More than a century after the First World War, four names from the Garo Hills have once again entered public memory not on a battlefield in Europe, but from a military cemetery in Malta. Ading Marak, Join Marak, Khew Marak and Sangjim Sangma died in June 1918 and were buried at Pieta Military Cemetery, thousands of kilometres from the hills they had called home. Their graves became the focus of renewed attention after a Meghalaya Assembly delegation visited the cemetery in September 2026.

The story, however, is more complicated than the recent headlines suggesting that three graves were “discovered” for the first time. The Meghalaya delegation identified the three additional graves during its visit, at a time when Khew Marak's grave was understood to be the only known Garo grave at the cemetery. But historical and photographic records show that the graves of Ading Marak, Join Marak and Sangjim Sangma had been recorded before, including photographs dating back to 2014. Their names also appear in existing casualty databases. What the 2026 visit did was bring these individual graves back into public attention and reconnect them with the history of Meghalaya and the Garo community.

That distinction matters because the real story is not simply about the finding of three graves. It is about how men from a relatively remote part of the Indian subcontinent became part of a conflict that was consuming Europe, why they travelled thousands of kilometres from the Garo Hills, what work they performed, and how some of them eventually came to rest on a Mediterranean island.

From the Garo Hills to the First World War

In 1917, the British Indian government was expanding its use of labour units to support the Allied war effort. Modern wars required enormous logistical networks. Roads had to be constructed and repaired, timber moved, supplies transported, equipment salvaged and military infrastructure maintained. The work was physically demanding and could take place close enough to the front to expose labourers to the dangers of war.

The Garo Hills became part of this mobilisation. In April 1917, around 1,000 men were recruited from different parts of the Garo Hills following a call for enlistment. They formed what became the 69th Garo Labour Company. The men were assembled at Tura and remained there for several months while preparations were made for their overseas deployment.

The journey itself was enormous. Contemporary historical accounts describe the men travelling from the hills through the Indian subcontinent and across the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea and the Mediterranean before reaching Europe. Disease took a toll even before they reached France. According to one historical account, only about 500 of those initially recruited were considered fit to proceed to France, with approximately 456 eventually reaching the Western Front.

It is important to understand that these men were labourers rather than conventional infantry soldiers. Their contribution was largely logistical. The 69th Garo Labour Company supported Allied operations through tasks including road construction, transportation of supplies and other forms of manual work essential to keeping military operations functioning.

That distinction does not make their wartime experience less significant. In a conflict on the scale of the First World War, armies could not function without the vast network of workers operating behind and around the fighting forces.

Why were Garo labourers needed in Europe?

The First World War had become a war of industrial scale. Millions of soldiers required food, ammunition, clothing, fuel, timber and medical supplies. Roads and railways had to be built and maintained. Goods had to be unloaded, transported and stored. Damaged infrastructure had to be repaired.

The Indian Labour Corps became an important part of this system. Labour units from different parts of British India were deployed overseas, including in France. The Garo company was one part of a much larger mobilisation of Indian labour during the war.

The recruitment process also needs to be viewed within the realities of British colonial rule. It would be misleading to reduce the experience to a simple story of men freely volunteering for adventure overseas. Recruitment involved government officials, local intermediaries, incentives and colonial administrative structures. At the same time, the individual reasons of particular recruits remain difficult to reconstruct. Economic opportunity, community circumstances, expectations of service and the pressures of colonial recruitment could all have played a role, but historians should be cautious about assigning motivations to men for whom personal records are limited.

From France to Malta

The four graves in Malta raise another obvious question: if the Garo Labour Company served in France, why did these men die and get buried in Malta?

The answer lies in Malta's role during the First World War.

The island became one of the British Empire's major medical centres in the Mediterranean and earned the nickname “Nurse of the Mediterranean.” Wounded and sick personnel from different theatres of war were brought there for treatment.

