ANZAC Day 2026
New Delhi
Remarks by the Australian High Commissioner, Philip Green
(Check against delivery) 25 April 2026
It is now around noon in Wellington, and 10 o’clock in Canberra. That means that more than 3,000 ANZAC Day ceremonies are now complete across New Zealand. Around 15,000 will have taken place in Australia.
Across Asia, ceremonies will be finishing - from Port Moresby to Singapore to Tokyo.
As we gather here, our colleagues across India are commemorating, in Pune, Chennai and Kolkata.
Yet to come are the annual pilgrimages at Gallipoli itself, and then in Europe and the Americas.
New Zealanders and Australians lead this annual global ritual to mark the start of the Gallipoli campaign.
We do it in commemoration of the dawn landings of 25 April 1915, when the first soldiers of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps landed on the shores of the Gallipoli Peninsula in Türkiye.
What started on this day in 1915 was over by the end of that year. Shockingly, by the time that the ANZACs were evacuated from Gallipoli in December, the lives of around 11,000 Australians and 2,700 New Zealanders had been lost.
They were among the 130,000 soldiers on both sides who gave their lives at Gallipoli.
So today, as we commemorate the carnage of the ANZACs, we also remember, those from the British Isles, the Canadians, the French, Germans, the Indians, Nepalese, Pakistanis, Senegalese, South Africans, and Sri Lankans who lost their lives.
This is New Zealand’s and Australia’s great annual act of remembrance. Taking stock of the cost of war, saluting the war dead, valorising those who continue to serve.
It is an act of remembrance that is not only about where we have been, but about how we understand the world we face today.
Today, ANZAC Day seems as contemporary as it has been in recent times.
For Australians of my generation, there was a hope and perhaps an expectation that the end of the Cold War might usher in a long period of peace and tranquillity in the world.
That moment is passed, and today war feels more present, more immediate.
Our contemporary world is more contested and there is more conflict. The international system is under greater strain, with the norms against the use of force weakening. In short, our world is more dangerous.
We see once again the consequences of war, in human terms primarily, but also its economic impacts.
ANZAC Day recommits us to seeking a world where conflict is limited, where those who wear the uniforms of our nations are not asked to make the ultimate sacrifice, and where citizens of all nations can live lives of calm and prosperity.
In our interconnected world, conflict is no longer confined by geography. Its consequences affect Australians and New Zealanders and touch us at the hip pocket, as well as in our hearts and minds: we feel it at the petrol station and at the supermarket.
And yes, we grizzle. But that is nothing compared to the sacrifice of life and limb of those whom we honour today.
War’s real consequence is always a human one. One that is deeply personal. There are not many Australians, New Zealanders and Indians who do not have a connection to war – a relative who served either on the field, or from home soil.
In this way, ANZAC Day encourages us to remember that the cost of war is felt for generations. The memory of Anzac Cove, as Aurelia’s thoughtful reading shows, calls us to action in our present.
I want to take this moment to reflect in particular on the role of Indians at Gallipoli — a role that was substantial, admirable, and for too long has been insufficiently remembered.
In 1914, the Indian Army was the largest force in the British Empire. At Gallipoli alone, around 16,000 troops from the then undivided India served.
They came from the north and the south, the east and west of the subcontinent – spanning what our current maps show as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka. Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs; Gurkhas from the hills; Punjabis from the plains.
They fought, carried, hauled, healed and endured alongside ANZACs from the first days of the campaign to the last.
When we think of Gallipoli, we most often picture rifles and trenches. And there are many stories of Indian military gallantry at Gallipoli – most notably the Sikhs, the Punjabi Mosselmen and the Gurkhas in battles like Chunuk Bair and Hill 60.
One contemporary Australian simply wrote that “all wish the Gurkhas were with us”, while another reflected that the bravery of the Sikhs made retreat unthinkable.
But having recently read the excellent history of the Indians at Gallipoli, written by Professor Stephen Stanley of the University of New South Wales, there is a far wider story. The book reminds us that Indian gallantry wasn’t limited to its men with rifles.
It tells us of the brave Indian muleteers with their animals picking their way up exposed slopes under fire, carrying vital food, ammunition and water where no vehicle could go.
The Indian Mule Corps landed early and was among the last to leave. They were, as one contemporary put it, “ubiquitous and invaluable”.
Their courage was extraordinary. Stanley records repeated accounts of muleteers pressing on under shellfire, tending wounded animals as well as wounded men, and returning again and again to the beachheads.
Alongside them served Indian stretcher‑bearers and medical orderlies, many drawn from communities rarely acknowledged in military histories.
An Australian nurse recalled their skill, composure and gentleness under fire. Others recorded that these men went forward again and again, often unarmed, into places that rifles could not protect.
For those Indians fighting and serving in other ways, the cost was extreme. Around 1,600 Indians died at Gallipoli. Despite this massive loss, as Stanley observes, the Indian effort is not well memorialised.
This is why Stanley’s book matters. It does something long overdue — ensuring that the Indian contribution to Gallipoli can be clearly accessed, understood, and remembered.
That’s particularly important because, as Stanley calculates it, Indian troops made a contribution as great as the ANZACs.
What emerges from Professor Stanley’s work is not only stories of courage, but of connection.
A mutual affection between Indian troops and the ANZACs — practical, unforced, and deeply human. They shared shellfire and hardship, but also laughter, language and food.
There are repeated descriptions of ANZACs gathering firewood while Indian gunners cooked chapatis and dhal — food many quickly worked out was more appropriate, more sustaining, and far better tasting than the bully beef and hard biscuit of their ration packs.
One noted with delight that Indian rations were “excellent”; another admitted that Australians became something of a “nuisance” at the Indian encampment, hanging around and hoping to be invited to share.
Words travelled between them too. The call “chalo” — “let’s go” — became widely understood on the peninsula. Stanley even records ANZACs taking the trouble to learn a little Hindustani.
There were also clumsy mistakes – for instance one officer, in a moment of bureaucratic absurdity, being put in charge of Indian troops (mostly from the north) because he supposedly spoke some Tamil.
These interactions mattered because they point to something unexpected in the early 20th century: a quiet, practical egalitarianism, at a time when that would have been the exception, not the rule.
Australians took orders from Indian non‑commissioned officers. Indian muleteers moved freely through ANZAC lines.
Major Arthur Fergusson, commanding an Indian artillery unit, reflected that the relationship between the Indians and the ANZACs was “simply perfect.”
In the middle of a brutal campaign, these moments of shared humanity mattered. They remind us that even in war, decency, humour and fraternity endure.
And it is through these bonds — forged under fire, remembered across continents — that the meaning of ANZAC Day is enlarged.
Today’s service is one of remembrance, but it also provides a moment to say thank you.
To Brigadier Damian Hill and Commodore Andy Dowling, we wish to acknowledge your service and that of your colleagues.
Thank you for your commitment to your nation and to peace.
For many veterans and their families, conflict is forever a shadow over their lives.
Honouring past service is a small but significant way to connect, remember and remind them that it mattered.
As the sun rises over this quiet place of remembrance, we are reminded that peace is never abstract. It is earned, maintained, and too often paid for in lives.
ANZAC Day asks us not only to remember, but to live in ways that honour that sacrifice — with restraint, compassion, and a commitment to peace worthy of those whom we honour today.
Lest we forget