Visitors to the exhibition look at the archived material, including recordings of sepoys from WWI, on Sunday.—Photo by writer
Visitors to the exhibition look at the archived material, including recordings of sepoys from WWI, on Sunday.—Photo by writer

KARACHI: “Do not think that this is war. This is not war. It is the ending of the world. This is just such a war as was related in the Mahabharata about our forefathers,” wrote a wounded Indian soldier from a hospital in England on Jan 29, 1915. One of the many thousands taken to Europe to fight a war that was not really his, he was trying to understand the conflict the best way he could as he wrote to a loved one back home from the prison camp in Germany.

‘Digging deep, crossing far — second encounter: Karachi’ is a very interesting, very moving programme, including an exhibition and several workshops organised by Goethe-Institut in collaboration with German curators Elke Falat and Julia Tieke and the Arts Council of Pakistan, Karachi, that opened here on Sunday.

If you study World War I (WWI) in depth, you’ll learn how globalised the world and the international system of powers already were in 1914. Great Britain’s entry into the war meant the involvement of the entire empire but the global dimension of WWI and its effects are often lost as it is thought of as more of a Western conflict. The reality is that the British recruited 1.3 million combatants and non-combatants from South Asia, 60,000 of whom were killed. More than 16,000 colonial soldiers or sepoys of the French and British armies as well as Muslim prisoners of war (POWs) from the Russian army were placed in two camps in the south of Berlin, Germany. The better known of these camps is called the Halfmoon Camp, where the Germans then tried to persuade them to defect.

To turn the POWs against their masters, the Germans used various means of propaganda that included a ‘Jihad Programme’ that was developed by the German Intelligence Bureau for the East, where they presented themselves as friends of Islam. They encouraged the practice of religion in the camps and published special newspapers for the POWs like the Al-Dschihad, which appeared in four languages and the Hindostan.

During this time, a linguist named Wilhelm Doegen, who founded the Phonographic Commission in 1915 with the aim of recording as many languages as possible, also visited the camps with members of his commission. They were glad to encounter so many exotic POWs whom they recorded. The spoken word and music recordings from the camps are preserved in the Humboldt University Berlin and at the Ethnological Museum in Berlin-Dahlem. Of the 1,650 recordings from the WWI camps at the Humboldt University, 282 titles are from the colonial soldiers from South Asia.

The recordings have been digitised and are available for listening at the ‘Digging deep, crossing far’ exhibition at the Arts Council here. “It is a big thing to have preserved these recordings, some of which are in regional languages such as Marathi, Pushto and Punjabi and most in Urdu, or Hindi, if you like, in archives and then digitise them and share them for the public,” said historian Dr Kaleemullah Lashari after spending some time carefully listening to a few of them.

“I particularly admire the way this exhibition has been put together. There are posters, photographs, paintings, letters, documents, slide shows and audio recordings to engage the visitors. It has been done very well,” said researcher and director of the State Bank Museum Dr Asma Ibrahim.

“See how well the Germans have preserved their history and out here we don’t even own Moenjodaro as we try and link ourselves to Mohammad Bin Qasim,” said another visitor, Maqsood Jan, an assistant professor at Sir Syed University of Engineering and Technology.

Julia Tieke, one of the two curators responsible for putting together the exhibition, said she had first come across the picture of the mosque built for the POWs at the Halfmoon Camp in Wunsdorf, Germany, on a postcard that caught her attention. “I was fascinated by the image and it served as the start of this project. After carrying out some research on it and what made the Germans build this mosque, I did a half hour radio documentary about how we used the ‘Jihad Programme’ and our special propaganda in our POW camps to turn these people around. It was our way of fighting the war,” she said.

“My research grew then as I visited the places where the soldiers had come from and involved contemporary artists there in the project. For this I also joined hands with Elke Falat, my co-curator,” she said.

“I was as excited about this untold story as we unearthed so much archived material that was all there with nothing censored or anything. We had to take it to the places where the soldiers originally came from so first we took our exhibition to Bangalore in India to search for their traces, and also involve local artists there in our show. Several from Bangalore, like Ayisha Abraham, a short film maker and installation artist, whose grandfather was in the British army during WWI, Surekha and Sarnath Banerjee added their findings and creativity to the exhibition,” Falat said while introducing some artists from Pakistan, including Muzzumil Ruheel, Ayaz Jokhio and Jamil Baloch.

Now in Karachi they joined hands with some of our artists who have lent their creativity to the project. Muzzumil Ruheel from Karachi said his research helped him discover poetry in Punjabi that was used to lure people to go overseas to fight the war. “There were words like ‘here you eat dry bread but there you’ll eat fresh fruit and you wear plain clothes here but there you’ll wear suits’,” he said.

Ayaz Jokhio from Lahore contributed his silhouette cut-outs of people engaged in war and in games. “I wanted to compare the general idea of war and sports both of which have the power of bringing people together,” he said.

‘Digging deep, crossing far — second encounter: Karachi’, including artistic working sessions, talks, presentations, workshops and the exhibition, will continue till June 4.

Published in Dawn, May 30th, 2016

Opinion

Editorial

Afghan turbulence
Updated 19 Mar, 2024

Afghan turbulence

RELATIONS between the newly formed government and Afghanistan’s de facto Taliban rulers have begun on an...
In disarray
19 Mar, 2024

In disarray

IT is clear that there is some bad blood within the PTI’s ranks. Ever since the PTI lost a key battle over ...
Festering wound
19 Mar, 2024

Festering wound

PROTESTS unfolded once more in Gwadar, this time against the alleged enforced disappearances of two young men, who...
Defining extremism
Updated 18 Mar, 2024

Defining extremism

Redefining extremism may well be the first step to clamping down on advocacy for Palestine.
Climate in focus
18 Mar, 2024

Climate in focus

IN a welcome order by the Supreme Court, the new government has been tasked with providing a report on actions taken...
Growing rabies concern
18 Mar, 2024

Growing rabies concern

DOG-BITE is an old problem in Pakistan. Amid a surfeit of public health challenges, rabies now seems poised to ...