This included members of Indian Labour Corps units. Research on India-Malta relations records that members of the 69th Garo Labour Company were among the Indian personnel connected with Malta. Labourers who became casualties could be sent to Malta for medical treatment, and those who died there were buried on the island or, depending on religious practice, cremated.

Khew Marak's case provides a particularly clear example. Records indicate that he served with the 69th Garo Labour Company in France before being invalided to Malta, where he died on June 15, 1918. His grave remains at Pieta Military Cemetery.

The presence of a Garo grave in Malta therefore does not mean that the man fought a battle on the island. For these labourers, Malta could represent the final stage of a much longer journey through wartime service, illness or injury and hospitalisation.

Four names, four deaths

The four Garo men now being remembered at Pieta are:

●        Ading Marak — died June 10, 1918

●        Join Marak — died June 10, 1918

●        Khew Marak — died June 15, 1918

●        Sangjim Sangma — died June 19, 1918

All four died within a period of just ten days.

That proximity is striking, but it is important not to assume that all four died from the same illness or under the same circumstances. The available records establish their names, service and dates of death, but further archival research would be required to determine their individual causes of death and reconstruct their final days.

There is a temptation, particularly with historical stories, to fill gaps in the record with assumptions. But sometimes the most honest historical account is to acknowledge what is known and what remains unknown.For these four men, their names survived. Much of the rest of their individual stories did not.

Why are some of the graves shared?

Another unusual feature of the cemetery is that several names appear together on grave markers.

Malta's geology influenced its wartime burial practices. The island has shallow soil and underlying rock, which contributed to the use of joint and collective burials. Existing photographic records show Khew Marak and Join Marak listed together at one grave location, while Ading Marak and Sangjim Sangma are recorded at another, alongside men from other wartime units.

In a sense, these shared graves mirror the international character of the First World War itself. Men from different regions, communities and units, brought together by a conflict thousands of kilometres from their homes, ended up sharing the same final resting place.

Garo memory did not disappear

It would also be inaccurate to describe the Garo Labour Corps as completely forgotten.

The Garo community has continued to remember its wartime contribution. July 16 is observed as Garo Labour Corps Day, marking the return of surviving members to Tura in 1918. A cenotaph in Tura commemorates members of the corps, and the history of the unit has remained part of local remembrance.

What had faded from wider public knowledge was the connection between the collective history of the Garo Labour Corps and the individual overseas graves of men such as Ading, Join, Khew and Sangjim.

That is an important difference. A community can remember its ancestors collectively while still lacking a complete account of where individual members lived, served, died and were buried.

The history that remains to be recovered

The Malta visit therefore opens a larger historical question.

Who were these four men before they became names on military grave markers? Which villages did they come from? Who were their parents, wives, children or siblings? What made them join the Labour Company? What did they experience during their journey to Europe? What happened to their families after they failed to return?

The answers may still exist in fragments—in recruitment documents, military records, church registers, village histories, family papers, photographs and oral traditions.

Research into the Garo Labour Corps can potentially bring these fragments together. The objective should not merely be to add names to a list, but to restore individual lives to a history that has often reduced them to numbers and casualty figures.

The story of the 69th Garo Labour Company also deserves to be placed within the larger history of India's contribution to the First World War. Men from the hills of present-day Meghalaya became part of a global conflict through a colonial system that transported labour, resources and soldiers across continents. Their work was not always visible in the official narratives of battle, but wars are sustained not only by those who fight at the front, but also by those who build roads, move supplies, handle materials and keep the machinery of war functioning.

More than a century later, four names on a cemetery wall in Malta provide a tangible link between the Garo Hills and that global history.

Ading Marak. Join Marak. Khew Marak. Sangjim Sangma.

Their graves were far from home. Their history, however, belongs to home as much as it belongs to the wider story of the First World War. The task now is to go beyond the graves - to recover the lives behind the names, and to ensure that the next generation knows why four men from the Garo Hills came to rest on a small Mediterranean island.