Interview: Radhika Singha on the need to expand our understanding of India’s role in World War I Interview: Radhika Singha on the need to expand our understanding of India’s role in World War I In ‘The Coolie’s War: Indian Labour in a Global Conflict, 1914-1921’, the JNU professor looks beyond just the experiences of soldiers. Indian troops guarding Baghdad railway station. | Imperial War Museum Over the past few decades, a number of books have reminded us that World War I was far from being an exclusively or even primarily European conflict. Scholars have pointed to the presence of non-white soldiers in huge numbers, including more than a million from the British Indian Army, and the broad geographical expanse across which they were deployed, from France to Gallipoli to East Africa to Mesopotamia.