Faithful Fighters

Martial races as clubs? The institutional logic of the martial race system of British India

“…As the above quotes suggest, the British also attempted to harden the differences between the martial races and other Indians -for instance the difference between Sikhs and Hindus, or the differences between Rajputs and Jats on the one hand, and other peasant populations on the other, attempting to turn what had been relative fluid groups into fixed categories (Imy, 2019;Omissi, 2016). While this has traditionally been seen as another aspect of 'divide and rule', this phenomenon is also consistent with the club goods model as it reduces the outside options of club members, and has been observed in other, non-colonial contexts such as Orthodox Judaism (Carvalho and Koyama, 2016).…”

“…The British were victorious but were impressed with the fighting skills and motivation of the Sikh army, which they began to incorporate in the East India Company armies (Streets, 2017). The Sikhs remained loyal to the British during the Indian Mutiny of 1857, primarily because they feared that the success of the Mutiny would lead to the reestablishment of the Mughal Empire which had persecuted their faith in its early years (Imy, 2019). Although the Sikhs therefore came to be seen as quintessentially loyal by the British, their support for the Raj was therefore more a case of preferring the lesser of two perceived evils, and many Sikhs continued to yearn for the independent Sikh Empire of the pre-colonial Punjab (Imy, 2019).…”

“…Along with the Khalsa Sikhs, the Gurkhas formed one of the major stalwarts of the British Indian army (Imy, 2019). The Gurkhas were recruited from Nepal, which was not formally part of the British Empire and culturally distinct from most of India.…”

“…The British reluctance to recruit well educated intellectuals from the urban classes into the military has often been seen as a result of fears that such individuals would also be more prone to Indian nationalism. However, the British were also reluctant to recruit other groups with similarly high outside optionsfor instance, groups which specialized in urban trade, even if, as in the case of the Khatri group, they were (non-Khalsa) Sikhs (Imy, 2019).…”