Indian Soldiers on the Western Front
The Role of Religion in the Indian Army in the Great War
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/rosa.v9i1.23964Keywords:
World War One, Martial Race, Indian ReligionsAbstract
This article illustrates the role of religion in the Indian Army of the Great War. It demonstrates the importance of religion in the martial race ideology that set forth British views on eligibility for military recruitment. It explains how an interpretation of the origins of the Mutiny underwrote preference for those peoples regarded as being less religious but made it necessary to enable soldiers to practise their faiths, even informing the conception of these races in British thinking. It also discusses what this meant in practice for Indian soldiers fighting on the Western Front and then for casualties taken to the Pavilion Hospital. It focuses upon the special arrangements made by the military authorities to satisfy the soldiers’ religious requirements as the British understood them, ranging from places of worship to diet, caste and funeral rites. Finally, it argues that martial race ideology, not excluding religious issues, continues to exercise an influence in contemporary Britain.
References
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Bourne, Walter FitzGerald. 1914. Hindustani Musalmans and Musalmans of the Eastern Punjab (Handbooks for the Indian Army). Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing.
Brockington, John. 1995. ‘Concepts of Race in the Mahabharata and Ramayana.’ In Robb (ed.) 1995: 97–108.
Caplan, Lionel. 1995. ‘Martial Gurkhas: The Persistence of a British Military Discourse on “Race”.’ In Robb (ed.) 1995: 260–81.
Chowdhury-Sengupta, Indira. 1995. ‘The Effeminate and the Masculine: Nationalism and the Concept of Race in Colonial Bengal.’ In Robb (ed.) 1995: 282–303.
Commonwealth War Graves Commission. 2010. ‘Commission Unveils New Indian Memorial’. CWGC, 4 October 2010. http://www.cwgc.org/news-events/video-news/commission-unveils-new-indian-memorial.aspx (accessed 3 August 2014).
— 2014. Forever India. http://www.cwgc.org/foreverindia/ (accessed 3 August 2014).
David, Saul. 2003. The Indian Mutiny: 1857. London: Penguin Books.
Dawson, Graham. 1994. Soldier Heroes: British Adventure, Empire and the Imagining of Masculinities. London and New York: Routledge.
Ford, Richard. 2004. ‘Gurkhas Win Battle of the British Passport.’ Times, 30 September 2004: 2. The Times Digital Archive. http://tinyurl.com/p3apcpt (accessed 20 July 2014).
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Hyson, Samuel, and Alan Lester. 2012. ‘“British India on Trial”: Brighton Military Hospitals and the Politics of Empire in World War I.’ Journal of Historical Geography 38: 18–34. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhg.2011.09.002
Jack, George Morton. 2006. ‘The Indian Army on the Western Front, 1914–1915: A Portrait of Collaboration.’ War in History 13 (3): 329–62. http://dx.doi.org/10.1191/0968344506wh344oa
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MacMunn, Lieutenant-General Sir George F. 1984. The Armies of India. Bristol: Crecy Books.
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Maher, Shiraz. 2011. Ties that Bind: How the Story of Britain’s Muslim Soldiers can Forge a National Identity. London: Policy Exchange.
Majeed, Javed. 1995. ‘Pan-Islam and “Deracialisation” in the Thought of Muhammed Iqbal.’ In Robb (ed.) 1995: 304–26.
Mason, Philip. 1974. A Matter of Honour: An Account of the Indian Army, its Officers and Men. London: Jonathan Cape.
Mohan, Kamlesh. 1999. ‘Clamping Shutters and Valorizing Women: Tensions in Sculpting Gender Identities in the Colonial Punjab.’ In Pritam Singh and Shinder Singh Thandi (eds.), Punjabi Identity in a Global Context: 163–200. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Olusoga, David. 2014. The World’s War: The Forgotten Soldiers of World War I. Broadcast 6 August 2014; 13 August 2014. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p023w43r (accessed 3 August 2014).
Omissi, David. 1994. The Sepoy and the Raj: The Indian Army 1860–1940. Basingstoke and London: Palgrave Macmillan.
— 2007. ‘Europe through Indian Eyes: Indian Soldiers Encounter England and France, 1914–1918.’ English Historical Review 122 (496): 371–96. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ehr/cem004
Omissi, David (ed.). 1999. Indian Voices of the Great War: Soldiers’ Letters, 1914–18. Basingstoke and London: Palgrave Macmillan. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-27283-9
Panikkar, K. M. 1993. Asia and Western Dominance: A Survey of the Vasco Da Gama Epoch of Asian History 1495–1945. Kuala Lumpur: The Other Press.
