Chapter: Soldiers and Sepoys
"The lines of the European, or Queen's, regiments were
separate from those of the native regiments of the East India Company; and the
native city was quite separate from both. The spacious European station was
'laid out in large rectangles formed by wide roads', the native city in
contrast being an aggregate of houses perforated by tortuous paths, so that a
plan of it would resemble a section of worm eaten wood . . . The handful of
Europeans [occupied] four times the space of the city which [contained] tens of
thousands of Hindoos and Mussulmen."
"These natives (Indians serving British soldiers as barbers, washer
men, tailors etc.), treated usually with a kind of amused contempt, were
obliged to grow as accustomed to insults and blows as the servants of many officers
were. Sergeant Pearman recalled, as a typical example, how a British soldier
hurled a boot at one of the black men who came into the barrack-rooms of a
morning with large earthen vessels on their heads, calling out, 'Hot coffee,
Sahib'. The vessel broke and the steaming coffee ran down the poor man's body."
"The sepoys were also of more imposing physique than the
European soldiers since there was never a shortage of recruits, and commanding
officers were able to choose only the strongest, tallest and most
presentable-looking men, while medical officers felt justified in rejecting all
those with physical defects."
"In the Bengal Army most soldiers, both Muslim and
Hindu, were enlisted in Oudh, the large province in what is now Uttar Pradesh,
whose capital was Lucknow. They were generally taller than the white soldiers,
few being less than five feet eight inches. Three out of four were Hindus, and
of these most were high-caste Brahmins or Rajputs, the profession of arms being
considered by Hindus worthy and honourable, like the calling of a poet."
"Although it was virtually impossible to gain promotion by
merit, a native soldier did at least have the satisfaction of knowing that,
provided he could read and write and had a record of good conduct, he would be
promoted when his turn eventually came, even though he might have to wait
twenty years before he became a havildar, was unlikely to be commissioned until
he was within a year or two of being pensioned off, and would never rise higher
in rank than the most junior European subaltern, however young and
inexperienced the subaltern might be."
"There were more obvious threats to religion than railways.
Missionaries, prohibited from working in India in the eighteenth century, now
spoke openly of the day when all men would embrace Christianity and turn
against their heathen gods; and, though it was claimed that the missionaries
were not paid by the Government - as the chaplains who cared for the British
soldiers and civilians were - their activities were approved of, and in many
cases supported by, the Government."
"Proselytizing civilians were even more common. Herbert
Edwardes, Commissioner of Peshawar, who believed that India had been given to
England rather than to Portugal or France because England had made 'the
greatest effort to preserve the Christian religion in its purest apostolic
form' , had no doubt of his evangelical mission.44 Nor had Robert Tucker, judge
at Fatehpur, who set up large stone columns, inscribed with the Ten
Commandments in Hindu and Urdu, English and Persian on each side of the high
road leading to Fatehpur, and who 'used two or three times a week to read the
Bible in Hindoostanee to large numbers of natives who were assembled in the
compound to hear him."
"Hindu sepoys who had gone overseas or crossed the Indus were
likely to be spurned by their comrades when they returned home. After the
Afghan War none of the Hindoos in Hindostan would eat with their comrades
who went to Afghanistan', wrote Subahdar Hedayet Ali, 'no r would they even
allow them to touch their cooking utensils. They looked upon them all as
outcasts, and treated them accordingly."
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