta, Canada), February 17, 2016, 8:38 PM.

Can you please tell me what the words on the tombstone read when translated to English.

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