Martial Races of Undivided India

Preface

Martial Races Theory is an idea which is absolutely based on the hypothesis that some ethnic races are naturally more martially disposed than others. The term, Martial Race, was in the first place used by the Britishers, who saw that the race of Scottish Highlanders were more ferocious in battle than others races, and they applied this notion to India. They differentiated each of the ethnic group into one of two classes; Martial Race and Non-Martial Race. Martial Races were considered brave and well-built for fighting. Non-Martial Races were those whom the British considered to be unfit for fighting.

This volume examines these Martial Races through their history, culture, people, their sub-divisions, martial traditions, contribution to Armed Forces, gallantry award winners and their famous people. This book covers all important Martial Races such as Ahirs, Awans, Baloch, Dhangar, Gakhars, Garhwalis, Gujjars, Gurkhas, Jat, Kamboj, Kurmis, Marathas, Nagas, Nairs, Pashtuns, Rajputs and Sikhs.

An extensive bibliography guides interested readers to in-depth resources on various topics. This volume is most interactive and highly educative and we hope that it will be very useful and popular among scholars, students and readers who are interested in Martial Races.

We have tried to span the complete imformation pertaining to all Martial Races and to be as accurate as possible, but some mistakes are sure to come in. In preparation of this book, the author has heavely drawn upon from various sources including large number of books, journals and electronic sources. I owe my sincere debt and gratitude to all of them. Suggestions for further improvement of this book are not only welcome but also greatly appreciated.

About the Book

This book covers the Martial Races of Undivided India thoroughly in a manner which makes it interesting to read and easy to understand. Special care has been taken to put all information in proper order so that the reader finds the book very useful and enjoyable. It covers all aspect such as history, culture, people, their sub-divisions, martial traditions, their contribution to Armed Forces, gallantry award winners and famous personalities. Information given in this volume is fairly comprehensive in contents so that all the readers should feel benefitted with the text.

About the Author

Vidya Prakash Tyagi was born in a family which has contributed greatly to Armed Forces of India. His father was a freedom fighter and many members of his family are serving in Indian Armed Forces. An alumnus of Meerut University, from his college days he has great interest in the study and research of the people who have contributed to their social setup through wars and struggles. He was from very beginning interested in ethnic Martial Races. He has devoted almost twelve years of his life in studying these martial races. Now he is contributing his experience and knowledge to the field of literature. This book is the outcome of his vast researches through out the period although this is his first book which is intended to focus upon the Martial Races and their various aspects.

Introduction

Several efforts have been made, under the British rule and afterwards, to sort the population of India in accordance with a racial classification. After the freedom in 1947, in pursuance of the Government’s policy to put off community distinctions founded on race, the 1951 Census of India eliminated racial classifications.

In India, Dravidian, Indo-Aryan, and related words are commonly regarded as linguistic terms, rather than ethnic terms. Some scholars of the colonial era attempted to find a method to assort the various groups of India as per the principal racial theories popular at that time in Europe. This pseudo-scientific racial categorization was used by the British census of India. It was frequently mixed with considerations about the caste system, as well as linguistic groups with “races”.

The Martial races theory was a British philosophy established hypothesis that some peoples were more martially disposed as opposed to the general populace or other peoples. The British divided the entire range of Indian racial groups into two categories: martial race and a non- martial race”. The martial race was looked upon as typically brave and well built for fighting but was also depicted as “unintelligent”. The non- martial races were those whom the British assumed to be unfit for battle because of their inactive lifestyle, but were considered as cleverer.

The Indian revolt of 1857 might have played a role in British support of the martial races theory. Throughout this rebellion, some Indian troops, especially in Bengal, rebelled, but the “loyal” Sikhs, Punjabis, Dogras, Gurkas, Garhwalis and Pakhtuns (Pathans) did not join the mutiny and fought on the side of the British Army. Recent scholars have proposed that this theory was used to the limit to increase enlisting from amongst these races, while deterring enlistment of “disloyal” Indians who had sided with the rebel army during the war.

The Indian subcontinent has been home to a innumerable range of racial groups throughout the history, making it one of the most genetically rich areas on the world today. Comparatively insulated from the rest ofEurasia by the Himilayas, Indian Ocean to the west, east and south, India has managed to shelter some of the oldest races outside of Africa, while also absorbing and assimilating waves of later human populations, ensuing in a greatly enriched genetic, linguistic and cultural heritage.

The aboriginal habitants of India belonged to an ancient population of unsure origins who mainly populated the jungle environments of the subcontinent, much like the modern day Pygmies of Africa and the Negritos of Southeast Asia. We can only presume that the morphological features shared by these last two geographically diverse populations, such as very small-stature, dark skin, woolly hair, scant body hair and occasional steatopygia, must also have characterised the ancient Indian homunculi.

The 2nd wave of migrants to enter India, around 60,000 years ago, followed a coastal route out of eastern Africa, using a bare form of watercarft to cross the small span of water between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. Living on a largely marine diet, a number of these nomadic hunter-gatherers stayed in the Indus and proceeded inland along river systems of the landmass. Others pressed on into Southeast Asia, eventually giving rise to the Australian Aborigines. Genetically the Proto-Australoids are associated with the mtDNA haplogroup M, the earliest lineage outside of Africa. Veddoid peoples were characterised by gracile body types, dark skin and wavy hair, broad, flat noses and fleshy, protruding lips. They had long heads with low foreheads and prominent eye ridges, thick jaws, large teeth and small chins. The Australoids laid the foundation of Indian civilization. They cultivated rice and vegetables and made sugar from sugarcane. Their languages have survived in the Central and Eastern India. At present this race includes a large number of groups of peoples stretching from Iberia to India. The characteristic type appears in late Natufian times in Palestine and may have been differentiated in the southern steppes of Northern Africa and in Asia, and spread westwards and eastwards.

