The Concept of the Martial Races in Indian Army
The word martial denotes 'relating to war' and is synonymous with soldierly, valiant and heroic. The British when they ruled India divided the Indian races into martial and non-martial races. They based their assessment on their experience in battle with the various races in India. Whether they were right or wrong is matter of conjecture, but the fact is the caste based regiments which were recruited from the so called martial races did excellent service for the British and their empire.
The concept of the martial races was propounded by Sir Fredrick Sleigh Roberts, Earl of Kandahar. Roberts was born in India and took part in the sepoy mutiny of 1857. He thus had first hand account of the battles across the entire north India. Roberts continued to serve in the Indian army after the Mutiny was crushed and later rose to the post of the Commander in Chief of the Indian army from 1885-93. He was C in C of the army at a very critical point of Indian history
Sir Roberts was of the opinion that most martial races were located in the North of India and the mountainous regions there . Thus he identified the Sikhs, Dogras, Pathans, Punjabi Muslims and Baluchis as martial in character. He was of the view that these races had faced perpetual invasions and war and were thus more hardy than other races of the sub-continent. In particular he contended that Bengalis, Southern Races and Oriya's as non-martial. He was of the opinion that these races had lost their energy and will to fight as their energy had dissipated because of an indolent life of ease and the hot climate of the region.
The views of Roberts were examined by the higher echelons of the British administration and accepted. The effect was so profound that when the Bengal army re-raised in 1885, it was staffed by men from Punjab and only the nomenclature was the Bengal army. From 1885 onwards the British began to recruit only caste based army from the martial races and this continued till 1947. This army did excellent service for the empire and helped the Allies win 2 World Wars. After 1947, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru accepted the British division of the army on caste lines. There is no record that Gandhi disagreed with an army based on caste and martial races. In fact in my view , Gandhi accepted the caste based army as he was a strong believer in the Varna and caste system.
Like it on Facebook, Tweet it or share this article on other bookmarking websites.