INTRODUCTION

Military history is neglected in the South Asian academic circuit due to the dominance of Marxism and, more recently, postmodernism. M. K. Gandhis philosophy of non-violence and the Indian National Congress-led freedom struggle against British imperialism in South Asia also resulted in the marginalization of academic study of war in postcolonial India. And Western readers are mostly interested in the military adventures of the British in India. This book eschews the traditional battles and campaigns approach and attempts to understand who joined the armies and why. Instead of the drums and button history, rather than glorifying the valour and heroics of the regiments, the objective is to study the dialectics of the recruitment policies of the ruling elite and the objectives of the different communities from various regions who served in the armies and the navies at different times in varying numbers. Some scholars have turned their attention to the issue of military recruitment and state building in South Asia. One of the longue dure studies we have is Stephen Rosens monograph, Societies and Military Power: India and its Armies (1996).1 He argues that due to the divisive caste system, indigenous armies were merely mobs. This volume shows that far from being an armed mob, the pre-British indigenous armies were capable of manoeuvring and were not technologically stagnant. In fact, pre-British warfare was characterized by decisive battles and sieges. Further, by over-emphasizing the influence of the caste system, Rosen is reverting to a mono-causal reductionist argument. Modern studies have shown that the caste structure in pre-modern India was flexible and nebulous. In fact, the induction and exclusion of the different communities into different varnas depended on economic fluctuations and military service. Pradeep P. Bauras 2005 study of Indian military history, The State at War in South Asia, despite its title provides a chronological account of military operations in the traditional style.2 Secondly, the principal focus of Barua remains on the colonial and postcolonial periods of Indian history. Dirk Kolff in his broad overview Naukar, Rajput and Sepoy (1990) provides a social and cultural history of the military labour market of Bihar and Awadh between the fifteenth and the eighteenth centuries.3 However, Kolff s path-breaking book is limited in his

Copyright

Military Manpower, Armies and Warfare in South Asia

Copyright

approach whereby the state plays a minimalist role. This is in tune with Burton Steins argument that India, before the advent of the British, experienced only segmentary states.4 The present monograph shows that the polities at various times shaped the forms of relationship between the armies and the manpower available in the market. For the first half of the nineteenth century, Seema Alavis PhD-thesis-turned-monograph focuses on the social base of the East India Companys (EIC) Bengal Army.5 However, none of these scholars note the importance of techniques and technology of warfare in shaping the relationship between the military personnel from different communities and the military organization at various moments in history. Besides demography and culture, the changing technologies of warfare also shaped the force structure and the patterns of recruitment. So, the traditional nuts and bolts history have been integrated with broader social and cultural trends. Further, we still lack a pan-Indian study. The above-mentioned scholars focus on north India. This volume also brings Deccan and south India including Sri Lanka under the orbit of study. For the postcolonial period, this book also gives attention to Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal. This monograph also takes a comparative perspective by contrasting the patterns and forms of military recruitment in South Asia with other parts of Eurasia. Another strongpoint of this volume is that one chapter devotes attention to the membership of the rebel armies that conduct low-intensity warfare in modern South Asia and another chapter focuses on the recruitment of non-combatants. Very rarely the pre-modern Indian polities maintained navies. And the air forces emerged in South Asia only after 1947. So, this monograph gives only minor attention to the navies and air forces. Special attention is given to the social construction of the warrior communities, size of the armies raised throughout the ages and battle casualties. For reasons of simplicity, wherever possible numbers are rounded off after calculating an average from the estimates given by various chroniclers. The conditions of military service and the military personnel are studied in a broader context, bringing the social, cultural, economic and technological dimensions into play. The following eight chapters provide an analysis of the mobilization of the military and non-military personnel in South Asian history in a chronological perspective. The volume starts from 1500 bc when tribal militias came into existence in the subcontinent and brings up the story till present date. Our analysis becomes more detailed from circa 1500 onwards. Here I argue that various tangible and non-tangible incentives shaped the formation of the military forces. Regional cultural variations shaped the entry of volunteers from different communities at different times in the armies. Despite the presence of a monetized economy, pre-existing cultural norms was one of the factors that pressurized various polities to issue jagirs (a grant of a piece of land for maintaining military contingent by a chief ) rather than cash salaries. Since traditional

