Paper short abstract:

The paper brings new insights into two key wartime experiences in the Punjab province: namely the recruitment of large numbers of servicemen and the trans-national revolutionary threat posed to this 'model' province of British India.

Paper long abstract:

The impact of the First World War on the north western Indian province of Punjab has been the focus of considerable historical writing. This has reflected the contrasting themes of the province's value to the British war effort and the anti-colonial nationalist threats posed by militant Punjabis. The standard historical account points to the raising of hundreds of thousands of volunteer troops that occurred along with the trans-national revolutionary threat posed by the Sikh dominated Ghadr movement. This paper suggests ways in which fresh source material might lead to a more nuanced understanding of the Punjab's wartime experience. District level records are used to interrogate the account of recruitment provided by the colonial administrator M.S.Leigh in the well-known works, 'The Punjab and the War' and the War Services of the Shahpur District'. Tensions and rivalries amongst 'loyalist' military contractors existed in a process that was not as smooth or top-down driven as previously portrayed. Statements of couriers apprehended by the British security services in the Silk Letter Conspiracy are deployed to uncover the involvement of Lahore Mosques and Muslim students in support and funding for jihadist movements. This reveals that the Ghadr Movement was not the only transnational threat to the wartime British control of the 'model' Punjab province.