05-25-2024, 04:33 AM
The matter of martial race and “class” composition was an issue of some importance to British officers in deciding whether to stay on in Pakistan. It is perhaps not difficult to believe that these British officers so immersed in favorable views of martial race would not continue to utter and promote these beliefs to those same martial race officers now being groomed to assume leadership of the army. As late as 1945, Colonel Christopher Bromhead Birdwood argued for the immutable logic of martial race, despite protests of its racially discriminatory presumptions.73 The Punjabi and Pashtun officers arguably provided a receptive audience to these senior British officers so enamored with martial race. The positive views of these British officers would have probably gone some way in confirming these beliefs of exceptionalism in the older generation of Pakistani officers, as well as indoctrinating the newer generations being trained at the PMA. In so doing, these British Indian officers ensured the continuation of these beliefs in the army:
https://www.usmcu.edu/Outreach/Marine-Co...c-Culture/
There is much to unpack concerning how Indian Independence and Partition occurred, and this topic falls under that umbrella. But those British Officers' imperial racism, blended with their experiences, produced pro-Muslim or anti-Hindu biases. Oddly, Pakistan's new and future military commanders inherited that element from the Indian Army, which was abolished in 1947.
Moreover, Lieutenant General Sir Francis Tuker wrote about communalism's bloody stains overrunning India in the lead-up to the end of British rule, and he displayed the above biases in his While Memory Serves. Tuker and his cadre of Indian Army officers viewed Hinduism in the same manner; people view Islamic extremism in the present.
https://archive.org/details/1950-while-m...s-by-tuker
Counterfactual argument: I have sometimes wondered what might have occurred if a unified Indian Army served in a buffer zone between India and Pakistan. However, such an outcome was most likely impossible by the late 1940s.
Otherwise, I have barely scratched the historical surface of this topic, including those British officers who remained in service with the post-independence Indian and Pakistani armies.
https://www.usmcu.edu/Outreach/Marine-Co...c-Culture/
There is much to unpack concerning how Indian Independence and Partition occurred, and this topic falls under that umbrella. But those British Officers' imperial racism, blended with their experiences, produced pro-Muslim or anti-Hindu biases. Oddly, Pakistan's new and future military commanders inherited that element from the Indian Army, which was abolished in 1947.
Moreover, Lieutenant General Sir Francis Tuker wrote about communalism's bloody stains overrunning India in the lead-up to the end of British rule, and he displayed the above biases in his While Memory Serves. Tuker and his cadre of Indian Army officers viewed Hinduism in the same manner; people view Islamic extremism in the present.
https://archive.org/details/1950-while-m...s-by-tuker
Counterfactual argument: I have sometimes wondered what might have occurred if a unified Indian Army served in a buffer zone between India and Pakistan. However, such an outcome was most likely impossible by the late 1940s.
Otherwise, I have barely scratched the historical surface of this topic, including those British officers who remained in service with the post-independence Indian and Pakistani armies.