Introduction

cultures rather than simple economic reductionism play an important role in military service, it is problematic to categorize military personnel as labourers. Culture functions as a crucial motivational factor for the armed personnel of both the state and the rebel armies. Further, unlike industrial labourers, military personnel are willing to die in combat. Hence, it is ahistorical to use the concept of labour while analysing the social history of the armed forces personnel. This volume is a synthesis of existing works and primary research. For ancient and early medieval periods, we have to depend on the Sanskrit texts generated by the acharyas (Brahmin teachers). The authors of most of the treatises were learned Brahmins; most of them were officials of the royal courts; and the audience of these treatises was the political class. The treatises like Kautilyas Arthasastra and Kamandakas Nitisara are not only representative of the political discourse of ancient India which was rooted in the political context of the time but also shaped the political realities. The ideas of these political theorists were absorbed and expressed in poems, dramas, didactic stories, and they reached the audience through oral, written and performative traditions. Though the Nitisara has a strong sense of the past, the past it invokes is not historical. Deliberate avoidance or erasure of the historical past is because the texts discourse, like the Arthasastra, speaks of the universal and not particulars. In ancient India, history is not unknown but denied. The authority of the Vedas (earliest holy books of the ancient Hindus) is based on its timelessness and it became a model for all forms of knowledge.6 This in turns creates problems for a historian as regards dating of events. For that, numismatic and archaeological evidence along with accounts by foreign travellers aid us to construct a chronology. For the ancient period, the main sources are Sanskrit texts (for example, Arthasastra, Sukranitisara, Kathasaritsagara, Hitopadesa, etc.). Most of them have been translated into English. Some are available in vernaculars like Bengali, Hindi, etc. For the medieval period, the principal sources are the histories written in Persian by the medieval scholars and autobiographies of the warlords/ emperors like Babur, Humayun, and others. Few people can read Persian calligraphy of the medieval manuscripts which are scattered in various museums and libraries of the world. However, most of these works have been translated into English. The problem with our Persian sources is that they were written by the elites for the elites. The court chroniclers and the nobles who wrote while getting the patronage of the rulers concentrated mostly on the doings of the durbar and not on those lowly placed. Hence, we can recreate a picture about the officer corps (especially the senior ranks) of the Mughal Army but we know very little about the rank and file. For the early modern period, some of the documents generated by the various regional powers like the Marathas and the Sikhs have been translated into English.

Copyright

Military Manpower, Armies and Warfare in South Asia

Copyright

Our data base becomes extensive for the British period. The archival materials (starting from private papers to regimental records and military department files, etc.) are available at the National Archives of India, New Delhi and the India Office Collection, British Library, London. For the post-1947 period, with the exception of government reports, departmental files are not open to the public. However, one can go for an open source analysis. Numerous autobiographies, biographies of the officers, articles in the various service journals, magazines, and so on, throw light on the military personnel and organization of modern South Asia. However, common soldiers before the colonial period have left us almost entirely without written material. This makes any attempt to construct history from below for the pre-British era problematic. Chapter 1 shows how tribal militias of the Vedic era were transformed into standing armies of the Mauryan and Guptas eras. Before 300 bc, tribal confederacies dominated the political landscape of the subcontinent. Tribal leaders (chieftains who were of high castes) in chariots fought opposing tribal leaders and the display of personal heroics (somewhat equivalent to monomachia) characterized warfare. Due to the expansion of agriculture and spread of iron technology in north India, rashtra (states) emerged and the tribal chieftain was transformed into rajan (king). The kings power to raise taxes increased. And the emergence of bureaucracy enabled the rajan to maintain a standing army. The Battle of Hydaspes (326 bc) proved the uselessness of chariots and the importance of elephants. Indeed the trump of the Maurya Army was its elephants. And manning elephants required the employment of mercenaries with special skills like mahouts and control over the forest regions for ensuring supply of elephants. From ad 300 onwards, due to the repeated invasions of the Central Asian nomads, the indigenous rulers realized the importance of cavalry. Despite attempts by several Indian monarchs, due to ecological conditions, mounted archery did not flourish in the subcontinent. Chapter 2 focuses on the rise of feudalism in early medieval India and the flowering of Rajput chivalry. Changes in politics, economy and technology of warfare resulted in a shift from standing armies to cavalry contingents provided by the thakurs (high caste landlords) and troops provided by the srenis (business corporations). The latter development was because soldiering was a prestigious profession and returns from military service were comparatively higher in an era of declining trade and commerce. Rigidity in post-Manu era Hinduism discouraged trade and commerce. The decline of Indo-Roman trade and commerce along the silk route accelerated demonetization of Indian economy. Since the kings had no cash to pay the cavalry personnel, land grants were issued to the nobles (rajaputras, later Rajputs). The nobles became territorial lords and with the help of their retainers, who constituted their cavalry contingents, challenged the weakening central government. The net result was the breakdown of state sovereignty. From

