A Buried Slice of History: The Turki Kabaristan of Sumerpur, Rajasthan

 I hadn’t expected to find a forgotten Ottoman graveyard in a small town in Rajasthan. Yet there it was — quiet, neglected, and holding stories from a war fought more than a century ago.

Sumerpur, a small town in the Pali district of Rajasthan, lies on the north bank of the Jawai River. Established in 1912 and named after Maharaja Sumer Singh of Jodhpur, it is today better known as a base for the leopard safaris of Jawai. Few visitors, however, are aware that this unassuming town once housed a prisoner-of-war camp during the First World War.

In 1915, at the request of the British government, the Maharaja of Jodhpur permitted a POW camp to be set up in Sumerpur to hold Ottoman prisoners captured during the war. The camp stood on a vast plain bordered by rocky hills and intersected by the Jawai River — a river that ran dry in summer, before the earthen dam (constructed between 1946 and 1957) transformed the region’s water supply.

According to historical records, the camp held over 3,366 prisoners. Most were Mesopotamian Arabs, along with smaller numbers of Orthodox Christian Greeks and Armenians. Interestingly, no ethnic Turks were housed at Sumerpur; due to tensions between the various ethnic groups. Turkish prisoners were sent to a separate camp in Bellary (present-day Karnataka), while Sumerpur accommodated non-Turkish detainees.

The Ottoman Empire had entered the First World War alongside Germany and Austria-Hungary against the Allied powers. Of the roughly 2.6 million Ottoman soldiers who served, nearly 250,000 were captured. After quarantine in Cyprus, many were transported to camps in India and Burma — a long and unfamiliar exile far from their homelands.

Life in the Sumerpur camp reflected the diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds of its inmates. Two Armenians fluent in English, French, and Arabic acted as interpreters. Muslim prisoners prayed in a small mosque within the camp, while a French priest visited regularly to conduct Mass for Catholic detainees. During Christmas of 1916, the Armenian Bishop of Cairo, Thorgom Koushagian, visited the camp — a remarkable detail that hints at the fragile threads of faith and community that sustained these men in captivity.

On a recent visit to Sumerpur, I learned of the existence of a graveyard where prisoners who died in captivity had been buried. With some time to spare before departure, three of us set out in search of it.

The cemetery lies in a rectangular plot beside a school named Sharda Vidyapeeth, in an area locally known as French Colony. 

It has a forlorn, abandoned appearance, overgrown with shrubs and dry vegetation.

 There are 149 graves arranged in neat rows. Each grave is identified by a headstone that consists of a flat vertical concrete slab topped with a round disc bearing a metal plate.

 Inscribed on these plates are the prisoner’s number, name, date of death, and regiment. A few are marked “civilian,” indicating non-soldiers who were also interned. Most date from 1915 to 1919.

Time has not been kind to the cemetery. The metal plates are rusted, and much of the writing is now indistinct. The site feels forgotten — a silent remnant of a global conflict that reached even this remote corner of India.

In 2013, the Turkish government proposed building a memorial for the soldiers buried here. The plan faced opposition from local residents, and the cemetery remains largely unattended, slowly yielding to neglect and time.

As I walked among the stark, unadorned graves, more than a century after these men had been laid to rest, a deep sense of melancholy settled over me. These were soldiers captured in war, transported across continents to a land utterly foreign to them. Many likely succumbed to disease or hardship. Far from home, away from family, and no loved ones to mourn their passing.

War is unjust and cruel. It harms most deeply those who have the least say in the decisions that lead nations into conflict.

Yet I also felt a quiet joy, having stumbled upon this forgotten fragment of history. In this small Rajasthani town lies a connection to the Great War of 1914–1918, a reminder that global events leave traces in the most unexpected places.

Some stories are not found in textbooks or monuments. Sometimes, they lie buried in silence, waiting to be noticed.