St Pauls Cathedral: Punjabi Soldiers

My job can be as healing and fulfilling as it is exhausting. When offering alternative histories and lenses, you’re never too far from heinous crimes that made them ‘othered’ in the first place. Not to mention working within a structure that whilst is giving you a ‘moment’, a ‘hand’ to take space and ownership, you question its longevity and why it’s still confined to such restrictive deep inset structures.

I recontextualised this British solider monument by instead choosing to give voice the Sikh man etched, shrouded and mourning the loss of a British lieutenant. I drew on the complexities of what it meant to fight for the British Indian army as a Sikh Punjabi soldier whose sovereignty of a centuries old Sikh Empire had just been ransacked and pillaged by the British.

My first contact with the statue

I noticed a Sikh man in such a space. I noticed a palm tree which felt so out of place. For me as a Sikh, Punjab where Sikhi was born is flat, and paved on wheat fields.

Upon reading about the architect I read he’s never been to India.

I watched how people interacted with it. I noticed how dark it was and I noticed how the inscriptions were barely readable. Most apparent, I noticed the head of the Sikh solider is bowed in sadness towards Sam Browne as if mourning.

Sam Brown was a leader of a cavalry that took over the Punjabi soldier, predominantly made up of the soldiers from the last defeated empire of India the Sikh Empire. This soldiers had been persuaded by wages and security in a time of uncertainty to join a newly formed British Indian army.

Now knowing the vigour of this army, for me it would seem unlikely these soldiers would have kind sentiments towards the British Indian Army but Sikhs are known to have a sense of duty, miri piri, is a concept intrinsic to our faith, so regardless of alignment and the fact they had been betrayed by the the Sikhs were dedicated to the British Indian Army, which is an uncomfortable truth but is complex.

It unearthed visceral emotions for me, I felt confused and hurt by why they would support vicious oppressors but behind empire is money and power. The engraver cast the soldier's head to bow. I questioned whether this was an explicit display that this solider is sad and dutiful to his British leader despite decades of army techniques that had been admired by international armies, that had held strong through multiple fights and attempted invasions of the Europeans.

Encountering the carved figure of a Sikh soldier within the monument to Sam Browne prompted a deeply personal and critical inquiry. The bowed head of the soldier, positioned in apparent mourning, became a focal point for re-contextualisation. Drawing on the complex history of Sikh soldiers enlisted into the British Indian Army following the fall of the Sikh Empire, the project explored themes of sovereignty, coercion, duty (miri–piri), and the entanglements of power, survival, and empire.

Through this intervention, I shifted interpretive emphasis from imperial heroism to the layered subjectivity of the Sikh figure, foregrounding grief, contradiction, and resilience within colonial structures. The work reflects on how alternative historical lenses can both heal and unsettle, particularly when operating within institutions still shaped by imperial legacies.

It was an honour to work with South Asian researchers, who all were native to very different parts of the subcontinent but found themselves, all together in this one room. Supporting one other through retelling these stories and the the hardship of seeing Mother India sculpted as if looking up at the heroism of Cornwallis or being blessed and ‘civilised’ by Thomas Middleton.

But importantly we did this during the time of most hideous displays of colonial divide and rule.

If you’d like to know more, read the Stepney Heritage St Paul’s Cathedral trail online and in the cathedral, exposing the, hidden yet gravely important, history of the East India Company in South Asia.

https://www.stpauls.co.uk/east-india-company-st-pauls

Monument Text:

By 1818 most of the Indian subcontinent had lost their empires and regional power. One frontier still stood strong, the North Western Sikh Empire of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. 

Traditionally known for their coarse bravery and unique warfare techniques ‘Gatka’, the Sikh Khalsa Army, once formed the proclaimed forces of this empire. 

The Sikhs fought hard for their freedom in the second Anglo Sikh war 1849 but lost nearly ninety thousand square miles, as the EIC extended up to Afghanistan. The Sikhs in the Punjab had been rendered armless and leaderless. Their forts were destroyed. It was a sad event in the Sikh psyche. 

The British were impressed by the fighting qualities the Khalsa had displayed. The Sikhs were designated a martial race and provided a vast proportion of the East Company forces, later the British Indian Army. 

In 1849 Samuel Browne was made a lieutenant and tasked with raising the 2nd Punjab Irregular Cavalry, who fought the Poorbia and sepoys during the 1857 mutiny. 

Often a contentious point the Sikhs did not join the 1857 uprising and instead fought with the British. For over two centuries, the Sikhs had fought against the Mughal tyranny, and they could not be persuaded to support an alliance to re-establish a Mughal throne. And if not for Poorbia support to British in 1849, the war of independence for Sikhs, could have invigorated and liberated India and an withdrawal of the EIC

Nineteen officers and other ranks of the 2nd Punjab Cavalry received a total of twenty-three Order of Merit awards. 

Sam Browne's Cavalry (Frontier Force) and 25th Cavalry (Frontier Force) were amalgamated in 1921 to form 12th Cavalry, which would later fight in both world wars for the British.