Introduction

the late ninth century onwards, the Turkish mounted archers from Afghanistan organized around the mamluk (slave soldier of Islam) system were able to overwhelm the Rajput cavalry. At the tactical level, the Rajput cavaliers equipped with straight sword and bamboo spears had no counter to the tulwars (curved swords) and mounted archery of the Turks who were mounted on superior Central Asian horses. At the ideological level, the Rajput concept of dharmayuddha proved incapable of standing up to the realpolitik oriented jihad mentality of the Turks. The two battles of Tarain (1191, 1192) prove these two points. Chapter 3 deals with the replacement of the slave soldiers of Islam with the quasi-bureaucratic mansabdari system. Initially, the Delhi Sultanate established by the Turks looked for inspiration to Egypt and Caliphate and built their armies centred on the mamluk system. However by the fourteenth century, the mamluk system proved ineffective. Mongol domination of Central Asia and Afghanistan reduced the inflow of Turkish recruits into India. The attempt by some Delhi sultans to forcibly convert Hindu boys into Islam and induct them as slave soldiers proved unsuccessful. This measure resulted in rebellion by the Hindu/ Rajput chieftains. Further, the mamluks became king makers and occasionally set themselves up as sultans. Amir Timurs invasion gave a deathblow to the Delhi Sultanate. The nail in the coffin was put by the Chaghtai Turkish warlord Babur in the First Battle of Panipat (1526). Baburnama tells us that victory was mostly due to the taulqama charge and Rumi (Ottoman) techniques of gunfire. In fact, the Mughals depended on Turkish and Persian mercenaries for manning their topkhana (artillery establishment). Baburs grandson Akbar realized that in order to put Mughal rule on a broader footing, certain accommodations needed to be reached with the Rajput chieftains and their armed followers. Further, the Mughal nobles had to be brought under greater control. Towards the end of the sixteenth century, Akbar introduced the mansabdari system. The mansabdars held ranks (mansabs) depending on their performance and imperial pleasure. In return, they were granted jagirs (somewhat equivalent to timars). On the basis of land grants, the mansabdars had to maintain cavalry contingents for imperial service. Despite monetization of Mughal economy, due to the prevalent culture of rewarding military service with landholdings, the Mughal government could not replace assignments of jagirs with cash salaries. The mansabdars recruited and paid their cavalry contingents and the sowars had caste, clan and familial connections with their employers. Hence, the sowars were more loyal to the mansabdars than the distant central government. The inherent decentralizing trends in the mansabdari system got accelerated with the onset of the agrarian crisis at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Nadir Shahs defeat of the Mughal Army at Karnal sounded the death knell for the Mughal central government. Chapter 4 focuses on the armies raised by the European entrepreneurs for the post-Mughal polities as a response to the PersianAfghans, French and Brit-

Copyright

Military Manpower, Armies and Warfare in South Asia

Copyright

ish EICs Military Revolution. Nadir Shahs use of shutarnals (camel swivel guns), infantry equipped with jezails at Karnal and Ahmad Shahs use of mortars with elevated screws during sieges in north and central India transformed the nature of warfare in the subcontinent. In south India, the British EIC and the French Compagnies des Indies deployed infantry equipped with fusils. The use of the European entrepreneurs by the indigenous potentates forced monetization of the economies of their polities. The Maratha Confederacy and the Khalsa Kingdom realized that firearms-equipped infantry supported by cast iron mobile field artillery dominated the battlefields. Instead of depending on the indigenous sirdars and their light cavalry contingents, the Indian princes hired European military entrepreneurs to raise Western modelled infantry. Infighting between the sirdars and the European military entrepreneurs and lack of professionalism amongst the European mercenary officers resulted in the failure of the technologically advanced westernized contingents of the Indian princes against the EICs professional armies. The next chapter deals with the introduction of the regimental system by the EIC. The spread of firearms-equipped infantry resulted in the proleterianization of warfare. Cavalry was marginalized in favour of firearms-equipped peasants. Certain peasant communities which specialized in the use of firearms and made soldiering a livelihood flourished in the eighteenth century. They were the Rohillas, Bundelas and the Purbiyas in north India. These communities were tapped both by the military entrepreneurs in charge of raising westernized infantry for the Indian princes and the EICs regiments. Between 1770 and 1849, thanks to superior command and logistical apparatus, the EIC was able to destroy the indigenous powers in South Asia. Since the British monopolized the military labour market, their contract with the Purbiya soldiers became rigid. The Purbiya reaction resulted in the 1857 Uprising. In the aftermath of the 1857 Mutiny, the British instead of recruiting the Purbiyas, started hunting for the martial races. The resultant Martial Race theory was a fusion of traditional Indian ethos of soldiering (i.e. only certain communities who were Kshatriyas were capable of bearing arms) with quasi-Victorian race science (people from cold mountainous frontier regions were capable of bearing arms). Certain communities like the Gurkhas, Sikhs, Rohillas, etc. who made a livelihood of soldiering even in pre-British days became the favoured martial races in the eyes of the British. Most of the recruits were younger sons of the small peasants. They joined military service in order to supplement the income of their family firms. Thanks to the demographic resources of South Asia, during the First and Second World Wars, 1.1 and 1.5 million men entered voluntarily in the military ranks. Chapter 6 concerns itself with the problems faced by Nehruvian polity in transforming the colonial regimental system into a volunteer national army. After independence, the Indian Government played with the idea of doing away the

