Faithful Fighters by Imy Kate;

Author:Imy, Kate; [Imy, Kate]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 2019-02-14T16:00:00+00:00

FIGURE 9 The Masjid on the grounds of the Royal Indian Military College. Boys had predefined times for worship. Source: Prince of Wales Royal Indian Military College Dehra Dun. British Library IOR/L/MIL/17/5/2283, opposite page 7. Reprinted with permission.

We are getting a very good co-operative spirit in the college, and the boys are all beginning to understand one thing:-that any sort of intrigue or caste feeling or back-biting will not be tolerated. That sort of thing is absolutely fatal in any army. At Dehra Dun there is plenty of room for every boy to practise his own religion perfectly freely without there being any class feeling or intrigue amongst them. I must say that I am very pleased with the spirit which the boys have shown. From the start I rub into them that the college is the Prince of Wales’s Royal Indian Military College, that they are candidates not for the Punjabi army, or the Bengali army, or the Madrasi army, but for the Indian Army, and that they have got to remember that they are Indians first, whatever their caste.154

In contrast to the “class regiments” that so carefully segregated Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs, the RIMC celebrated national unity and religious integration. This made it the opposite of the King George’s Schools, which segregated future recruits according to religious differences. Haughton revealed that it was still necessary for the army to sort out “religious” differences: “If we have any little cases of enmity amongst the boys, we take them to the gymnasium and give them boxing gloves and make them settle their differences like that.”155 In military schools, religious difference was addressed with interpersonal violence. This inherently privileged the biggest and strongest boys who would be best able to defend their position. It also taught them to view the whole matter as a game of sport. Religion, the army believed, should come second to physical fitness and military discipline. A boy’s ability to defend his faith with his fists no doubt distorted how boys felt about their beliefs and their martial professions. Religious worship became a performance of military masculinity that served, rather than undermined, a soldier’s devotion to the army.

MARCHING TO CHURCH

The fusing of religious devotion and military discipline resulted in an unexpected opportunity for Indian officers to participate in and influence Christianity in the army. In particular, the church parade, or “parade service,” was a prominent symbol of Christianity and imperial duty. British soldiers, dressed in their finest and armed with weapons, caused what former British officer Thomas Nickalls called an “awful clatter” as they marched each week to receive the divine wisdom of the chaplain appointed to their particular military station.156 This ceremony remained in place even as the Indian Army became “Indianized” and South Asian men took leadership roles in the armed services. Indian officers marched to church alongside their British counterparts. Marching to temple, mosque, or gurdwara at military colleges and academies prepared them to participate in, and ultimately show the limitations of, the martial Christianity of their British counterparts.

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