The Out of India Theory imagines Aryans to have originated from Indian and afterwards migrated to different parts of Central Asia and outside. The Aryan migration theory says that Aryans migrated from Central Asia towards Persia and India giving rise to the early Persians and the Indo-Aryans. Aryans pressed through the passes of the Hindu Kush and broke into the rich Indian plain.

Martial Race was a identification formed by officials of British India. The British faced furious resistance in some areas while easily inhibiting some others. This led the British officials to conclude that the peoples of these regions were naturally militant ‘races’ which possessed characters such as courage, loyalty, self sufficiency , physical strength, resilience, orderliness and fighting tenacity and were hard-working and skilled in military tactics. These ‘martial races’ tended to be hunting or agricultural cultures from hilly or craggy regions with a history of struggle, whether internally or with external groups, who were considered better capable of surviving hardship than the habitants of the hot, flat plains of the country who were thought to be unwarlike and unsound for military service.

Still others were omitted due to their ‘ease of living’ or branded as subversive agitators. The philosophy of ‘martial races’ postulated that the characters that make a useful soldier are hereditary and that most Indians, with the exception of the specified groups, didn’t have the required genes that would make them warriors. The British enrolled heavily from the ‘martial races’ for service in the colonial army. Sensing the differences and fierce commitment to one’s tribe or group of the diverse native peoples of the subcontinent, the British found chance to use it to their own great advantage. These already wide divides were a fertile breeding ground to inculcate pride in one’s identity based on ‘race’. This served the British in two ways. On the one hand it made sure that there was no repeat of the Indian rebellion of 1857 by ensuring there was no unity among the different subjects of the Raj. On the other hand it encouraged a sense of competition among the different ‘races’.

The British found eager Indians to aid and assist them in the suppression of the rebellion to begin with. A British general and scholar, Lieutenant General Sir George Fletcher MacMunn wrote “It is only necessary for a feeling to arise that it is impious and disgraceful to serve the British, for the whole of our fabric to tumble like a house of cards without a shot being fired or a sword unsheathed”. To this end, it became British policy to recruit only from those tribes whom they classified as members of the ‘martial races’ and the practice became an integral part of the recruitment manuals for the Army in the British Raj. “The Martial Race theory had an elegant symmetry. Indians who were intelligent and educated were defined as cowards, while those defined as brave were uneducated and backward.” The British regarded the ‘martial races’ as valiant and strong but also intellectually challenged, lacking the initiative or leadership qualities to command large troops. They were also regarded as politically subservient or docile to authority. For these reasons, the ‘martial races’ theory didn’t apply in the case of officer recruitment, which was based on social class and loyalty to the British Raj. One source calls this a “pseudo-ethnological” construction, which was popularised by Frederick Sleigh Roberts, and created serious deficiencies in troop levels during the World Wars, compelling them to recruit from ‘non-martial races’. In fact, Winston Churchill was reportedly concerned that the theory was abandoned during the war and wrote to the Commander-in-Chief, India that he must, “rely as much as possible on the martial races”. After Indian Independence, the Indian Army abandoned this theory and recruitment took place without discrimination. Critics of this theory state that the Indian rebellion of 1857 may have played a role in reinforcing the British belief in ‘martial races’. During this event some Indian troops (known as ‘Sepoys’), particularly in Bengal, mutinied, but the ‘loyal’ Punjabis, Gurkhas, Kumaunis and Garhwalis didn’t join the mutiny and fought on the side of the British Army. From then on, this theory was used to the hilt to accelerate recruitment from among these ‘races’, whilst discouraging enlistment of ‘disloyal’ Bengalis and high-caste Hindus who had sided with the rebel army during the war.

It is in this manner, that the Punjab Regiment became the senior most regiment of the Indian Army as it developed from the first Madras Native Infantry battalions. The British often marked the Sikhs ‘the greatest of the martial races’. The Sikh Regiment is one of the Indian Army’s most highly decorated infantry regiments, with many battle honours being won in its long history. The Marathas were classified as ‘non-martial’, ignoring the military achievements of the Maratha Empire or the Maratha Regiment’s contribution against the Turks during the First World War, when they were recruited by the British Indian Army. The South Indian troops who had demonstrated their valour in the battlefields of central and south India were disbanded after 1857 to make way for more martial races.

In the Poorabiya regiment, the Bihari Rajputs and Bhumihar Brahmins made up the bulk of the soldiers. The Nairs of Kerala were initially included in the list, however after the Nairs of Travancore rebelled against the British under Velu Thampi Dalawa, they were recruited in lower numbers. Though seldom used in today’s context, it has been alleged that Pakistan Military believed in the concept of martial races and they thus felt that they should easily defeat India in a war, especially prior to the Second Kashmir War Based on this belief in the martial supremacy, it was popularly hyped that one Pakistani soldier was equal to four to ten Hindus/ Indian soldiers (including a large number of Sikh soldiers and officers), and thus numerical superiority of the foe could be overcome.