A couple of years back when I wrote in this newspaper on our heroes of the Second World War, one reader lambasted me for ‘singing praises’ of ‘mercenaries’ who enjoyed privileges under the colonial regime to oppress our own people. This revealed an unfortunate prejudice many carry about the colonial legacy of our armed forces.
The strange role Indian soldiers played in the cause of the British Empire is essentially an offshoot of the socio-political environment of 18th century India when colonialism took roots in the subcontinent. With no central power, inept regional and local rulers were engaged in power struggles, unconcerned about governance. Maintaining no regular armies, they hired freebooters who roamed the land to fight their frequent wars, which seldom saw any real fighting: the norm was for the side that was inferior in numbers to turn tail. Nevertheless, the freebooters were an innately intrepid lot with the soldierly instinct who found any other vocation mundane, and eager to fight given half a chance.
The Europeans made clever use of this vast indigenous potential to raise armies when they began their forays here. This was cheaper than importing soldiers. For the sepoys, the Indians who readily enlisted for service with them, the professional military training they received was a new experience, especially learning the use of firearms. They were also being paid regularly for the first time, giving them a sense of belonging. Also, they found themselves actually fighting and winning battles, which gave them immense pride in the vocation of their choice.
While the British, emerging victorious in the Anglo-French rivalry, went on to establish themselves by subjugating one local ruler after another across India using the sepoy armies, the sepoys themselves felt no qualms about their role, because contextually they found rule by the East India Company to be more desirable. This in all probability was a feeling shared by a large part of the populace. This enabled the British to exercise their authority with comparative ease. The idea of nationhood had not really taken shape yet, and the British were merely one among the many players vying for power.
A positive outcome of this unsavoury exercise was that it created a unified India as never before. Ironically, many of the institutions they built in India to pursue their ends eventually benefited the free nation, the most controversial among these being the Indian Army. While there is no denying its role in fostering the empire, it ignited the first spark for freedom with the “Sepoy Mutiny” of 1857, ending the EIC’s reign and putting India under the British Crown.
As the freedom movement gained momentum, the army men were not altogether oblivious of it. The soldiers of the Indian Army, which formed the largest volunteer force of the First World War, genuinely believed Britain would be obliged to reward India with freedom in return for their contribution, a belief even Mahatma Gandhi shared. That a larger number of men served in the army during the Second War even after such hopes were dashed was attributable mainly to widespread poverty. While many enlisted merely for two square meals a day, some were forcibly recruited though threats of denial of rations to families.
The Indian Army’s distinctive performance in the war, despite the inhuman circumstances that forced men to enlist, spoke of the courage and resilience of an average soldier. Independence was not far, and they believed they had a mission to mould themselves as soldiers.
The Indian armed forces played a silent role in hastening the British departure. They chose to beat a hasty retreat once they found they could no more take the loyalty of the armed forces for granted, as signalled by fissures in the form of passions raised by the Indian National Army during the War, and the post-War naval mutiny.
It is imperative that our children grow up learning of such intriguing facts about our armed forces and develop an emotional connect with them, rather than see them as constituted of some kind of automatons. Soldiers are human, much like everyone else, except that they take it upon themselves to do a dangerous job, because someone has to do it, or we will have no country.
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