اودھ کے برہمنوں اور راجپوتوں سے ایک اپیل (An Appeal to the Brahmins and Rajputs of Oudh)
An Urdu broadsheet in two dense columns under a calligraphic headline, addressed to the Brahmins and Rajputs of Oudh. In the IWM's English rendering it opens with Krishna's exhortation to Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita, likens the Germans to Ravana's demons, quotes Tulsidas, warns of an attack 'from the North', and presses for 35,000 recruits from Oudh. Tells: the demon label, scripture used as the voucher, and the Ramayana mapped onto the war.
- Date
- 1918
- Period
- First World War
- Made by
- Sheikh Shahid Husain, Special Officer for war work, for the Anjuman-i-Ta'alluqdaran-i-Oudh (Oudh landholders' association); printed at the Barqi Press
- Region
- South Asia
- Country
- British India
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- Mixed
- Regime
- British Raj
- Leader
- Frederic Thesiger
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Recruit
- Themes
- War and the military, Religion, Empire and colonialism
- Event
- World War I
- Techniques
- Name-callingFear appealTestimonialTransfer
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- Wikimedia Commons (Imperial War Museums, PST 12575), retrieved September 29, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (printed in India, 1918, before 1931; Commons: UK Crown copyright expired)
Imperial War Museums (IWM PST 12575), via Wikimedia Commons
Text on the object
اودھ کے برہمنوں اور راجپوتوں سے ایک اپیل [body text: two columns of small Urdu type, not transcribed here; the headline is repeated at the head of the right-hand column] دستخط شیخ شاہد حسین سپیشل آفیسر وار ورک (امداد جنگ) انجمن تعلقہ داران اودھ باہتمام مولوی سید محمد مشیرالدین پرنٹر «ہمدم» برقی پریس ہذا چھپا
An appeal to the Brahmins and Rajputs of Oudh [body text not transcribed] Signed: Sheikh Shahid Husain, Special Officer, War Work (war aid). Association of the Taluqdars of Oudh. Printed under the supervision of Maulvi Sayyid Muhammad Mushiruddin, printer of 'Hamdam', at this Barqi Press.
Only the headline, signature block and imprint are transcribed; the body is too small to read reliably at the committed size. Urdu read by Claude, not verified by a fluent reader.
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