When Britain sought ‘pinni’ sweets for Punjabi soldiers
Friday, 06/11/2015
http://paper.hindustantimes.com/epaper/viewer.aspx
LONDON: As nearly a million and a half Indians fought in Europe during World War I, efforts were made in London to organise comforts for them, such as music, hair oil, combs, Sikh religious objects — and also the Punjabi sweet, ‘pinni’, a new book reveals.
Sikh soldiers in France at the start of World War 1.
The book, ‘For King and Another Country’ by journalist-author Shrabani Basu, reveals that Indian children as young as 10 were sent to the frontline. There were separate eating/meat slaughtering facilities for Hindu and Muslim soldiers as an army of cooks, cleaners, water carriers accompanied the Indian troops.
A London-based committee was tasked with looking after the comfort of Indian soldiers, and one of the items discussed in detail was the issue of providing them ‘pinni’.
“The Sikh community in London wrote to them that, while their countrymen found European sweets palatable… the sweets did not possess the same nourishing properties as Indian sweetmeats,” Basu writes.
“The committee placed a small order for ‘pinnis’ to be manufactured in India and sent to the base depot in Marseilles. They (the committee) even suggested that a man be brought from India to make them in France,” she wrote.
It was decided in December 1914 that 30 lbs of sweetmeats, prepared in two batches for Hindus and Muslims respectively, should be sent as samples by the Indian sweet makers, Messrs Veeraswamy & Company, but the initiative was dropped due to high costs.
Later, another attempt was made to see if ‘sewai’ or ‘kheer’ could be prepared for the soldiers. But the sweetmeat maker refused to disclose all the ingredients and the committee thought it was too thick, so that too was discarded.
