Indian soldiers and the WWII Allied Army Gothic Line campaign Pt. 2: Expatriate Indian community in Italy embrace their forebears but the story is still a blank history page in India.

``The further backward you can look, the further forward you can see,'' Winston Churchill on the need to know history. More than 50,000 Indian and Gurkha soldiers fought as part of the British Eighth Army during the WWII Allied campaign in Italy. They played a vital role in the Gothic Line offensive, especially in the Apennine mountains where they together in close combat with Scottish Highlander troops. Unfortunately that story has been censored from Indian history books since the country gained independence from the United Kingdom several years after the end of WWII. Over the past two to three decades more than half a million Indians, including approximately 200,000 have migrated to Italy. Many work in various sectors, especially agriculture, and play a vital role in bolstering the Italian economy. Since their arrival, the Sikhs have discovered the heroic sacrifice their forebears made to help Italy and Europe defeat Nazism and Italian Fascism and embrace it with numerous ceremonies and various memorials. Some of the expatriate Indians as well as others in India believe that if the story of how the Indians of all ethnicities, castes and creeds fought together - including those from what is modern-day Pakistan and Bangladesh, it would go a long way to improve relations on the Indian subcontinent. A high-ranking Indian Army officer, who recently visited Italy and toured the memorials and former battlefields, explains. Meanwhile, in contemporary Italy, the refusal to accept the contribution Indians soldiers made some 80 some years ago still lingers among some. Satnam Singh, a spokesman and leader within the Sikh community in Italy, and Italian independent historian, author and museum curator Daniel Cesaretti explain.