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.

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.

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.

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.