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On Tamil Militarism - a 11 Part
Essay
Part 7: The Tamil Soldier and the Dravidian Diaspora
Lanka Guardian, [pp.12-13
and 28]
[prepared by
Sachi Sri Kantha, for electronic record]
15 August 1992
 The
idea of the �modern Indian army� is rarely associated
with the Tamils. The nature or its ethnic composition
generates the impression that it is a predominantly
north Indian phenomenon. This impression has become so
strongly established that the military history of the
British Empire�s rise has been studied in recent times
in connection with the role of the �martial peoples� of
north India in the British Indian army. The tenacity and
power of this �impression� in modern scholarship is best
illustrated in the argument of David Washbrook:
�The role the British Indian army played in
international affairs over the course of the 19th century
however, lifts it out of the context of British Indian relations
and places it in a broader global perspective. It was not an
army intended primarily for domestic defence and police duties
in India. Rather, it was the army of British Imperialism, formal
and informal, which operated worldwide, opening up markets to
the products of industrial revolution, subordinating labour
forces to the dominating of capital and bringing to �benighted�
civilizations the enlightened values of Christianity and
Rationality. The Indian army was the iron fist in the velvet
glove of Victorian expansionism.Moreover, because the British
Empire was the principal agency through which the world system
functioned in this era, the Indian army was in a real sense the
major coercive force behind the internationalization of
industrial capitalism. Paradoxically (or not!), the
martialization of north Indian society and, in many ways the
feudalization of its agrarian relations, were direct corrolaries
of the development of capitalism on a world scale during the
19th century.� (Washbrook: 1990)
Washbrook�s view is based on what the Indian army
was towards the latter part of the nineteenth century. It is
underpinned by an �impression� which arose many years after the
British had established their strategic hold on India and had laid
the Empire�s foundation with what was known as their �Coastal Army�
which was built up in the latter half of the 18th century, mainly
with Tamil soldiers. The British succeeded in empire-building not by
martialising dominant north Indian military caste communities, but
by building up a cheap but loyal and effective army of predominantly
Tamil soldiers. Until the latter half of the 19th century, it was
the Tamil Christian soldier who was the main coercive force behind
the expansion of the Empire in the subcontinent and elsewhere.
The British recruitment handbook for Madras classes, says
�It can truthfully be said that the Coast Army
was mainly instrumental in conquering India for the British.�
(p.8) The Tamil soldier was seen as the bearer of the Sword and
the Bible � with few religious and caste prejudices which
madehim suitable for expeditions beyond the sea unlike his more
expensive brethren in north India. Contrary to what Washbrook
claims, the early phase of British overseas expansion in East,
West and South Asia was not based on the martialisation of north
Indian society, but on the south Indian alternative to its
military labour market � the loyal classes of Tamils.
�During this whole period, as always throughout its existence,
the Coast Army was specially noteworthy for the cheerful
alacrity with which its regiments have volunteered of service
overseas. The Bengal regiments on many occasions refused to
embark for foreign service, on the plea that it was contrary to
their religion. But the Coast Army willingly embarked, and took
a leading part in many successful expeditions, including Manila
(1762), Mahe (1779), Ceylon (1782 and 1795), Amboyna and the
Spice Islands (1796), Egypt (1801-02), Bourbon and Mauritius
(1810) and Java (1811-12)�.
The Coast Army took part in the final expedition
against the King of Kandy which was followed by the first war in
Burma (1824-26). The first war by the British in China was also
fought by them in 1840-42 where the 37th Madras Infantry was made
grenadier battalion for its distinguished conduct. Sir Hugh Gough
reported on their service in the China war that �their perseverance
and gallantry before the enemy have secured for them the confidence
of the British European soldiers.� (Recruitment Handbook for Madras
Classes, p.6)
Even a brief study of the history of the Coast Army and the Tamil
soldiers who were recruited into it would reveal that the �military
agency� which �conveyed British capitalist power to areas of the
world (including the South Asian hinterland) it could not otherwise
have reached� had a very small proportion of north Indian military
groups. Washbrook�s argument that the World Capitalist system which
the British Empire helped so much to expand rested heavily on the
intermediation of the Indian army and that without it and similar
agencies constituted outside the European capitalism core, �the
forces of world capitalism would have been ethnic, much weaker or
else of a very different kind� is plausible but the argument that
harnessing the dynamic potential of the readily available north
Indian military groups made it cheaper for the British to rapidly
expand their empire, is untenable in view of the two most critical
phases which determined the hold of the English on the subcontinent.
The first phase begins towards the middle of the 18th century. It
was the contest with the French that first compelled the British to
abandon their policy in India till then, that was was bad for trade,
and raise local troops. There was in the subcontinent at that time
paramilitary caste groups whose services could be obtained for a
fee. The British unlike the great Indian princedoms in that era
could not afford the soldiery of the high caste martial groups
although they very much desired them. From the proceedings of the
government, dated 7th May 1770, it appears that the Sepoy battalions
then consisted of Mohamedans, Tamils and Telugus, but no details of
caste are given. It may be inferred that the number of Brahmans,
Rajputs and Maharattas in the Madras army was very small. It is
clear that the authorities were desirous of restricting enlistments
to men of good caste, but it is equally clear that this wasnot
practicable during the last (18th) century.�
Again in 1795, it is stated that �owing to the small pay of the
sepoy and the high price of rice, considerable difficulty was
experienced in obtaining good recruits, and the battalions were kept
up to their proper strength by accepting undersized men and those of
low caste.� (Phytian Adams: 1943). Yet Stringer Lawrence and Clive
succeeded in making the cheap low caste Tamil sepoys into an army
with which the English were able to establish themselves as the main
European trading group in India, in the contest with the French. It
later won all the crucial battles that subjugated most of India
during the course of the seventy five years since recruitment of the
first Tamil sepoy levies began in the northern parts of Tamilnadu in
1746.
