Bulletin N°46

Introduction

Earlier this year, the Indian Army’s decision to purchase ballistic helmets especially designed for Sikhs in the Indian Army drew objections from the foremost Sikh religious authority in India, the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, objected this plan. The controversy again underscored how religious sentiments are of crucial significance in India’s multi-religious military^[1]Gerry Shih and Anant Gupta, “Turbans or helmets? Indian army purchase revives debate over Sikh headgear,” The Washington Post, January 23, 2023..

Even prior to India’s independence in 1947, religion was a fraught issue in the Indian Army. Its significance stemmed from three distinct sources. The first was structural and the second contingent. The first stemmed from the inherent religious diversity of the country. The second from the legacy of Muslim rule for several hundred years culminating in the Mughal Empire. This had, in turn contributed to some cleavages within Indian society^[2]Christopher Alan Bayly, “The Pre-History of ‘Communalism’? Religious Conflict in India, 1700-1860,” Modern Asian Studies, 19 (2), 1985, pp.177-203.. The third had emerged from the circumstances of British colonial rule which formally began in 1857 following the decline and defeat of the Mughal Empire and lasting until 1947. Consequently, the post-Independence Indian Army had to deal with these historical legacies with all three factors intertwining in complex ways to make the issue of religion a particularly charged subject^[3]For one of the first discussion of the military in ethnically plural societies see Cynthia Enloe, Ethnic Soldiers: State Security in Divided Societies Athens, University of Georgia Press, 1980..

This essay will first discuss these three legacies and their impact on the post-Independence Indian Army.  It will then discuss how religion has affected recruitment, internal cohesion and particular deployments where the religious composition of particular units had to be taken into account. Long before the arrival of either the Muslim conquerors from Central Asia who created the Mughal dynasty, India was already a religiously plural society^[4]John Richards, The Mughal Empire Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993; also see Jos Gommans, Mughal Warfare: Indian Frontiers and Highroads to Empire New York, Routledge, 2002.. It was already home to a range of faiths including variants of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism. There were also small numbers of adherents of Christianity, Judaism and Zoroastrianism .

The Mughal Period and Its Aftermath

The period of Mughal rule in India saw both collaboration and discord amongst the predominantly Hindu subjects and their Muslim rulers. Interestingly enough, several Mughal rulers not only had Hindu soldiers serving in their armies but also trusted senior officers. Religious identity, though hardly absent, according to much recent scholarship on the subject, was not rigid or fixed. during Mughal rule. However, under British colonial rule, the development of the colonial census on the basis of colonial ethnography and the creation of separate electorates in 1909 led to the reification of religious identity^[5]Crispin Bates (ed.), Beyond Representation: Colonial and Post-Colonial Constructions of Indian Identity New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 2006..

These distinctive identities had actually started to form even in the British colonial army in India even under the rule of the British East India Company. Indeed, under the company’s rule a particularly pernicious and scientifically dubious concept had its genesis --- the idea of martial races – men endowed with particular physical and temperamental attributes that made them especially suitable for the profession of arms. As a noted British military historian of the colonial era has argued:

Some elements of the martial race theory can be traced back to the latter half of the eighteenth century. In those decades the earlier accommodation between Europeans and Indians gave way to more distant relationships.; racial attitudes sharpened and harsh stereotypes emerged. Theories of historical change imagined clear hierarchies of development, from the stage of primitive nomadism to that of high European culture.  From the 1830s, the twin impact of utilitarianism and evangelical Christianity further reinforced notions of racial inequality and Indian depravity. This thinking began to affect military policy^[6]David Omissi, The Sepoy and the Raj: The Indian Army, 1860-1940 New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 1994, p.23..

These beliefs became increasingly pervasive as racial attitudes hardened as the British East India Company steadily expanded its reach across the subcontinent especially as the Mughal Empire went into a state of terminal decline^[7]William Dalrymple, The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence and the Pillage of an Empire London: Bloomsbury, 2019..

After the Uprising of 1857

in 1857 a major uprising took place against the rule of the East India Company. The immediate cause of the uprising was the introduction of a new rifle in the company’s forces. Its cartridges had to be greased with animal fat --- a practice that was abhorrent to both Hindus and Muslims alike. That, however, was the mere catalyst for the insurrection. The underlying sources of the rebellion could be traced to the growing hostility of Indians to the intrusion of British mores, values, customs and practices that were transforming existing cultural norms^[8]Jill C. Bender, The 1857 Indian Uprising and the British Empire Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2016..

