Artist to tell 'forgotten ' stories of service from South Asian communities

This summer, Sparkhill-based artist Tasawar Bashir will explore previously untold stories of historic service and sacrifice from Birmingham 's South Asian communities through a sound art installation at the National Memorial Arboretum.

Commissioned by the Arboretum and Sampad, an arts charity that connects people with South Asian arts and heritage, the new installation will celebrate the forgotten men and women who contributed to many military campaigns between 1914 and 1947. These stories will be narrated by community elders who Bashir has been working alongside in Birmingham for the past 12 months.

During the First and Second World Wars, Indian Army recruitment was heavily concentrated on rural areas known presently as Pakistan Punjab, Indian Punjab, the North West Frontier, Azad Kashmir, and Bangladesh. Known as begaris, the landless, they were the forgotten unsung heroes, playing vital roles as low rank soldiers or non-military functionaries such as porters or stretcher bearers.

Due to their low profile and less glamorous roles, their history was largely ignored by official military narratives and subsequent generations of British-born South Asians have either no knowledge or many unanswered questions about elders who took part in various military campaigns.

Bashir said: “When these brave servicemen returned from their military campaigns, they returned with stories about the world they had seen, with money in their pockets and with military pensions, some were awarded tracts of land. ”

“The story of how South Asian communities came to settle in Britain from the 1930s onwards can, in part, be explained by the forgotten story of these men and women. Those living in the Diaspora today, areas such as the West Midlands, have been left impoverished by having no officially-recorded history of this period. ”

The free, Tasawar Bashir sound art installation has been supported by The MECC Trust and will open on 25 June and is part of the 'Sports, Service and the Commonwealth ' programme running throughout summer 2022 at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire.

For the full programme, visit: www.thenma.org.uk/commonwealth

Pictured: Tasawar Bashir at the National Memorial Arboretum