Two died on June 10, 1918. Another on June 15. The fourth on June 19.
Ading Marak. Join Marak. Khew Marak. Sangjim Sangma.
Four men from Garo Hills, four deaths within ten days, and a resting place on a Mediterranean island far from home. Burial records identify them as labourers of the Indian Labour Corps, serving with the 69th Garo Labour Company during the First World War.
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A Meghalaya Assembly delegation’s visit to Pieta Military Cemetery in Malta has brought their names into the news again. Led by Speaker Thomas A Sangma, the delegation paid tribute to Khew and identified three additional Garo burials.
But their story reaches beyond that ceremony. How did men from the hills of present-day Meghalaya become part of a European war? Why were they buried in Malta? And how much of a person’s life can disappear even when his name survives on a grave?
What did the Meghalaya delegation find?
The delegation identified the resting places of Ading Marak and Join Marak, both of whom died on June 10, 1918, and Sangjim Sangma, who died on June 19. It also paid homage to Khew Marak, whose death is recorded on June 15.
The visit account describes Khew’s as the only Garo grave previously known to those involved. The High Commission of India in Malta facilitated the visit, which followed the delegation’s participation in a Commonwealth Parliamentary Association conference in Cape Town. Its immediate significance is the renewed connection between these named men, their community and the place where they were buried.
Were these graves really “discovered” for the first time?
They were documented well before this visit. A photographic entry posted on the Military Images website on January 30, 2016, records Khew Marak and Join Marak at Pieta. Another, posted on March 1, 2016, records Ading Marak and Sangjim Sangma. Both entries carry photograph metadata dating the images to September 2014. Their names also appear in the cemetery’s casualty listings on the CWGC-derived research project A Street Near You.
The accurate description is that the delegation located and brought fresh attention to additional Garo burials. The available evidence does not support presenting them as previously undocumented graves or newly excavated remains. A name can be preserved in a cemetery and still remain unfamiliar to a wider public.
Who were the men of the 69th Garo Labour Company?
They were recruits from Garo Hills enlisted for wartime labour under British colonial rule. Accounts of local commemorations place recruitment in 1917 and identify Tura, Baghmara and Nishangram among the places from which men were drawn. They describe the company’s work in France as including road-building, moving supplies, handling timber, digging trenches and salvage.
“Labourer” was a service designation. These men helped provide the infrastructure and supplies on which military operations depended. Calling them all infantry soldiers would obscure the work they actually performed. Their contribution deserves recognition on its own terms.
Why did a world war need labourers from Garo Hills?
Armies consumed enormous quantities of material. Supplies had to be unloaded and transported, roads maintained, timber handled and damaged equipment recovered. The demand stretched far beyond the fighting units.
Historian Radhika Singha records that the government of India undertook to provide 50,000 labourers for France in 1917, with the first Indian Labour Corps contingents arriving at Marseilles that June. Their service involved long hours of construction, forestry, cargo handling and salvage. The Garo company belonged to this wider mobilisation. Its history connects a particular hill community to the vast supply system that kept armies operating. A battle depended on work performed before a soldier reached the firing line.
Did they volunteer—and what were they promised?
The wider recruitment system combined incentives, local intermediaries and colonial pressure. It cannot be reduced to a single experience.Singha’s research identifies a shift towards territorial quotas in 1917, with officials and local power-holders helping secure recruits. Her scholarship also records financial inducements: Indian Labour Corps recruits could be offered Rs 20 a month, while recruits in the Assam-Burma hills were promised exemption from the annual house tax.
These details explain the recruiting environment. They do not establish why each of the four men buried in Malta enlisted, or what terms each personally received. Their individual motivations remain to be recovered. An account of their service should leave room for livelihood, aspiration and unequal colonial power without inventing a personal story for them.
How did service in France lead to burial in Malta?
Malta was a major wartime medical centre.
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission describes it as the “Nurse of the Mediterranean”, treating approximately 135,000 sick and wounded Commonwealth personnel from the Gallipoli and Salonika campaigns during the First World War.
Its medical role also helps explain the presence of Indian labourers. An Indian Council of World Affairs publication on India-Malta relations discusses the 69th Garo Labour Company and describes labour corps casualties being sent to Malta for treatment. Those who died were buried there or cremated at Lazaretto Cemetery.
A grave in Malta therefore does not, by itself, mean that the person fought a battle on the island. It may mark the final stage of a journey through wartime evacuation and hospital care.
Do we know what killed these four men?
The records reviewed establish their names, service details and dates of death. They do not establish an individual cause of death for each man.
The clustering of dates is striking. It is not enough to identify a shared illness, a particular attack or a single incident.
Nor should the year 1918 automatically turn their deaths into a story about influenza. That would require supporting medical or casualty records. Hospital registers, service files and evacuation records would be needed to reconstruct their final journeys with confidence.
Why do several names appear on the same grave markers?
Malta’s burial practices reflect its geology.
The CWGC explains that the island’s shallow soil and underlying rock led to joint and collective burials. Flat tablets could carry several inscriptions.
The older photographic entries place Khew and Join at grave reference C. XVIII. 5, alongside Kip How of the 61st Burma Labour Company. Ading and Sangjim are recorded at C. XVIII. 6, alongside a British Royal Engineers sapper, William Thomas.
Those shared markers bring the international character of the war into a small physical space. Men from different communities and military units lie together, their names recording journeys that converged in Malta.
Had Garo Hills forgotten its labour corps?
No. Local remembrance long predates this visit.
Garo Labour Corps Day is observed on July 16, commemorating the return of surviving members to Tura in 1918. A cenotaph at Babupara has served as a focus for remembrance. Meghalaya’s government portal also records a local holiday in West Garo Hills for the July 16, 2026 observance.
The useful distinction is between remembering a company collectively and knowing the full life and burial history of each member.
A community can honour its wartime service while researchers still work to connect individual names with villages, relatives, documents and overseas graves.
Why is the labourers’ war less visible?
Part of the answer lies in how the men were classified and treated.
Singha’s research shows that colonial racial categories helped justify poorer care and harsher work and disciplinary conditions for non-white labour units. Her work also examines how labourers’ contributions became absorbed into broader accounts of India’s wartime service, while fighting soldiers received greater attention.
Recovering this history means explaining the labour itself, the conditions under which it was performed and the people who did it.
It also means resisting the temptation to turn every gap in the record into a heroic anecdote. An unfamiliar name deserves careful research as much as a tribute.
What would meaningful recognition look like now?
The next step would be to connect the burial records to lives in Garo Hills.
That could involve checking names and service numbers against recruitment rolls, identifying home villages, consulting family and community records, and tracing hospital or repatriation documents. Any findings could then be made accessible locally, including in Garo.
These are avenues for further work, rather than outcomes established by the delegation’s visit.
For Ading, Join, Khew and Sangjim, names and dates have survived. The larger task is to recover what those inscriptions cannot tell us: who they were before the war, whom they left behind and how their absence was remembered at home.
With inputs from ANI & agencies