Following this uprising the British Crown took formal control over much of the Indian subcontinent ending the rule of the East India Company.  As the British Crown asserted its rule colonial military authorities anointed certain ethnic and religious groups as belonging to the “martial races” of the subcontinent and deemed others to be “non-martial. For example, Sikhs, predominantly hailing from the Punjab, were deemed to be martial. On the other hand, Hindus from Bengal, were considred non-martial.  Consequently, recruitment into the military swiftly came to be based upon the putatively “martial” attributes of particular ethno-religious groups. These beliefs, which colonial anthropology helped reinforce, became deeply embedded in the British Indian Army^[9]Subhashish Ray, “The Nonmartial Origins of the “Martial Races”: Ethnicity and Military Service in Ex-British Colonies,” Armed Forces and Society, June 2012, 39 (3), pp. 560-575..

Accordingly, recruiting practices in the British Indian Army came to reflect these beliefs and shaped the composition of regiments at the time of the onset of World War One^[10]Dewitt C. Ellinwood, “Ethnic Aspects of the Indian Army in World War I,” Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 39, 1978, pp. 823-831.. However, owing to the sheer demands for manpower as the war progressed, the British were forced to reconsider their attitudes and recruitment became more broad-based^[11]See the detailed discussion in Kaushik Roy, Indian Army and the First World War, 1914-18 New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 2018.. Nevertheless, colonial prejudices were resurrected during the inter-war years with the British military authorities continuing to see some Indian ethnic and religious groups, notably Bengalis, as effeminate and unsuited for military service. Ironically, this attitude on the part of the British generated a backlash from a range of Indian intellectuals who came to assert the masculinity of their countrymen and the desirability of inculcating martial virtues in their population. Interestingly enough, to varying degrees, both secular Indian nationalists such as Motilal Nehru to ardent Hindu nationalists such as B.S. Moonje, highlighted the need to recognize the martial attributes of Hindus and the need to broaden British military recruitment practices^[12]For a nuanced and skilled discussion see Kate Imy, Faithful Fighters: Identity and Power in the British Indian Army Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2019..

Post-World War Two, Independence and Partition

Shortly after World War Two India obtained its independence from the United Kingdom. However, as the British withdrew from the subcontinent, unable to forge any accord between the principal religious minority population, the Muslims and the religious majority, the Hindus, they chose to partition their empire in South Asia into the independent states of India and Pakistan.  The partition of the subcontinent came at considerable human cost with the loss of over a million lives and the displacement of at least another ten million individuals^[13]Radha Kumar, “The Troubled History of Partition,” Foreign Affairs, January-February 1997, pp.22-34.. More to the point, however, it involved the division of the British Indian Army. This process was especially fraught because of the mixed religious composition of the armed forces and especially the largest of the three services, the British Indian Army.

The vast majority of Muslims whether enlisted men or officers opted to join the armed forces of Pakistan. However, a small segment, for an array of reasons, chose to remain in India. Some did not want to leave what they believed was their ancestral land. Others genuinely subscribed to India’s constitutional commitment to secularism and thereby the promise of equal treatment in an independent India. According to one source, 215 Muslim officers and 339 Viceroy’s Commissioned Officers (later referred to as Junior Commissioned Officers) decided to stay on in India. It is intriguing to note that, on occasion, two members of the same family opted for different countries^[14]Omar Khalidi, “Ethnic Group Recruitment in the Indian Army: The Contrasting Cases of Sikhs, Gurkhas and Others,” Pacific Affairs, Winter, 2001-2002, 74(4), pp. 529-552..

It is worth noting that the new government even before it formally assumed office in August 1947 had declared that its policy was to do away with the distinction between martial and non-martial races in its recruitment policies. This new policy, however, according to a noted British historian, proved to be more difficult to implement than envisaged. For example, in the first decade after independence the proportion of Sikhs in the Armored Corps was as high as 48 percent^[15]Margaret Macmillan, “The Indian Army Since Independence,” South Asia Review, 3(1), October 1969, pp.45-68..

