100 years of Indianisation of the Army and early concerns of British officers

Amid the current emphasis on giving up the colonial vestiges of the Army, it is worth revisiting the
essentials of the report prepared by Gen Henry Rawlinson and how it laid the foundations of the
present-day Indian Army.On February 17, 1923, the Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army General
Henry Rawlinson spoke on a resolution on Indianisation of the Indian Army and the King’s Commission
for officers in the Delhi Legislative Assembly. Amid the present-day emphasis on giving up the colonial
vestiges of the Army, it is worth revisiting the essentials of the report prepared by the committee
headed by Gen Rawlinson and how it laid the foundations of the present Indian Army. The Eight Unit
Scheme, as the report came to be known, was called so because of the eight regiments which had been
chosen for Indianisation. One of the major points of concern for senior British officers was the prospect
of white soldiers being commanded by Indian officers. This was not something they wished to entertain
and, accordingly, eight units were chosen where the officers would all be Indians over time.

The regiments so chosen were three cavalry units and five infantry units. These included 7th Light
Cavalry, 16th Light Cavalry, 2/1st Punjab, 5/5th Mahratta (Light Infantry, 1/7th Rajput, 1/14th Punjab,
4/19th Hyderabad and 2/1st Madras Pioneers. No ‘elite’ Cavalry Unit was chosen for Indianisation and
neither was any unit from the old and famous Punjab Frontier Force chosen till 1933. General Rawlinson
and his fellow British officers were dedicated adherents to the ‘fighting races’ or the martial races theory
and were concerned about how the average Indian soldier would react to a non-martial race officer
commanding them. Speaking in the Legislative Assembly, the Commander-in-Chief said, “The
government considers that a start should be made at once so as to give Indians a fair opportunity of
proving that units officered by Indians will be efficient in every way. Accordingly, it has been decided
that eight units of cavalry or infantry be selected to be officered by Indians. This scheme will be put into
force immediately. The eight units to be wholly Indianised will be mainly infantry units, but there will be
a proportion of cavalry.”

“They will be chosen judiciously so as to include as many representative types as possible of Indian
battalions and cavalry regiments of the Indian Army. Indian Officers holding commissions in the Indian
Army will be gradually transferred to Indianising units so as to fill up the appointments for which they
are qualified by their rank and by their length of service, and the process of Indianising these units will
then continue uninterruptedly as the officers gain seniority and fitness in other respects, which will
qualify them for the senior posts,” he added. What General Rawlinson did not articulate in the
Legislative Assembly in this particular speech were his reservations about the entire exercise even as he
went about recommending the Indianisation of the Indian Army. These thoughts of his are reflected in
his papers which were edited and brought out as ‘Life of General Lord Rawlinson’. In these papers,
available in national archives, Gen Rawlinson says he fears the effects of the Indianisation process on the
Indian Army as a fighting machine. “Will we ever get the educated Indian to lead a charge of veteran
Sikhs against a sangar held by Mahsuds, and, if he did so, would the Sikhs follow him,” he questioned.

The General further ruminated whether sons of the landowners of fighting races, who are brought up to
despise the ‘babu’, just as the British feudal chiefs despised the clerks, be sufficiently educated to be
trusted with the lives of men in modern war. The Commander-in-Chief told the Viceroy, Lord Reading,
that it will take probably two or three generations to produce Indian officers of the right kind and
sufficient numbers, and the Viceroy agreed. In his last speech in the Legislative Assembly on March 4,
1925, Gen Rawlinson again spoke on the subject of Indianisation. “I do not think they (members of the
Assembly) are quite clear as to whether they would get rid of the whole of the British officers, including
the Commander-in- Chief, in the next 5, 10, 20 or 30 years… My own view is that you will not be able to
do without a large percentage of British officers, and still be in a position to defend India successfully, for
many many years to come”. Gen Rawlinson died on March 28, 1925 in Delhi, the first Commander-in-
Chief to die in office. And he was proven wrong about his assessment. That same generation of Indian
Army officers performed spectacularly well in war and peace in the years that followed, even had British
officers under their command and went on to become Generals in Independent India’s Army.