Fighting Words

Dr Gajendra Singh is currently at Kellogg College, Oxford, having completed his doctoral thesis at Edinburgh. This monograph utilises his doctoral work as well as some post-doctoral work with the objective of using the accounts of Indian soldiers to understand how they felt about their experiences and how their feelings were influenced by their position as colonial subjects and imperial policemen.

The introduction sets out to define the colonial soldier using Huntington’s The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations and Trotsky’s The History of the Russian Revolution as references. It also admits the difficulty of understanding the true meaning of the contents of letters and how they were affected by outside influences.

Chapter 1 discusses the “martial races” concept together with the production of the various handbooks for the Indian Army and the effect of both on recruitment and perceived military qualities, particularly in respect of Sikhs, Pathans and Brahmins. Page 33 contains the following rather contentious statement in respect of the handbooks: “And in the case of the mothballed negatives relating to Pathans, of innate ‘noblesse oblige’ and ‘wildness’, they have had a new airing in the 21st century in order to excuse/justify wars of occupation/liberation in Afghanistan.”
Chapter 2 deals with welfare and discipline, referring to the latter before and during World War I, and from World War II up to 1947.

One statement requires mention; on page 61 the author states that Field Punishment No. 1 (being spread-eagled over the wheel of a gun carriage or similar for long periods every day), abolished in the British Army in 1928, continued to be used in the Indian Army up to August 1947. There is no source note to this statement and I have found no evidence to support the assertion.

Chapter 3 addresses censorship, malingering and self-inflicted wounds, and the reactions of soldiers being treated or convalescing at the Indian Military Hospital at Brighton. This chapter contains the highest number of extracts from soldiers’ letters, all expressing negative reactions to their conditions or treatment. On page 72, the author seems to denigrate the Saragarhi Post defence in September 1857 by 21 members of the 36th Sikhs, plus two followers, suggesting that imperial rule carefully cultivated it into a myth.

On page 90, in connection with severe punishments given to Indian troops, the author quotes a high prevalence of battle wounds to the left hand, inferring self-infliction — 1,049 out of 1,848 soldiers admitted to hospital by November 3, 1914. These numbers were taken from Byron Farwell’s Armies of the Raj, a book seen as more populist than factual, and were un-sourced by Farwell. The figures given in Sir Frederick Smith Bart’s The Indian Corps in France (2008) are probably more exact – 1,342 wounded, but no break-up by type of injury. Using 1,049 and 1,342, it would seem that 78 per cent of injuries were to the left hand. Possibly, the best explanation is that given by Gordon Corrigan in Sepoys in the Trenches – they exposed their left hands over the rim of the trench to steady the rifle and fire.

Chapter 4 looks at the problems of Muslim troops being used against Turkish troops in Mesopotamia whilst Chapters 5 and 6 cover the mutiny of part of the 5th Light Infantry in Singapore on February 15, 1915, and the Indian National Army during and after WWII. The causes of the mutiny are not entirely clear, but the main reason was the fear of being sent to the front in France, ignited when soldiers misunderstood the parting address by the commander of the Singapore garrison as they were about to embark for Hong Kong. There was also some anti-British agitation emanating from the Kampong Java Mosque and internal squabbling and trouble-making by two Viceroy’s Commissioned Officers and a senior Non-Commissioned Officer, helped along by poor British officers. The mutiny was quickly dealt with and severely punished, as might be expected in wartime, especially when both treason and the murder of civilians was involved.

The author chooses the evidence of four of those called before the Court of Inquiry to show that witnesses were pressured to say what the court wanted to hear. The evidence is somewhat tenuous. Three of the witnesses were lying to avoid implicating themselves and the fourth was simply trying to avoid naming names.

In Chapter 6, the author gives exposure to INA Captain Mohan Singh’s exaggerated speech on February 17 to “tens of thousands of Indian POWs” at Farrar Park, Singapore, discusses at length the defection of 23 Sikhs of the 1st Battalion of the 15th Punjab Regiment in February 1943 without reaching any specific conclusion about the cause, and goes into some detail regarding the Hong Kong and Singapore Royal Artillery and their general refusal to join the Indian National Army.

On page 158 it is asserted that “1st and 2nd Divisions (INA) did inflict heavy British casualties during the retreat through Burma in 1945”. This is a serious, unsubstantiated exaggeration. On page 160, it is stated that “Publishers in Britain have rarely presided over work devoted wholly to the subject of the INA.” The accompanying note refers only to Forgotten Armies by Chris Bayly and Tim Harper (2005). There is no mention of The War of the Springing Tigers by Gerald H Corr (1975) or The Sixth Column by MK Durrani (1955).

This is an academic monograph intended for consumption by academics. It results in “an insubstantial and unresolved work” (author, page 192), which is frequently obtuse and, I believe, fails to understand the basic motivations and feelings of soldiers of any army at any time. A count reveals that Chapters 1 to 4 contain extracts [mostly short, negative and out of context] from 145 soldiers’ letters; Chapter 5 has extracts from 23 testimonies in relation to the Singapore Mutiny and Chapter 6 has extracts from 14 interrogations in connection with INA activities. In my opinion, the work does not live up to the expectations of the title and will be a disappointment to the general reader, though fellow academics may find it of social relevance.

Chris Kempton is chairman of the Victorian Military Society, London, and the author of Duty and Fidelity – The Indian Army 1914-1922 and Valour and Gallantry – HEIC and Indian Army Victoria Crosses and George Crosses, 1856-1946