The status of Muslims in the Indian Army after independence remained problematic. No formal barriers existed for the entry of Muslims into the armed forces. That being said, there was ample evidence of societal prejudice against Muslims which, no doubt, affected recruitment policies. Worse still, a highly-decorated Indian officer, Field-Marshal Cariappa, in a public interview had questioned the loyalty of Indian Muslims^[16]Omar Khalidi, op. cit., p. 533.. Despite these inimical views there is scant evidence of disloyalty on the part of Indian Muslim soldiers or officers. On the contrary, during several wars with Pakistan individual Muslim soldiers and officers displayed extraordinary courage and valor.  Probably, in an effort to bolster the country’s secular credentials and also, no doubt, to reassure the country’s substantial Muslim populations, the armed forces and the political elite often highlighted these sacrifices^[17]Manoj Joshi, “Jhirad, Nisht, Tarapore , Khan: Four Indian Heroes of the 1965 War,” The Wire, September 17, 2020. [Online] … Continue reading.

Thus far, the leadership of the Indian armed forces, composed of the Indian Air Force and the Indian Navy,  and especially the vast Indian Armyhas devised deft practices to accommodate the religious needs and preferences of men and women in uniform. To that end, it has long had provisions to enable them to profess their faith. Specifically, every unit has religious authorities attached to counsel and attend to the religious concerns of military personnel^[18]See the discussion in Amit Ahuja, “India” in Ron E. Hassner (ed.), Religion In The Military Worldwide Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2014, pp.160-161..

In the years and decades after its independence India had its share of Hindu-Muslim violence. Often local police proved incapable of quelling the riots and the military had to be called in to contain the violence. For the most part, the military proved reluctant to get involved in these “aid to the civil” operations because of two compelling reasons. First, it was reluctant to use force against its own citizenry. Second, it was also concerned that using force against one’s compatriots belonging to the same faith could lead to fissures within the Indian Army. Nevertheless, when called upon to do so the military responded positively to the demands of civil authority^[19]Sumit Ganguly, “From the Defense of the Nation to Aid to the Civil: The Army in Contemporary India,” Journal of Asian and African Affairs, 26 (1-2), 1991..

The Aftermath of Operation Blue Star

One of the rare breaches of military discipline occurred in the early 1980s. Indeed, no domestic upheaval has shaken the Indian political elite or the armed forces that transpired in 1984. In the early 1980s in the Indian border state of Punjab was in the throes of a major ethno-religious, secessionist insurgency with a segment of the Sikh population demanding the creation of a separate state^[20]Gurharpal Singh & Giorgio Shani, Sikh Nationalism Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2021..  As the insurgency raged, a number of Sikh militants took refuge in the holiest of the Sikh shrines in India, the Golden Temple, in the city of Amritsar. After much consideration, the government of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ordered the Indian Army to lay siege to the temple. Specifically, the operation was designed to capture or kill a group of violent Sikh extremists, including their leader, a radical priest, Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale who had ensconced themselves in its premises and were using it as their base for terrorist operations across Punjab and beyond^[21]Kuldeep Brar, Operation Blue Star: The True Story New Delhi, 1993..

It is worth noting that a Sikh officer, Lieutenant-General K.S. Brar, was specifically chosen to lead the operation. Brar, has made known that to avoid collateral damage the army units had been specifically instructed to only use light weapons in the initial assault. Only after the military encountered heavy fire from the militants who were holed up in the inner sanctum of the temple that it resorted to the use of tanks and artillery^[22]Mohit Saggu, “7 things you need to know about Operation Blue Star,” Daily News and Analysis, June 6, 2014.. The effort, though ultimately successful, resulted in the deaths of a number of Sikh pilgrims who were caught in the crossfire^[23]Mark Tully & Satish Jacob, Amritsar: Mrs. Gandhi’s’ Last Battle Calcutta, Rupa and Company, 1985.. The destruction of significant parts of the Golden Temple inflamed the sentiments of a number of men (but no officers) of the Indian Army who deserted their posts following this episode.

