Civil Censorship Study Group

I recently saw a card of 1915 addressed to Germany from Dinapur Concentration camp. Dinapur is a small garrison town near Patna, Bihar, India.Alan Baker does not list this camp. This card has the proper POW free post rubber stamp and has" Prisoner of War Mail " caption on it. Has an additional Bombay censor mark too.

In the past ten years , I have also seen such cards from other small places in India where the sender was most likely held in house arrest and still the cards had POW caption on them and were censored by civil censors. Is there any comprehensive work on the situation of POWs in India apart from Baker and that Red cross report?

Viswa

Hello Viswa
The Prisoners of War Information Bureau published a "List of Places of Internment" in January 1919. This included Britain and all the overseas camps then in use, and we know of camps in Britian which were in operation earlier and not in the list. I expect Dinapur was one of those which had closed by the end of 1918.
Nineteen camps were in the list in India:
Ahmednagar, Bankura, Belgaum, Bellary, Colaba War Hospital, Cumballa War Hospital, 34th General Hosp (Deolali), 44th General Hosp (Deolali), Indian Troops War Hosp Poona, Indian Troops War Hosp Marine Lines Bombay, Nowgong, Thayetmyo (in Burma), Meiktila (also Burma), Takdah, Sholapur, Yercaud, Poona Military Prison, Victoria War Hospital Bombay, Sumerpur.

I am sure there will be earlier lists somewhere in the India Office files at the British Library, or in the National Archives at Kew, but I have not searched either of those for Indian PoW and Internee camps. I have found other lists but they only list camps in Britain.
Graham Mark

Dear Graham,

I have not visited the website for quite a while and therefore a belated thanks for your reply.

Regards
Viswa