It stands on the site where 53 (37 Hindu and 16 Sikh) Indian soldiers who fought for the British Empire were cremated during the First World War.

[2] India was part of the British Empire during the First World War, and more than 800,000 Indian soldiers fought for the Allied Powers.

[3] During the four years of fighting, thousands of wounded combatants were brought to Britain to be treated in makeshift military hospitals.

[3] King George V is said to have decreed that Indian soldiers were to be treated at the Pavilion, apparently believing that the flamboyant Indo-Saracenic building would provide familiar surroundings.

The 21[5] Muslim men who died were taken to the Shah Jahan Mosque in Woking, Surrey, and buried in accordance with Islamic tradition in a new cemetery.

[4][6] The bodies of 53 Hindus and Sikhs were taken to a remote location high on the South Downs above Brighton, where a ghat (funeral pyre) was built so they could be cremated and their ashes scattered in the English Channel.

Lt Das Gupta made the proposal, but Otter took on the project almost single-handedly; after leaving his position as Mayor he chaired Brighton's Indian Memorials Committee.

[8] In July of that year, the land on which the ghat stood, and the immediate area around it, was transferred from the Marquess of Abergavenny to the ownership of Brighton County Borough.

[5][14] Between them, they planned a new maintenance policy and agreed to reduce the amount of surrounding land belonging to the memorial;[5] in 1920 a 2-acre (0.81 ha) area had been created around it.

[11][15] The plinth bears an inscription in English, Hindi, Punjabi and Urdu,[10][15] the text of which was prepared by Sir John Otter:[14] To the memory of all Indian soldiers who gave their lives for the King-Emperor in the Great War, this monument, erected on the site of the funeral pyre where Hindus and Sikhs who died in hospital at Brighton passed through the fire, is in grateful admiration and brotherly love dedicated.

Its introduction is inscribed, in English, Hindi and Punjabi:[19] In honour of these soldiers of the Indian Army whose mortal remains were committed to fire.