Worse still, two of Indira Gandhi’s Sikh bodyguards, incensed with the army’s attack on the Golden Temple, assassinated her. Quite understandably, the desertion of the army personnel following Operation Blue Star and the subsequent killing of the prime minister caused much concern both within the political elite as well as the armed forces about the future of religious solidarity within the armed forces. The sentiments of Sikh soldiers, no doubt, were also deeply aggravated in the wake of a pogrom that swept through much of New Delhi following her assassination^[24]Virginia Van Dyke, “The Anti-Sikh Riots of 1984: Politicians, Criminals, and the Discourse of Communalism,” in Paul R. Brass, Riots and Pogroms, New York, New York University Press, 1996.. The willingness of at least 2,000 Sikh soldiers to abandon their post and the killing of a commanding officer by his own men provided a most distressing coda to this episode. In this context, it is worth noting that Sikhs from particular units rebelled. Others, most certainly did notAmit Ahuja op. cit., p.171, p.171..  At another level, it also demonstrated the very real dangers that this operation and its tragic aftermath posed for the cohesion of the Indian Army.

It also needs to be underscored that certain institutional mechanisms designed to prevent an occurrence such as this had clearly failed. Subsequent to these events, senior serving and retired officers of the Indian Army attributed the rebellion to command failure. That said, this lapse was not uniform across the army. Some officers successfully managed to deal with the frustration and anger of their men and thereby contained any possible resort to violence^[25]Ibid., p.172..

The tragic circumstances following Operation Blue Star notwithstanding, in 1992, for example, units of the Indian Army performed in an exemplary fashion when deployed across the country to contain widespread inter-religious violence. Hindu zealots had destroyed the Babri Masjid (mosque) in the state of Uttar Pradesh thereby precipitating the violence that had swept across the country. Hindu extremists had attacked the edifice on the grounds that the Mughal emperor Babur, had erected the mosque after destroying a temple that had consecrated the birthplace of Lord Ram, one of the principal members of the Hindu pantheon^[26]For a discussion of the politics underlying the dispute see Ramesh Thakur, “Ayodhya and the Politics of India’s Secularism: A Double Standard Discourse,” Asian Survey, July 1993, 33(7), … Continue reading. The army had to be called out in a number of different parts of the country because rioters from both communities had easily overwhelmed local police and even paramilitary forces. As a last resort, political authorities had been forced to turn to the army for assistance^[27]Manju Parikh, “The Debacle at Ayodhya: Why Militant Hinduism met with a Weak Response, Asian Survey, July 1993, 33(7), pp.673-684..

Conclusion

Barring the desertion of some Sikh military personnel the Indian Army has not witnessed any serious breaches of discipline on grounds of faith. This form of cohesion, however, may not last indefinitely especially as the currently ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) continues to sow social discord across the country on the basis of faith^[28]Sumit Ganguly, “An Illiberal India?” Journal of Democracy, January 2020, 31(1), pp.193-202.. Though there may be internal documents that provide a breakdown of the religious composition of the three armed forces, precise numbers are not available in the public domain. Nevertheless, it is widely known that Muslims are underrepresented in the armed forces in general and the Indian Army in particular^[29]Amit K. Saksena, “India’s Muslim Soldiers,” The Diplomat, May 20, 2014. [Online] https://thediplomat.com/2014/05/indias-muslim-soldiers/. It is also worth noting that while the Indian Air Force has had a Muslim as its chief of sttf between 1978 and 1981, neither the Indian Navy nor the Indian Army has had a Muslim as its overall commander. Quite apart from being disproportionately represented in the armed forces and especially the Indian Army, Sikhs, on the other hand, have been promoted to the rank of the chiefs of all three branches of the armed forces.  Even though they constitute a miniscule minority of India’s population, several Christians have risen to the ranks of the service chiefs of all three branches of the Indian armed forces.

The status of Muslims in the armed forces and the desertion of small number of Sikh soldiers after the Golden Temple tragedy aside,  the military, thus far, has demonstrated admirable cohesion in a country that has been otherwise rife with ethno-religious strife throughout its independent history. Whether or not the armed forces and particularly the Indian Army, the largest of the three services, will be able to maintain such unity in the future now remains at question. Much, it can be argued, depends upon how politics in the country evolves over the next several years. If the ruling BJP continues its drumbeat of Hindu nationalism, marginalizes Muslims and other religious minorities, and is successful in its attempts to turn the country into a religiously-based polity, fissures along religious lines may well develop within the poly-ethnic armed forces. Such an outcome could prove to be quite deleterious for maintaining the unity of India’s armed forces.