Introduction

colonial military infrastructure. However, the Indian commissioned officers warned the central government that the regimental ethos and traditions which had developed in British-India provide the personnel with discipline and combat motivation. For maintenance of the military traditions, the Indian officer corps opposed the entry of the non-martial races (Bengalis, Madrasis, etc.) in the combatant branches. Under pressure from the military personnel, the independent government of India continues with the British generated regiments and follows the Martial Race theory as regards recruitment. Similar forces are at work in Pakistan also. Following in the footsteps of Field-Marshal Roberts, the Pakistani officers did not recruit the Sindis and the Bengali Muslims (until 1971, when East Pakistan became Bangladesh). While the Indian Army continues to depend mostly on the Gurkhas and Sikhs, the Pakistan Army depends on the Punjabi Muslims from the Potowar region and the Pathans. While the Indian Army utilizes Hindu religion to motivate the troops, in Pakistan from the time of General Zia-ul-Haq onwards, Islamic ethos started spreading among the rank and personnel. Chapter 7 focuses on the small wars conducted by stateless agents after 1947. It would be erroneous to argue that the modern age witnessed the monopolization of the military landscape by the state commission army paradigm. In South Asia, private armies of the jihadis and Maobadis are contesting the standing armies of the postcolonial India, Nepal and Pakistan. Interestingly, the personnel of the state commission standing armies and the private armies of South Asia are distinct in terms of personnel and age groups. The private armies of the non-Islamic revolutionaries have more women in their ranks. The forces of the warlords possess personnel from a younger age group compared to the state armies. Both radical ideology and prospects of economic remunerations motivate the young members of the impoverished segment of the populace to join the revolutionary private armies. In the armies of the Maobadis of Nepal and India, low castes who are not in general allowed entry in the ranks of state armies predominate. And finally the last chapter turns the spotlight on the various non-combatants like the banjaras, beldars, etc. who provided logistical support to the armies in the last two millennia. Arthasastra (composed between 300 bc and ad 300) and Sukranitisara (for the medieval period) note the importance of non-combatants for military operations. The military leaders are warned to take care of the personnel in charge of logistics for smooth functioning of the army during campaigns. In the medieval era, lower caste men carried drinking water for the soldiers in leather bags. The banjaras were nomadic traders who carried grains on bullocks, and moved with the armies. They sold the grain to the highest bidders. While some of the non-combatants like the poor peasants had to do forced labour (begari) for constructing military roads in pre-British eras, the banjaras operated on the market principle. The warlord who paid regularly in cash acquired the supplies from them. One of the principal factors behind the success

Copyright

Military Manpower, Armies and Warfare in South Asia

of the EIC was the greater financial resources at their disposal. As a result of financial largesse, the beparis (who supplied the bazaars) and the banjaras sided with the British during the EICs confrontations with Mysore and the Maratha Confederacy. Due to the prevalent military culture, the lower castes were not recruited in the combatant branches. Hence, they became dhobis (washer men), syces (grass cutters), etc. Instead of depending on begari, the British introduced labour companies and pioneers and they were given regular cash salaries. This practice continues in postcolonial armies. Now, let us have a flashback to military manpower mobilization at the dawn of civilization in the subcontinent.

Copyright