Most of us grew up hearing the stories of valor of Indian soldiers who fought and gave their blood in the wars that India fought since its indepnedance. I have myself cried innumerable times reading/watching stories of the likes of Cpt Somnath Sharma, Lnc Nk Albert Ekka, Mjr Shaitan Singh and Cpt Vikram Batra. However, the place India associates with her martyr sons who offered the supreme sacrifice to preserve her independence is an irony itself. India Gate, under which Amar Jawan Jyoti flames in their memory, was first built by the British to honour the British Indian Soldiers, who lost their lives during World War I, defending the same King’s Empire who was an alien ruler of their own land.
I have always been intrigued by the desires and passions which drove millions of Indians to fight and lay their lives for the British – many a times fighting their own countrymen – during about 200 years before independence. What’s intriguing is not that many warrior tribes known for their fierce love for independence, like Sikhs, Gurkhas, many Rajput clans and even some Muslim tribes from the North West Frontier, chose to fight under the British command, what’s even more interesting is that the British Indian Army was the seeding ground for millitary traditions in many castes which were till then employed only in non-millitary pursuits - like the priests classes or the peasant castes from the untouchable fold.
I do not have conclusive answers but the realisation of what should have seemed like obvious facts to them is a painful blow for my nationalist (jingoist?) ego and the notion that a soldier enrols only because of his love for his nation :
- Tribe, Caste & Religion had more importance in the feudally divided India of the late 18th and early 19th century than any notion of Hindustan/Bharat being a nation. Allliances were made and broken on these lines and as history tells us, British were perhaps the best players to play this game.
- Add these to the political incentives that the small but millitarily powerful kingdoms, like Marwar Jodhpur, had in aligning with British interests and the British found a rich and unlimited supply of valiant and faithful soldiers.
- Last but most importantly, Economic & Social incentives : Then, like in all ages till recently, a job in the ruler’s millitary should have meant sound economic prospects and immense social acceptability. This should have come easy for the warrior tribes since the British were the only respcectful force left in the subcontinent. But even for the ordinary peasant, when starved for any prospect of earning a steady employment, picking up a rifle to wear the respected/feared red coat should have been an easy choice.
I am not sure if this is the correct or complete diagnosis of the causes. I would love to have greater access to the minds of these men but popular books on pre-independence India have barely touched this topic. I am not aware of many works on this and my superficial understanding is aided by the perspective gained by the following works :
- Amitava Ghosh’s The Glass Palace – one of the key characters is a Captain in British Indian Army who later defects to Indian National Army
- In his collection of essays on Delhi, Khuswant Singh has a specific piece on Sikh soldiers who fought for the British in the Mutiny of 1857. This also reveals the second rate treatment that Indian soldiers in the British forces faced.
- M M Kaye’s The Far Pavoillions provides a peek into the life of a British Indian soldier at North West Frontier during the Afghan War. She does not dissect or quetion their loyalty any deeply; it seems like the Indophiles of her age, she just takes it for granted.
If you have come acorss any work which delves deeper into the psyche of the British Indian Soldier, do drop me a line.
credit : Shout-out to Ash whose post on the same issue inspired mine
[...] Kapil is intrigued by the psyche of the British Indian soldier. [...]
>>What’s intriguing is not that many warrior tribes known for their fierce love for independence, like Sikhs, Gurkhas, many Rajput clans and even some Muslim tribes from the North West Frontier, chose to fight under the British command, what’s even more interesting is that the British Indian Army was the seeding ground for millitary traditions in many castes which were till then employed only in non-millitary pursuits – like the priests classes or the peasant castes from the untouchable fold.
