Question

what was the step taken by the british to reorganize the army after the revolt of 1857

Answer 1

The Indian branch of the army was to be used for expansion in Asia and Africa, while the British section was to be used as an army of occupation—the ultimate guarantee of British hold over India.

To begin with, domination of the European branch over the Indian branches was ensured. The-commissions of 1859 and 1879 insisted on the principle of a one-third white army (as against 14% before 1857).

Finally, the proportion of Europeans to Indians was carefully fixed at one to two in the Bengal Army and two to five in the Madras and Bombay Armies. Strict European monopoly over key geographical locations and departments, such as artillery, tanks and armed corps, was maintained.

Even the rifles given to Indians were of an inferior quality till 1900, and Indians were not allowed in these high-tech departments till the Second World War. No Indians were allowed in the officer rank, and the highest rank an Indian could reach till 1914 was that of a Subedar (only from 1918 onwards were Indians allowed in the commissioned ranks). As late as 1926, the Indian Sandhurst Committee was visualising a 50% Indianised officer cadre for 1952!

The Indian branch was reorganised on basis of the policy of balance and counterpoise or divide and rule. The 1879 Army Commission had emphasised—”Next to the grand counterpoise of a sufficient European force comes the counterpoise of natives against natives.” An ideology of ‘martial races’ and ‘non-martial races’, which assumed that good soldiers could come only from some specific communities, developed particularly from the late 1880s, under Lord Roberts, the commander-in-chief from 1887 to 1892.

It was used to justify a discriminatory recruitment policy directed towards Sikhs, Gurkhas and Pathans who had assisted in the suppression of the revolt and were relatively marginal social groups— therefore less likely to be affected by nationalism. The soldiers from Awadh, Bihar, Central India and South India who had participated in the revolt were declared to be non-martial.

Moreover, caste and communal companies were introduced in all the regiments and Indian regiments were made a mixture of various socio-ethnic groups so as to balance each other. Communal, caste, tribal and regional consciousness was encouraged to check the growth of nationalist feelings among soldiers. Charles Wood, the secretary of state for India, said, “I wish to have a different and rival spirit in different regiments, so that Sikh might fire into Hindu, Gorkha into either, without any scruple in case of need.”

Finally, conscious efforts were made to isolate the soldiers from life and thoughts of rest of the population through measures such as preventing newspapers, journals and nationalist publications from reaching them.

On the whole, the British Indian Army remained a costly military machine.