Rana, Satnam, and Jay Patel. 2005. ‘Soldier Awarded Top Medal’ [Interview with Makand Singh]. Midlands Masala, 4 February 2005. http://www.bbc.co.uk/birmingham/content/articles/2005/02/04/makand_singh_qa.shtml (accessed 18 November 2015).
Rand, Gavin, and Kim A. Wagner. 2012. ‘Recruiting the “Martial Races”: Identities and Military Service in Colonial India.’ Patterns of Prejudice 46 (3-4): 232–54. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0031322X.2012.701495
Rayment, Sean. 2007. ‘Sikh Regiment Dumped over “Racism” Fears.’ Telegraph, 24 June 2007. Telegraph Media Group. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1555507/Sikh-regiment-dumped-over-racism-fears.html (accessed 3 March 2014).
Richardson, Lucy. 2014. ‘Commemorating the 15th Ludhiana Sikhs’. National Army Museum website, 29 July 2014. http://www.nam.ac.uk/microsites/ww1/786/news/commemorating-15th-ludhiana-sikhs//#.U95RkOfGJn4 (accessed 3 August 2014).
Ridgway, Major Richard Thomas Incledon. 1910. Pathans (Handbooks for the Indian Army). Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing.
Robb, Peter. 1995. ‘Introduction: South Asia and the Concept of Race.’ In Robb (ed.) 1995: 1–76.
Robb, Peter (ed.). 1995. The Concept of Race in South Asia. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Roberts, Lord Frederick Sleigh. 1898. Forty-One Years in India from Subaltern to Commander-in-Chief. London: Macmillan & Co.
Roberts, Henry D. 1915. A Short History in English, Gurmukhi and Urdu of the Royal Pavilion Brighton and a Description of it as a Hospital for Indian Soldiers. Brighton: King, Thorne and Stace.
— 1916. Some Notes on the Royal Pavilion, Brighton. Brighton: King, Thorne and Stace.
— 1939. A History of the Royal Pavilion Brighton with an Account of its Original Furniture and Decoration. London: Country Life.
Robinson, Catherine. 1996. ‘Neither East nor West: Some Aspects of Religion and Ritual in the Indian Army of the Raj.’ Religion 26: 37–47. http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/reli.1996.0003
Roy, Kaushik. 2013. ‘Race and Recruitment in the Indian Army, 1880–1918.’ Modern Asian Studies 47 (4): 1310–47. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0026749X12000431
SOAS. 2014. ‘The Brunei Gallery—Empire, Faith and War: The Sikhs and World War One.’ http://www.soas.ac.uk/gallery/efw (accessed 14 August 2014).
Streets, Heather. 2004. Martial Races: The Military, Race and Masculinity in British Imperial Culture, 1857–1914. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press.
Takhar, Opinderjit Kaur. 2014. ‘The Sikh Community’s Contribution to British Society.’ In British Sikh Report Team, British Sikh Report: An Insight into the British Sikh Community: 10-12. http://www.britishsikhreport.org/british-sikh-report-download-2014/ (accessed 18 November 2015).
Vansittart, Lieutenant-Colonel Eden. 1906. Gurkhas (Handbooks for the Indian Army). Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing.
Visram, Rozina. 2002. Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History. London and Sterling, VA: Pluto Press.
Wikeley, Lieutenant-Colonel James Masson. n.d. Punjabi Musalmans (Handbooks for the Indian Army). 2nd edn. Lahore: The Book House.
— 1999. Caste, Society and Politics in India from the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521264341
BBC News. 2009. ‘Lumley Mobbed by Crowds in Nepal.’ BBC News website, 26 July 2009. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8169319.stm (accessed 18 November 2015).
— 2010. ‘Who are the Gurkhas?’ BBC News website, 27 July 2010. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-10782099 (accessed 20 July 2014).
Bingley, Captain A. H. 1904. Jats, Gujars and Ahirs (Handbooks for the Indian Army). Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing.
— 1999. The Sikhs (Handbooks for the Indian Army). Delhi: National Book Shop.
Birmingham Mail. 2012. ‘Family of Birmingham Sikh Soldier in Turban Row Hit Back at Critics.’ Birmingham Mail, 6 December 2012. http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/local-news/family-of-birmingham-sikh-soldier-in-turban-358779 (accessed 3 May 2014).
Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine. 1897. ‘The Native Army of India.’ Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, August 1897: 194–206. http://search.proquest.com/britishperiodicals/docview/6544102/fulltextPDF/FB346A788EAF4E28PQ/6?accountid=8509 (accessed 19 May 2014).
Bourne, Walter FitzGerald. 1914. Hindustani Musalmans and Musalmans of the Eastern Punjab (Handbooks for the Indian Army). Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing.
Brockington, John. 1995. ‘Concepts of Race in the Mahabharata and Ramayana.’ In Robb (ed.) 1995: 97–108.
Caplan, Lionel. 1995. ‘Martial Gurkhas: The Persistence of a British Military Discourse on “Race”.’ In Robb (ed.) 1995: 260–81.
Chowdhury-Sengupta, Indira. 1995. ‘The Effeminate and the Masculine: Nationalism and the Concept of Race in Colonial Bengal.’ In Robb (ed.) 1995: 282–303.
Commonwealth War Graves Commission. 2010. ‘Commission Unveils New Indian Memorial’. CWGC, 4 October 2010. http://www.cwgc.org/news-events/video-news/commission-unveils-new-indian-memorial.aspx (accessed 3 August 2014).
— 2014. Forever India. http://www.cwgc.org/foreverindia/ (accessed 3 August 2014).
David, Saul. 2003. The Indian Mutiny: 1857. London: Penguin Books.
Dawson, Graham. 1994. Soldier Heroes: British Adventure, Empire and the Imagining of Masculinities. London and New York: Routledge.
Ford, Richard. 2004. ‘Gurkhas Win Battle of the British Passport.’ Times, 30 September 2004: 2. The Times Digital Archive. http://tinyurl.com/p3apcpt (accessed 20 July 2014).
Hardinge, Charles (First Baron Hardinge of Penshurst). 1948. My Indian Years 1910–1916: The Reminiscences of Lord Hardinge of Penshurst. London: John Murray.
Hyson, Samuel, and Alan Lester. 2012. ‘“British India on Trial”: Brighton Military Hospitals and the Politics of Empire in World War I.’ Journal of Historical Geography 38: 18–34. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhg.2011.09.002
Jack, George Morton. 2006. ‘The Indian Army on the Western Front, 1914–1915: A Portrait of Collaboration.’ War in History 13 (3): 329–62. http://dx.doi.org/10.1191/0968344506wh344oa
Joshi, Shashank. 2014. ‘A European War, Fought by India.’ The Hindu, 5 August 2014. http://m.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/a_european_war_founght_by_india/article6281135.ece/?maneref-https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.co.in%2F (accessed 8 August 2014).
Kirk-Greene, Anthony H. M. 1980. ‘“Damnosa Hereditas”: Ethnic Ranking and the Martial Races Imperative in Africa.’ Ethnic and Racial Studies 3 (4): 393–414. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01419870.1980.9993313
Lawrence, Sir Walter Roper. 1928. The India We Served. London: Cassell and Company.
Lynott, Kevin. 2012. ‘Honouring Indian Contributions to the Army.’ Telegraph, 15 December 2012. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/letters/9746187/Honouring-Indian-contributions-to-the-Army.html (accessed 18 November 2015).
MacMunn, Lieutenant-General Sir George F. 1984. The Armies of India. Bristol: Crecy Books.
Macpherson, Major-General Sir William Grant. 1923. Medical Service General History. II. The Medical Services on the Western Front, and During the Operations in France and Belgium in 1914 and 1915. London: HMSO.
Maher, Shiraz. 2011. Ties that Bind: How the Story of Britain’s Muslim Soldiers can Forge a National Identity. London: Policy Exchange.
Majeed, Javed. 1995. ‘Pan-Islam and “Deracialisation” in the Thought of Muhammed Iqbal.’ In Robb (ed.) 1995: 304–26.
Mason, Philip. 1974. A Matter of Honour: An Account of the Indian Army, its Officers and Men. London: Jonathan Cape.
Mohan, Kamlesh. 1999. ‘Clamping Shutters and Valorizing Women: Tensions in Sculpting Gender Identities in the Colonial Punjab.’ In Pritam Singh and Shinder Singh Thandi (eds.), Punjabi Identity in a Global Context: 163–200. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Olusoga, David. 2014. The World’s War: The Forgotten Soldiers of World War I. Broadcast 6 August 2014; 13 August 2014. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p023w43r (accessed 3 August 2014).
