Faithful Fighters: Identity and Power in the British Indian Army (South Asia in Motion)

During the first four decades of the twentieth century, the British Indian Army possessed an illusion of racial and religious inclusivity. The army recruited diverse soldiers, known as the "Martial Races," including British Christians, Hindustani Muslims, Punjabi Sikhs, Hindu Rajputs, Pathans from northwestern India, and "Gurkhas" from Nepal. As anti-colonial activism intensified, military officials incorporated some soldiers' religious traditions into the army to keep them disciplined and loyal. They facilitated acts such as the fast of Ramadan for Muslim soldiers and allowed religious swords among Sikhs to recruit men from communities where anti-colonial sentiment grew stronger. Consequently, Indian nationalists and anti-colonial activists charged the army with fomenting racial and religious divisions. In __Faithful Fighters__, Kate Imy explores how military culture created unintended dialogues between soldiers and civilians, including Hindu nationalists, Sikh revivalists, and pan-Islamic activists. By the 1920s and '30s, the army constructed military schools and academies to isolate soldiers from anti-colonial activism. While this carefully managed military segregation crumbled under the pressure of the Second World War, Imy argues that the army militarized racial and religious difference, creating lasting legacies for the violent partition and independence of India, and the endemic warfare and violence of the post-colonial world. During the first four decades of the twentieth century, the British Indian Army projected an illusion of racial and religious inclusivity. The army recruited diverse soldiers, known as "Martial Races," including British Christians, Hindustani Muslims, Punjabi Sikhs, Hindu Rajputs, Pathans from northwestern India, and "Gurkhas" from Nepal, and incorporated some of these soldiers' religious traditions into the army to keep them disciplined and loyal. These included allowing Muslims to fast during Ramadan and Sikhs to carry religious swords. Military officials hoped that bringing these practices into the army would undermine criticisms of imperial military service within communities where anti-colonial sentiment was growing stronger. In Faithful Fighters, Kate Imy explores how military culture created unintended dialogues between soldiers and civilians while simultaneously hardening differences between and among communities. Though the illusion of soldiers' detachment from anti-colonialism crumbled during World War II, Imy argues that the army militarized racial and religious differences, creating lasting legacies for the violent partition and independence of India, and the endemic violence of the post-colonial world--back cover As anti-colonial activism and global war intensified in the twentieth century, the Hindu, Muslim, Christian and Sikh soldiers of the British Indian Army wrestled with the moral dilemma of giving their devotion to either nationalism or imperialism