The East India company established its first military department at
Madras in 1752. The main reason behind the rapid rise of the British
in this era was their low cost but hardy army. The major Indian
kingdoms of the time, although possessed of modern and larger forces
were falling into financial difficulties in maintaining their
expensive high caste soldiery whose pay arrears was frequent cause
for mutiny. The English fought with the advantage of an extremely
loyal army which did not rebel for pay. The Recruitment Handbook of
the Madras classes records �never were these qualities more fully
tried than in the war with Hyder. The pay of the army was sixteen
months in arrears, famine raged all over the country, the enemy was
at the gates offering large bounty and pay to our Sepoys to desert,
but in vain. Under all these circumstances severe action were
fought. Their conduct during the war excited the admiration of all
who knew it, and Frederick the Great of Prussia was known to have
said, �after reading Orme�s account of the war, that had he the
command of troops who acted like the sepoys on that occasion, he
could conquer all Europe.�(9)
The second crucial phase in which the future of the British as an
Empire building power was determined was the period in which the
Indian Mutiny erupted in North India. Again, it was the loyal Coast
Army that helped the English survive the Mutiny. It was the Mutiny
that made the British reorganize the Indian army into that form
which Washbrook considers in his thesis.
�In 1857-58, came the great Mutiny of the army
in Bengal, when the Coast Army displayed its loyalty and
devotion in no uncertain manner. In a despatch dated the 19th
August 1859, the Secretary of State of India said, �The
commander-in-chiefs Minute contains only a slight sketch of the
important services rendered by the Madras army during the great
contest in the North of India. The great fact has been the
perfect fidelity of that army and the perfect loyalty of the 23
millions of persons who inhabit this Presidency, which enabled
the resources of the South of India to be freely put forth in
support of our hard-pressed country men in North.�
Lieut-General Sir Patrick Grant said,
�The services in the field of the Troops of this
Presidency employed in the suppression or the Rebellion and the
Mutiny are now a matter of history, and the glowing terms in
which they have been recognized must endure for ever, an
unperishable record of this noble soldiers. It can never be
forgotten that, to their immortal honour, the native troop of
the Madras army have been, in the words of the Earl of
Ellenborough, faithful found among the faithless.�
The Dravidian ideology was underpinned by the idea
of the loyal Tamil soldier of British Coast Army, bringing to
�benighted� civilizations the enlightened values of Christianity and
Rationality. Caldwell and his successors elaborated a theory of a
Tamil Diaspora as the bedrock of Protestantism and the English
Empire on this idea.
Bishop N.C.Sargant, who like Caldwell, was the Church of England�s
Bishop of Tinnevely spells it out clearly in his �Dispersion of the
Tamil Church�:
�The Tamils are great soldiers; they went with
the army along with their families and lived in its newly
established camps and in the newly captured territories�they
were excellent instruments for establishing the Church among the
Telugu and Kannada speaking peoples.� �There is much evidence to
show that Tamil soldiers � of the British Indian Army � and
those (Tamils) who followed the army took the gospel with them
to the other parts of India.� (Sargant: 1940, p.32 and p.68)
About the intention of his word, Sargant says,
�The Dispersion of the Jews was a preparation
for the spread of Christianity in the ancient world. Similarly
can it be said that the Dispersion of the Tamil church helped
the missionaries? The first Apostles found some God fearing
Jews, as their first believers. Did the missionaries find the
Tamils perceptive�was this race the first fruit of Christian
work? I tried to find answers to such questions�This research
made me understand that Christ realised many unexpected and
inexplicable things through the Dispersion of the Tamils and the
Tamil Church.�
Sargant, like Caldwell and Bishop Whitehead before
him, believed that research into ancient Dravidian forms of
expression found in Tamil would reveal that there were many
surprising words and ideas which denoted Christian concepts such as
that of sin. �Like the ancient Hebrews the ancient Dravidians also
tried to lead a righteous spiritual life.�(p.3) The close connection
between the British Indian army�s early conquests, the Society for
the Propagation of the Gospel (S.P.G.), the Dispersion of the
English Church, and the Tamils of Bishop Caldwell�s flock in
Tinnevely is described by Sargant in detail (chapters 2, 3, 5). Thus
the Tamil soldier, the Tamil Diaspora and the Dravidian movement
came to constitute a basis of the British Imperial project.
The nationalist reaction to this project in the Tamil country,
articulated by the terrorist movement, proclaimed modern Tamil
militarism as the means of national emancipation from British rule.
References
(1) Recruitment handbooks of the Indian Army
series. Madras Classes, by Lieut-Col.G.E.D.Mouat, revised by
Capt.G.Kennedy Cassels, New Delhi: Govt.of India Press, 1938.
(2) I have used a Tamil translation of Sargant�s book. The
Dispersion of the Tamil Church, N.C.Sargant, 1940; translated
into Tamil by Rev.C.L.Vethakkan, 1964.
(3) Madras Infantry 1748-1943, Lt.Col.Edward Gwynee Phythiam
Adams, Govt. Press, Madras, 1943.
(4) An interesting study of the military labour market in north
India has been done recently by Ditk.H.Kloff-Naukar, Rajput and
Sepoy: The Ethnohistory of the Military Labour Market in
Hindustan 1450-1850, Cambridge University Press, New York, 1990.
(5) History of the Madras Army, Lt.Col.W.J.Wilson, Madras Govt.
Press, 5 vols., 1882-89.
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