Not really. After the mutiny, the British slowed and gradually stopped recruitment among castes, such as Brahmins, who had joined the Mutiny in large numbers, and were therefore termed “seditious”. Furthermore, as proponents of the Martial Races theory such as Lord Roberts gained influence in the British Indian Army, communities not traditionally thought of as soldiers were pretty much kicked out of the army. For example, the Mahars, who had served in the Company Armies with considerable valour, were quietly demobilised. In fact, the reinstatement of a Mahar Regiment was a pretty prominent political platform of BR Ambedkar, himself the son of a Mahar veteran. The British Indian Army, especially in the first quarter of the twentieth century, was pretty much a bastion of “Martial Races” such as Jats, Sikhs, Punjabi Muslims, Baluchis, Gurkhas, Kumaonis, Garhwalis, ets. It may be that their designation as such by the British resulted in a greater desire by men in those communities to join an organisation that gave them such status and izzat.
Thanks Kunal, for updating our understanding. What you say …
“It may be that their designation as such by the British resulted in a greater desire by men in those communities to join an organisation that gave them such status and izzat.”
..may be infact true for many more castes beyond the Dalits. By the second quarter of the century, the British Indian Army has started to see a sprinkling of Sharmas, Mathurs and Bengalis. ( The first PVC awardee Cpt Somnath Sharma of ‘47 Kashmir war was the son of a Brg Gen).It may have been a compounded effect of the respectability that the Army brought along with the desire amongst the youth of some of these families to look beyond the traditional bastions of ICS and Law.
( These comments are not intended to offend/appease any community or cast – these are merely sociological observations, if you will)
I have asked myself a similar question many times while reading stories about our national heros such as Bhagat Singh. Even those who were fighting for indepedence did seem to accept that Indians working for British were somehow not to be blamed for their atrocities against their own countrymen & women. Otherwise, why did no one ask for a trial of those Indian soldiers who shot on the crowds in Jalianwala bagh, why did they not refuse to follow an unjust order?
Paapi pet! But I guess, the spirit of Indian nationalism woke up rather late. And even when it did, it was not universal feeling as our boring history text books suggest.
For instance, the Madras Sappers fighting the Tipu Army in and around Bangalore were mostly drawn from Tamil Nadu, Andhra, and even the locals who were fighting Tipu, just another king, and not the Freedom Fighter we know him as today.
Intriguing question! And your hypothesis is a reasonable one.
Moreover, once you are part of the army, you really do not have any place left for your conscience or decision making process, specially at the lower levels. You are just expected to follow orders without thinking about their implications. So once these people enrolled in the British army for a variety of reasons, probably without thinking through the implications, it was either follow the orders, whatever they might be, or be labeled a deserter.
>>By the second quarter of the century, the British Indian Army has started to see a sprinkling of Sharmas, Mathurs and Bengalis. ( The first PVC awardee Cpt Somnath Sharma of ‘47 Kashmir war was the son of a Brg Gen).
I dont think this is quite the same thing. I cant speak about greater troop recruitment among higher castes at the beginning of this century, but the examples you cite are officers who would have to be from higher social classes/castes than ordinary soldiers given the way the Army used to select officers in those days (college degrees required, knowledge of English, etc being particualr deterrents to would-be officers from the backward sections of society). Of course, after the advent of the Second World War, when the British could use every soldier they could get. The British Indian Army holds the record for the largest size achieved by any army without conscription for its wartime expansion (approx 2 million men under arms), this could not of course have been achieved without relaxing caste and community barriers to recruitment. However, it was not until Independance that men from all castes and communities gained the right to enlist in the army based on merit. Which is not to say that the army does not still have community based quotas, but that is entirely different question altogether.
Kunal, thanks for bringing in a factual perspective to this hypothetical discussion. :-)
Vikas and SloganMurugan,
Thanks for your comments too.
Yes, infact, there were many Indians fighting in crucial battles – may be because they did n’t have another choice of employment; may be they were soldires to whom following orders was natural and obvious; may be they actually believed in the supremacy of the Raj.
One of my most endearing(and disturbing) memory is the grainy b&W news reel of Indian policemen beating satyagrahis.