ABSTRACT
Photographed for posterity, the “menial workers” attached to the Bengal Ambulance Corps, the wartime medical team raised by Bengali contributions for Mesopotamia in 1915–1916, stand turbanned and sashed, some with towels draped over their arms, some barefoot, and others wearing sturdy shoes and puttees. The Great War and the Mesopotamian misadventure breathed new life into moribund Moderate politics, but it was a short life for all such units were disbanded at war's end. Accounts of the Bengali experience in Mesopotamia offer a rare, worm's eye view of the Indian in the frontline. The Mesopotamian experience allowed writers to showcase their resilience, skills, and experiences, even as lesser cogs in the imperial machine's racial machine. There is a fine analytical line to be walked when connecting Indian writings about Mesopotamia to the politics of moderate nationalism. For the Mesopotamia-bound Bengali, military service signified the recovery of physical strength, a necessary condition of complete selfhood.
