The Punjab Registers: Recovering the names of India's fallen servicemen

The Punjab Registers comparison project has been a truly collaborative endeavour, bringing together the UK Punjab Heritage Association, the University of Greenwich, the CWGC, and a global network of dedicated volunteers in a shared mission - one that culminated in the addition of 9,909 names to the CWGC casualty database. 

This represents the largest single addition of names to the CWGC casualty database since the Second World War, and, crucially, it has helped correct a long-standing historical injustice. 

What follows is an overview of how these names were recovered from a complex and challenging set of historical records. 

The Punjab Registers

India and the First World War

Image: Indian horseman during the Battle of the Somme (IWM (Q 824))

During the First World War, the Indian army was a major force, contributing over 1.4 million men and serving across every major theatre of the conflict. 

The main recruiting ground for this force was the Punjab, with more than a third of all recruits coming from across this region. 

These forces suffered a significant number of casualties, with over 70,000 previously commemorated by the CWGC. This figure, though, did not fully reflect the true scale of loss. 

Two key issues help explain this discrepancy. 

First, the Indian army faced a significant issue in the administration of its records, as wartime record-keeping struggled to keep pace with the sheer number of casualties. 

When the IWGC commenced their work in the aftermath of the war, they found the records provided by the British Indian administration to be so incomplete and error-ridden that they were deemed effectively unusable. 

To address this, Commission officials compiled a composite list of the dead by combining regimental rolls, theatre casualty lists and the official government list. However, this was always acknowledged to be imperfect. 

Second, a more serious issue arose from policy: the British Indian authorities did not grant full war graves status to those who died in non-operational zones within India. This decision, now overturned, likely excluded thousands from named commemoration.  

Together, these factors underscore the importance of the Punjab Registers in recovering these lost names. 

Investigating the Punjab Registers 

Image: Volumes of the Punjab Registers, waiting for investigation

The Punjab Registers consist of 34 bound volumes covering the 28 districts of British Punjab. Compiled in the immediate aftermath of the war, and organised by district and village, they provide a uniquely localised record of the men who served.

Now housed in the Lahore Museum, these 26,000 pages contain the names of over 320,000 individuals, including 15,935 who were recorded as having died in service. 

Their value to the CWGC was first highlighted in 2020 by Amandeep Madra, of the UK Punjab Heritage Association (UKPHA), during initial research for the Non-Commemoration Programme.

In working with Professor Gavin Rand at the University of Greenwich, the registers were digitised and transcribed, making them accessible for systematic analysis. 

Recognising their significance, the CWGC funded a PhD project at the University of Greenwich to explore the origins of the registers. By early 2025, the fully transcribed dataset was ready for comparison. 

Cross-checking the names

Given the number of names involved, the core challenge was substantial from the very outset: comparing 15,935 recorded deaths in the Punjab Registers with the 74,000 Indian casualties listed in the CWGC casualty database. 

To tackle this, PhD researcher George Williams developed a scoring system that compared nine data points between the two datasets. 

This approach helped compensate for incomplete or inconsistent records, such as missing personal details in the CWGC database and limited regimental information in the Punjab Registers. 

A global call for volunteers followed, and 19 individuals dedicated six months to analysing the data. Each name was reviewed at least twice in a double-blind process to ensure accuracy. 

In this, particular recognition is due to Nick Ezra, who personally checked all 15,935 names. A truly remarkable achievement that rightly earned him Volunteer of the Year at the Museum and Heritage Awards.

Once the volunteer analysis was complete, the results were then validated through two independent computer models – one developed by the CWGC and one by UKPHA, which was then followed by further review by UKPHA volunteers. 

By early 2026, the findings were consolidated, and the CWGC historians undertook a final phase of analysis. Out of this analysis, there were 1,637 ambiguous cases – i.e. matched to a CWGC ID by one volunteer/model but not another – that required detailed review. 

Image: An extract from the Amritsar spreadsheet, which housed 1,047 names

In doing this, the CWGC historians drew on an agreed framework devised in collaboration with our colleagues at UKPHA and the University of Greenwich. This stipulated that: 

• For those casualties that had no additional information on the CWGC casualty database, 3 points needed to align – name, regiment and date of death – to prove a match. 
• If a casualty’s name, father’s name and village name matched an existing casualty on the CWGC database, but not the regiment, it would be deemed a match. 
• If a casualty’s name, father’s name and regiment matched a casualty on the CWGC database, but not the village, it would be deemed a match if there was only 1 candidate. 
• A casualty should be treated as a non-commemoration case if the casualty’s name or father’s name was different to that on the CWGC casualty database, and this could not be explained away by spelling, construction of a nickname.

From this process, 1,101 names were matched to existing records, while 547 were identified as non-commemoration cases. In total, following all these checks and crosschecks, 9,909 names from the Punjab Registers were confirmed as non-commemoration cases. 

As a final safeguard, and to provide another layer of verification, the project methodology was reviewed by an independent panel of Indian Army experts, who endorsed the approach. Following this validation, all 9,909 names were formally added to the CWGC casualty database in March 2026, ensuring their continued recognition and remembrance. 

Cleaning and standardising the data 

Image: A handwritten extract from the Ludihana Listing

One of the most complex aspects of the project was aligning the data from the Punjab Registers with the CWGC database.

For example, the CWGC database contains 309 unique Indian ranks, compared to 409 in the Punjab Registers. In many cases, the total in the Punjab Registers was the result of variations in spelling – e.g. colly, cooli, coolie, coollie, cooly or Kooli – which all required standardisation.  

Regimental data was even more fragmented, with 345 regiments on the CWGC database and 4,908 entries in the Punjab Registers. In the majority of cases, regimental particulars were limited – i.e. 3rd or 12th – which could have a variety of potential options, both infantry and cavalry. 

As a result, each regiment needed to be independently checked and standardised against the information on the CWGC database. As a result, 2,706 cases were given the regimental affiliation of the Indian Army, as there was not enough data in the registers to be more specific. 

Added to this, many of the names listed in the Punjab Registers lacked a specific date of death – often given as 1917 or ‘during the war’. As a result, 7,587 names added to the casualty database have a date of death range, as no specific date of death was recorded.  

Despite these challenges, the outcome is clear and significant. Through careful research, collaboration, and verification, 9,909 previously unrecognised individuals are now commemorated by name. This work not only enhances the historical record but also ensures that those who were once overlooked are now properly remembered. 

Their inclusion in the CWGC database stands as a lasting act of recognition and an important step towards addressing the injustices of the past.

The Non-Commemorations Programme

The CWGC Non-Commemoration Programme had a clear mandate: to ensure all those who died in the world wars, no matter where they were, where they died or how they died, are remembered equally.

Whilst our initial five-year programme to address historical inequalities in commemoration after the World Wars reaches its formal endpoint in 2026, the work will continue. This ongoing global effort will ensure all individuals who we have found not to have been commemorated equally will receive the proper recognition they deserve.

Author acknowledgements

Dr John Burke is a Senior Research Historian at the CWGC. He obtained his PhD from Newcastle University and has published widely on the remembrance and representation of conflict, and on the legacies of British colonialism. He co-authored the 2021 and 2025 reports into historical inequalities in commemoration.