The Testimonies of Indian Soldiers and the Two World Wars

Between Self and Sepoy

Gajendra Singh

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN:
  9781474247870
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781780938202
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: 20th Century History
• Index: History

In the two World Wars, hundreds of thousands of Indian sepoys were mobilized, recruited and shipped overseas to fight for the British Crown. The Indian Army was the chief Imperial reserve for an empire under threat. But how did those sepoys understand and explain their own war experiences and indeed themselves through that experience? How much did their testimonies realise and reflect their own fragmented identities as both colonial subjects and imperial policemen?

The Testimonies of Indian Soldiers and the Two World Wars draws upon the accounts of Indian combatants to explore how they came to terms with the conflicts. In thematic chapters, Gajendra Singh traces the evolution of military identities under the British Raj and considers how those identities became embattled in the praxis of soldiers' war testimonies – chiefly letters, depositions and interrogations. It becomes a story of mutiny and obedience; of horror, loss and silence. This book tells that story and is an important contribution to histories of the British Empire, South Asia and the two World Wars.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 In Search of Colonial Negatives: Martial Race Theories, Recruiting Handbooks and the Indian Army, c.1890–1945
• Chapter 2 ‘More Like Brothers and Fathers to the Sepoys’: Welfare, Discipline and Censorship in the Army
• Chapter 3 The Perils of ‘Oriental Correspondence’: Sipahis, Letters and Writing at the Crossroads
• Chapter 4 Throwing Snowballs in France: (Re-)Writing a Letter and (Re-)Appraising Islam, 1915–1918
• Chapter 5 Mutiny, Fabricating Court Testimony and Hiding in the Latrine: The 5th Light Infantry in Singapore
• Chapter 6 ‘Breaking the Chains with Which We Were Bound’: The Interrogation Chamber, the Indian National Army and the Negation of Military Identities, 1941–1947
• Conclusion: Reading Rebels, Writing Ghosts
• Notes
• Appendix I: Recruitment, Military Service and Casualties in the Indian Army during World War I
• Appendix II: Recruitment into the Indian Army during World War II
• Appendix III
• Glossary
• Bibliography
• Index