Farewell, Pran Nath Mago 1945Who Will Wear This Uniform?’, war recruitment poster.From poster: “Who
Farewell, Pran Nath Mago 1945Who Will Wear This Uniform?’, war recruitment poster.From poster: “Who will take this money [Rupaiye], rifle [Bandooq], and uniform [Wardi]?” Below the inscription is a cupped pair of hands with a pile of coins, with the answer “He, who immediately enlists in the army.”Lord Frederick Roberts—the Commander-in-Chief in India from 1885 to 1893—was an enthusiastic proponent of the theory of the “martial races” and reshaped the class components of the Indian army, in particular replacing men from the “unmartial” south with the “martial” races of the north. The army was further reorganized by Lord Herbert Kitchener, who became the Commander-in-Chief in India in 1902.The province soon evolved into the recruiting ground for soldiers and policemen for the empire. In August 1914, Punjab (including the British districts and princely states) had 100,000 men in its armies, including 87,000 combatants and 13,000 non-combatants; by the end of the war, Punjab had contributed one-third of all the Indian recruits and over 40% of the total number of Indian combatants mobilized. In 1914, India had one of the largest voluntary armies in the world. Of the 27,522 new recruits enlisted in India between August and Dec. 31, 1914, 13,400 were from Punjab alone. The total number of men to have served from Punjab, including the British districts and the Indian states, by the end of the war was 480,000, including 410,000 combatants and 70,000 non-combatants. Of the 282,170 combatants recruited from Punjab from 1915 until 1918, some 156,300 were Muslims, some 63,900 were Hindus, and 61,970 were Sikhs, though the last religious group—the Sikhs—comprised only 12% of the population.These men were mostly “peasant-warriors” belonging to tribes designated as the “martial races”. -- source link