B K Karkra
Shashi Tharoor in his piece published recently in a national daily has made a soulful case for our honouring the 1.3 million Indian soldiers who fought in and the thousands among them who fell fighting the World War I in the line of their duty. On the other hand, Justice Markandey Katju has, argued in the same paper that these soldiers deserve no such honour, as they were just the mercenaries. He seems to suggest that, in the first place, the Indians should not have joined the Indian Army under the British. If they did so, it was only for money and no honour is involved in their dying for their salt.
Both Tharoor and Justice Katju are high profile thinkers. Their views and words carry high import. But, it appears that here Justice Katju is in serious error. It is impossible to stand behind him on this issue. If his line of argument is accorded acceptance, the very noble profession of soldiery would fall in disrepute. Even the soldiers who fought in the great ‘Mahabharata’ war would have to be dubbed as mercenaries. This war was, by no means, a patriotic surge, but it had been fuelled by territorial ambitions of the two warring groups. Further, the noble soldiers like Bhisham Pitamah, Drona Acharya and Karana etc. fought for the reason of salt and not righteousness.
Similarly, the eleven million Americans who fought in the World War II were also not fighting a patriotic war. Their own country, secured by the two biggest oceans of the earth on their flanks, was in no way threatened in this war. The Crimean War of the mid nineteenth century was also not fought for any patriotic reasons, but only for purposes of global hegemony. However, see how the immortal poem of the British poet laureate Lord Tennyson— The charge of the Light Brigade— soulfully celebrates the suicidal attack of their cavalry on the Russian gun position for its sheer bravery and daring.
Justice Katju is partially right when he says that it was the industrial revolution, unleashed first in Britain and then elsewhere that initiated the race for colonisation by the West. They needed cheap raw materials for their industries and markets for their finished goods. Germany, Italy and Japan were late in the coming in this arena. It was their jealous confrontation with the already entrenched colonial powers like England and France that primarily triggered the two world wars.
However, it was largely the sheer thrill to explore the earth that launched the West on the watery highways of the oceans in the first place. The commercial interests and the hunger to own the world germinated later after some historic voyages met with success. Of course, the industrial revolution that followed gave a new twist to the colonisation endeavours and in simple words, it turned in to a jostling for the economic loot of the captured colonies. The East India Company came to India for commerce. However, it found that it needed to buy so many items from India and India, in turn, had hardly anything to purchase from them, except the cheap drill cloth manufactured in bulk in their factories. To their great disadvantage, purchases in India had thus to be paid in bullion.
The Company had some military muscle at its disposal. The confidence to use it against the Indian states arose from the fact that they could always retreat to the safety of the seas in case of a military debacle. The Company`s wind-fall victory in the Battle of Plassey in1757 AD and even more importantly, in the Battle of Baksar in1764 AD (where the then ruler of India, Shah Alam, virtually a fugitive and a refugee sheltered by the Nawab of Awadh, also nominally participated) afforded them an opportunity to feel that they had defeated India. The vanquished Shah Alam felt compelled to raise the ‘Company Bahadur’ to the position of the Diwan of the province of Bengal which then included the present day West Bengal, Bangladesh, Bihar and Odisha. The Company got in to the act of collecting maximum revenues from Bengal with a policy of extreme coercion or rather outright cruelty and retain a bulk of the money for themselves. These revenue surpluses came handy to it to pay for the Indian goods. Simultaneously, it started purchasing opium from Malwa and smuggling it to China to turn the country in to a nation of the ‘opium eaters’. Soon after, when the British entrenched themselves as the rulers in their own right, they did do all that Justice Katju has alleged.
However, this does not mean that the natives should not have joined the British colonial army at all. It is simply nauseating to refer to them as the ‘hired assassins’, as Justice Katju has chosen to do. Where would we have stood on the 15th of August, 1947, if these so called mercenaries were not there to form the nucleus of the Indian Army? We would have been virtually a nation without an army for a considerable time to come. The native young men joined the noble profession of soldiery not for employment alone, but for social prestige and out of their inner urge to be counted for their manliness. They were always Indians at heart, as their mutiny of 1857 AD, their spontaneous joining of the I.N.A. of Subash Chander Bose and many other periodic patriotic upheavals in their ranks would amply suggest.
Nonetheless, once a soldier decides to serve in the army, he is expected to remain true to his salt to his last breath. It is not for him to decide who he would fight against and who he would not. It was the laudable performance and prowess of the Indian soldiery in the two World Wars that made the West look at us with respect. Perhaps, it also put a realisation in the British hearts that their time was up in India. Their number in our country never exceeded more than two hundred thousand. They realised that from then onward, they would have to live precariously among a few million of serving and demobilised native soldiers who were next to none in dare-devilry. They would always carry the potential to turn their apple cart, if aroused beyond a limit. These soldiers have thus played an indirect but very significant role in securing independence for the country. The allied nations for whom they fought and fell are fully conscious of the contribution of the Indian soldiers and are prepared to felicitate them in all possible ways. We also should not hold back the glowing tributes and honour that they deserve for their sacrifices and bravery.
(The author is former Commandant)
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