Tempo:
Europeanization of the Army
253
forces of misls, and the jagirdari fauj (the horsemen furnished by holders of jagirs). Three things should be borne in mind about this enormous increase in the size and efficiency of the army. In the first place, since all the major conquests had already been made, the anny had to be maintained out of the revenues, which did not increase. (The expansion on the nonh-west and beyond Kashmir was not particularly lucrative.) The Maharajah had, as a matter of policy, kept his army in arrears of pay. From 1822 onwards, these arrears increased so much that instead of keeping the incidence of desertion low, as was intended, they became the cause of indiscipline and mutiny. Secondly, although modem methods of training were introduced, the mode of recruitment remained the same. Men were not recruited individually but in batches from the same village and were frequently members of the same family or clan. Thus the senior member of the farnily or the tribal elder who had introduced the men to the service joined as officers instead of being promoted by merit. A new kind of army unit consisting of between fifteen to twenty men, usually members of the same family, grew up. These men were banded together into <!,eras (camps) and after 1822, the c;leras grouped into divisions (which wei-e under the charge of generals like Lehna Singh Majithia, Misr Dewan Chand, or the Attariwala Sardars). By continuing this method of recruitmem in a large army, the Durbar unwittingly sowed the seeds of its own destruction. The real leadership of .the men remained in the hands of the leaders of the c;leras. These new <!,eradars began to bargain for better terms for their men and, if salaries remained unpaid for too long, to incite them to rebellion. A spirit of trade unionism began to pervade the army. The generals were gradually reduced to the position of military tacticians and had to lead in the field of battle men they did not know and who owed no personal loyalties to them. Thirdly, with Europeanization an anti-English sentiment grew in the Durbar anny. Great numbers of the senior foreign officers hated the English. They did little to discourage the notion that the anny, which was already too large, was being increased and
253
forces of misls, and the jagirdari fauj (the horsemen furnished by holders of jagirs). Three things should be borne in mind about this enormous increase in the size and efficiency of the army. In the first place, since all the major conquests had already been made, the anny had to be maintained out of the revenues, which did not increase. (The expansion on the nonh-west and beyond Kashmir was not particularly lucrative.) The Maharajah had, as a matter of policy, kept his army in arrears of pay. From 1822 onwards, these arrears increased so much that instead of keeping the incidence of desertion low, as was intended, they became the cause of indiscipline and mutiny. Secondly, although modem methods of training were introduced, the mode of recruitment remained the same. Men were not recruited individually but in batches from the same village and were frequently members of the same family or clan. Thus the senior member of the farnily or the tribal elder who had introduced the men to the service joined as officers instead of being promoted by merit. A new kind of army unit consisting of between fifteen to twenty men, usually members of the same family, grew up. These men were banded together into <!,eras (camps) and after 1822, the c;leras grouped into divisions (which wei-e under the charge of generals like Lehna Singh Majithia, Misr Dewan Chand, or the Attariwala Sardars). By continuing this method of recruitmem in a large army, the Durbar unwittingly sowed the seeds of its own destruction. The real leadership of .the men remained in the hands of the leaders of the c;leras. These new <!,eradars began to bargain for better terms for their men and, if salaries remained unpaid for too long, to incite them to rebellion. A spirit of trade unionism began to pervade the army. The generals were gradually reduced to the position of military tacticians and had to lead in the field of battle men they did not know and who owed no personal loyalties to them. Thirdly, with Europeanization an anti-English sentiment grew in the Durbar anny. Great numbers of the senior foreign officers hated the English. They did little to discourage the notion that the anny, which was already too large, was being increased and
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