On the slopes of Monte Cassino in Italy, graves of Punjabi and Frontier soldiers lie beneath rows of white headstones. These men, many recruited from what is now Pakistan, were part of the British Indian Army whose service stretched across continents during the world wars. Each November 11, the world pauses to honour the fallen, yet the contributions of these soldiers and the sacrifices of their families rarely appear in global remembrance. For Pakistan, these stories are not distant chapters but part of its own national history.
The scale of this contribution is striking. By the end of the Second World War, the British Indian Army numbered over 2.5 million men, with Punjab alone providing nearly half of all recruits. Regiments drawn from the Frontier (now known as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa), Punjab, Baluchistan and Sindh fought in campaigns from the deserts of North Africa to the mountains of Italy, and from the Middle East to the jungles of Burma. They did not fight for empire but were swept into a global conflict that reached into their villages and altered the lives of their families.
In Burma, Pakistani regiments formed the backbone of the Allied effort against Japanese forces. Battling malaria, exhaustion and isolation, they endured conditions that claimed nearly as many lives as combat itself. In the North African deserts, men from Punjab regiments fought in some of the hardest engagements against the Axis, while Frontier troops played key roles in the Italian campaign. These journeys show how deeply the war reached into what would later become Pakistan.
The sacrifices were immense. According to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC), more than 87,000 soldiers of the Indian Army lost their lives in the Second World War, and over 74,000 in the First. Taken together, more than 160,000 South Asians perished in these conflicts, with tens of thousands hailing from the areas that today form Pakistan. Over 25,800 names are listed on the Delhi and Karachi 1939–1945 War Memorials, many of them sons of Punjabi villages or Pathan hamlets who never returned home.
Acts of courage also defined this experience. Over 4,800 gallantry awards were conferred on South Asian soldiers during the Second World War, including the Victoria Cross. But medals capture only fragments of reality. The broader truth was of ordinary men enduring long separations from home, serving for modest pay, and marching into unfamiliar battles. Their service brought pensions and new incomes into rural households, but it also left behind widows and communities marked by loss.
The war effort drew heavily on Pakistan’s regions. Punjab supplied entire divisions, Frontier units were deployed to remote theatres, and Baloch regiments served
across the Middle East. These were not abstract contributions; they were rooted in the soil of what would become Pakistan. The memory of sacrifice thus belongs not to others but to this land itself.
Around the world, cemeteries testify to this legacy. In Cassino, Italy, Pakistani names are etched into headstones beneath olive trees. At Kranji in Singapore, memorial walls list Pathan and Baloch soldiers. From El Alamein in Egypt to Kohima in northeast India, traces of Pakistan’s contribution are scattered across continents. These sites remind us that liberty in the twentieth century was defended not only in Europe but also by men from South Asia.
For Pakistan, remembrance carries a dual meaning. It is not about celebrating colonial command but about recognizing the immense human cost borne by ordinary families. The men who left their homes in Punjab or the Frontier returned — if they returned at all — to a subcontinent changed by war. The conflicts revealed both the reach and the limits of empire, sharpening the desire for self-determination.
By the late 1940s, as the Pakistan Movement gained momentum, the memory of wartime sacrifice added weight to the demand for independence. Communities that had sent their sons to fight in global conflicts now sought sovereignty at home. Their conviction was clear: if they had given their blood for the world’s freedom, they were entitled to freedom for themselves.
As the world marks Remembrance Day, it is time to widen the lens. The story of liberty in the twentieth century is incomplete without Pakistan. To remember those who fell is to remember that liberty was defended not only in London, Ottawa or Canberra, but also in Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar. Their sacrifice is part of Pakistan’s story, one that connects the cemeteries of Monte Cassino and El Alamein to the struggle for independence that followed.
To stand in silence on November 11 is therefore to honour not just the familiar symbols of remembrance but also the forgotten soldiers from this land. Their graves and memorials lie across continents, but their legacy rests here. They remind us that the cost of liberty whether on foreign battlefields or in the journey to independence has always been borne by ordinary people, including countless Pakistanis whose names deserve to be remembered.