Omissi, David. 1994. The Sepoy and the Raj: The Indian Army 1860–1940. Basingstoke and London: Palgrave Macmillan.
— 2007. ‘Europe through Indian Eyes: Indian Soldiers Encounter England and France, 1914–1918.’ English Historical Review 122 (496): 371–96. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ehr/cem004
Omissi, David (ed.). 1999. Indian Voices of the Great War: Soldiers’ Letters, 1914–18. Basingstoke and London: Palgrave Macmillan. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-27283-9
Panikkar, K. M. 1993. Asia and Western Dominance: A Survey of the Vasco Da Gama Epoch of Asian History 1495–1945. Kuala Lumpur: The Other Press.
Rana, Satnam, and Jay Patel. 2005. ‘Soldier Awarded Top Medal’ [Interview with Makand Singh]. Midlands Masala, 4 February 2005. http://www.bbc.co.uk/birmingham/content/articles/2005/02/04/makand_singh_qa.shtml (accessed 18 November 2015).
Rand, Gavin, and Kim A. Wagner. 2012. ‘Recruiting the “Martial Races”: Identities and Military Service in Colonial India.’ Patterns of Prejudice 46 (3-4): 232–54. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0031322X.2012.701495
Rayment, Sean. 2007. ‘Sikh Regiment Dumped over “Racism” Fears.’ Telegraph, 24 June 2007. Telegraph Media Group. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1555507/Sikh-regiment-dumped-over-racism-fears.html (accessed 3 March 2014).
Richardson, Lucy. 2014. ‘Commemorating the 15th Ludhiana Sikhs’. National Army Museum website, 29 July 2014. http://www.nam.ac.uk/microsites/ww1/786/news/commemorating-15th-ludhiana-sikhs//#.U95RkOfGJn4 (accessed 3 August 2014).
Ridgway, Major Richard Thomas Incledon. 1910. Pathans (Handbooks for the Indian Army). Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing.
Robb, Peter. 1995. ‘Introduction: South Asia and the Concept of Race.’ In Robb (ed.) 1995: 1–76.
Robb, Peter (ed.). 1995. The Concept of Race in South Asia. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Roberts, Lord Frederick Sleigh. 1898. Forty-One Years in India from Subaltern to Commander-in-Chief. London: Macmillan & Co.
Roberts, Henry D. 1915. A Short History in English, Gurmukhi and Urdu of the Royal Pavilion Brighton and a Description of it as a Hospital for Indian Soldiers. Brighton: King, Thorne and Stace.
— 1916. Some Notes on the Royal Pavilion, Brighton. Brighton: King, Thorne and Stace.
— 1939. A History of the Royal Pavilion Brighton with an Account of its Original Furniture and Decoration. London: Country Life.
Robinson, Catherine. 1996. ‘Neither East nor West: Some Aspects of Religion and Ritual in the Indian Army of the Raj.’ Religion 26: 37–47. http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/reli.1996.0003
Roy, Kaushik. 2013. ‘Race and Recruitment in the Indian Army, 1880–1918.’ Modern Asian Studies 47 (4): 1310–47. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0026749X12000431
SOAS. 2014. ‘The Brunei Gallery—Empire, Faith and War: The Sikhs and World War One.’ http://www.soas.ac.uk/gallery/efw (accessed 14 August 2014).
Streets, Heather. 2004. Martial Races: The Military, Race and Masculinity in British Imperial Culture, 1857–1914. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press.
Takhar, Opinderjit Kaur. 2014. ‘The Sikh Community’s Contribution to British Society.’ In British Sikh Report Team, British Sikh Report: An Insight into the British Sikh Community: 10-12. http://www.britishsikhreport.org/british-sikh-report-download-2014/ (accessed 18 November 2015).
Vansittart, Lieutenant-Colonel Eden. 1906. Gurkhas (Handbooks for the Indian Army). Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing.
Visram, Rozina. 2002. Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History. London and Sterling, VA: Pluto Press.
Wikeley, Lieutenant-Colonel James Masson. n.d. Punjabi Musalmans (Handbooks for the Indian Army). 2nd edn. Lahore: The Book House.
Published
2015-12-31
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Robinson, C. A. (2015). Indian Soldiers on the Western Front: The Role of Religion in the Indian Army in the Great War. Religions of South Asia, 9(1), 43-63. https://doi.org/10.1558/rosa.v9i1.23964
