The Battle of Haifa, 1918: Indian Military Agency, Colonial Power and Contested Memory

Bawa Karwal

doi:10.36948/ijfmr.2026.v08i05.88453

The Battle of Haifa, 1918: Indian Military Agency, Colonial Power and Contested Memory

Author(s)	Dr. Bawa Karwal
Country	India
Abstract	The Battle of Haifa, fought on 23 September 1918 during the final phase of the First World War, occupies a significant position at the intersection of military history, colonialism, sociology, philosophy and contemporary international relations. The participation of the Jodhpur, Mysore and Hyderabad Lancers in the capture of Haifa represents an important episode in the history of Indian soldiers in the First World War. The Ministry of External Affairs records that the 15th Imperial Service Cavalry Brigade, comprising these three formations, launched a mounted assault through a narrow defile, broke through Ottoman defences and captured Haifa during the wider Allied campaign in Palestine and Syria. However, the significance of Haifa extends beyond military achievement. Indian soldiers demonstrated considerable military agency while operating within a colonial structure in which India lacked political sovereignty. The battle therefore illustrates a paradox of agency without sovereignty: colonised subjects could exercise courage, discipline and professional competence without controlling the wider political purposes of the imperial system in which they served. The article further examines Haifa through sociological theories of collective memory and symbolic power and philosophical questions concerning freedom, responsibility, power and historical ethics. The later commemoration of the battle, including the renaming of Delhi's Teen Murti Chowk as Teen Murti-Haifa Chowk and the centenary commemorations in 2018, demonstrates how historical events can acquire new meanings in contemporary diplomacy. The article argues that Haifa should therefore be understood not simply as a military encounter, but as a historically layered phenomenon involving colonial power, individual agency, collective memory, identity and contemporary diplomatic symbolism.
Keywords	Battle of Haifa, Indian soldiers, colonialism, agency, collective memory, historical memory, symbolic power, postcolonialism, India–Israel relations
Field	Sociology > Politics
Published In	Volume 8, Issue 5, September-October 2026
Published On	2026-09-26
DOI	https://doi.org/10.36948/ijfmr.2026.v08i05.88453

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The Battle of Haifa, 1918: Indian Military Agency, Colonial Power and Contested Memory

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