Kapurthala War Memorial (Captain Jhaggar Singh Memorial)

Kapurthala’s war memorial honours the men of the princely state who died fighting in distant lands in the First World War (1914-18). Maharaja Jagatjit Singh commissioned it in 1923, and the Lord Reading, laid its foundation stone on 11 March 1923. It was finished in 1926 and opened on 22 January 1927 by Field Marshal Sir William Birdwood, the Commander-in-Chief of India. It is called the first memorial of its kind built by a ruling prince. The memorial is built of red sandstone in the Indo-Saracenic style, which mixes Indian domes and arches with European forms, and it stands in a garden. A life-size bronze figure of a Kapurthala infantryman, cast in Paris, holds the place of honour. Accounts name the sculptor as Ernest Henri Dubois in some places and Albert Duval in others. The memorial is closely linked with Captain Jhaggar Singh. In 1916, at Marima in East Africa, he and 13 other ranks fought to the last man, holding back the enemy’s advance. Kapurthala’s own regiment, the Jagatjit Infantry, served in East Africa during the war, and some of its dead are named on the Nairobi British and Indian Memorial. Kapurthala’s state forces also fought in the Tirah campaign of 1897, where a column of 36 soldiers died fighting to the last man on the North-West Frontier. They have a memorial of their own, described as an obelisk near the old State Force cantonment. Sources differ on whether it is part of this monument or a separate one. The Maharaja took part in the wider act of remembrance too. In 1927 he represented India at the unveiling of the Indian memorial at Neuve Chapelle in France.