In November 1857, with Delhi recaptured but the rebellion far from over, the Court of Directors instructed Lord Canning to assemble a mixed commission of officers and civil servants to report on the future organization of the Indian Army. Canning was unwilling to devote his key personnel to such an onerous task, and, in May 1858, he appointed a single officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Durand,* to conduct the inquiry. Durand sent a detailed questionnaire to eighty-five military and civil officers. They were required to provide written responses to a series of questions on recruiting, discipline, promotion and various other aspects of army life. In August Durand began drafting summaries of the replies for Lord Canning.
Meanwhile, on 15 July 1858, a Royal Commission had been set up in London ‘to inquire into the organisation of the Indian Army’. Known as the Peel Commission–after its chairman Major-General Jonathan Peel, Secretary of State for War and brother of the late Prime Minister – it was asked to respond to eleven questions regarding the army’s future organization. By December 1858 the Commission had examined forty-seven witnesses and collected a vast amount of written evidence (including the responses to Durand’s questionnaire and Durand’s own summaries). Its report, which was submitted on 7 March 1859, made a number of important recommendations:
The number of European troops necessary for the security of India ‘should… be about 80,000’; the ratio of Indian to European troops should never be greater than 2:1 in Bengal and 3:1 in Madras and Bombay; all brigades should have both Indian and European troops; all Bengal native cavalry should be on the ‘irregular system’ (with a commandant, an adjutant, a medical officer and one European officer per squadron, and the sowars receiving an increase in pay to enable them ‘to purchase and maintain horses and arms of a superior description’), and the other presidencies following suit if it was thought necessary; the native infantry, on the other hand, should be ‘mainly regular’; Artillery ‘should be mainly a European force’; European cadets for native corps should ‘be thoroughly drilled and instructed in their military duty’ in Britain before they were sent out to India.
Only a couple of the recommendations, however, were an attempt to redress the type of professional grievances that many believed were responsible for the mutiny. This was mainly because the questions themselves had not been drafted with any such intention in mind: they were more concerned with the deterrent value of an enlarged European force, and therefore concentrated on its size and organization vis-à-vis its Indian counterpart. But during their examination of the evidence, the Commissioners had had their attention drawn to a number of ‘important points’, many of which were about issues of recruitment and conditions of service. The Commissioners therefore made nine additional recommendations:
1. That the Native Army should be composed of different nationalities and castes, and as a general rule, mixed promiscuously through each regiment. 2. That all men of the regular Native Army… should be enlisted for general service. 3. That a modification should be made in the uniform of the Native troops, assimilating it more to the dress of the country, and making it more suitable to the climate. 4. That Europeans should, as far as possible, be employed in the scientific branches of the service… 5. That… the power of commanding officers be increased. 6. That the promotion of Native commissioned and non-commissioned officers, be regulated on the principle of efficiency, rather than of seniority… 7. That… the attention of H.M. Government be drawn to the expediency… of adopting, if practicable, fixed scales of allowances for the troops in garrison or cantonments, and the field. 8. That the Commander-in-Chief in Bengal be styled the Commander-in-Chief in India… 9. [That] the efficiency of the Indian Army has hitherto been injuriously affected by the small number of officers usually doing duty with the regiments to which they belong.
Of all the recommendations made by the Peel Commission, the most contentious was the one that advocated irregular cavalry (at least in Bengal) but ‘mainly’ regular infantry. In his evidence Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Somerset, the Commander-in-Chief of Bombay, had come out against irregular corps because they were less disciplined and gave too much power to Indian officers. But in a minute of 4 June 1858 J. P. Grant, the President of the Governor-General’s Council, approved of irregulars on the basis that they were the most effective soldiers and could be recruited from untainted areas. Canning’s opinion was a compromise. In a memorandum of August 1858 he suggested that all cavalry and thirty regiments of Bengal Native Infantry should be on the irregular system, with a further twenty of the latter as regulars. But others like Sir Bartle Frere, Commissioner of Sind, and Brigadier-General John Jacob, Commandant of the Sind Irregular Horse, believed that the system should be wholly irregular. Frere and Jacob were supported by the members of the influential Punjab Committee – Sir John Lawrence, Brigadier-General Neville Chamberlain and Lieutenant-Colonel Herbert Edwardes – who recommended extending the system that operated within the Punjab Irregular Force to the rest of the Bengal Army, including promotion by merit and substantial powers for commanding officers. But to ensure its success, they added, the European officers would have to be carefully selected: a ‘bad European officer cannot work a system of merit, he would soon spoil the best native officer in the world’.
In June 1859, having considered the Peel Commission’s report, the Military and Political Committee of the Council of India concurred with the view that all Bengal native cavalry regiments should be organized on the irregular system. They could not, however, agree about native infantry. Three members (J. P. Willoughby, John Lawrence and J. Eastwick) wanted all infantry regiments on the irregular system; the other two (R. J. H. Vivian and H. M. Durand) were, like Canning, in favour of twenty regular and thirty irregular corps. Sir Charles Wood, Secretary of State for India from 1859 to 1866, sided with the majority on grounds of economy and politics: the irregular system was cheaper and would encourage Indians of a higher rank to enter the army. European officers, he added, could be appointed to the irregular regiments by selection from a Staff Corps.
The idea for a Staff Corps – whereby unattached officers on a general list would be appointed to staff, civil and regimental duty – had been suggested first by Sir John Malcolm, the Governor of Bombay, in 1830. Other officers and senior officials – including Lieutenant-General Sir Willoughby Cotton, Commander-in-Chief of Bombay, and Lord Dalhousie, the Governor-General – had urged the creation of such a corps prior to the mutiny. But it had always been rejected on the ground of expense. However, once the Peel Commission had accepted that the ‘efficiency of the Indian Army’ had been ‘injuriously affected by the small number of officers usually doing duty with [their] regiments’, not least because those left behind resented such duty, reform became a priority.
Supported by the majority of Canning’s Council and most other senior figures in India bar the Governor-General and the Commander-in-Chief, Wood’s preference for irregular regiments and a Staff Corps prevailed. Drafts of the warrant for the formation of a separate Staff Corps in each presidency were laid before the Council on 8 January 1861. All Company and Queen’s officers under the rank of field officer were eligible for admittance (as were all officers then in staff employ under the substantive rank of colonel). Henceforth staff employ would include appointments to civil and political posts, to the general and personal staff, and to regimental duty. Ten days after the formation of the Staff Corps, Wood instructed that all Indian regiments were to be organized on the irregular system with six European officers (not including a medical officer). The Bengal Army complied later that year; the Bombay and Madras Armies in 1863 and 1866 respectively.
The chief importance of the irregular system was that it did away with the tendency of European officers to regard regimental duty as a sign of professional failure: henceforth officers were selected for regimental appointments from the Staff Corps. The financial incentive to avoid regimental duty was also removed by the equalization of military allowances with ‘those obtainable in the early stages of civil… or quasi-military employ’. Regimental positions were now regarded as staff appointments with allowances as well as pay. The irregular system also provided Indian troops with the incentives of greater responsibility and higher pay. In a cavalry regiment, for example, the six senior Indian officers were in command of troops (or ressalahs) and received from 120 to 300 rupees per month, depending upon seniority. Even the sowars were paid 27 rupees a month, with the maximum good conduct pay increasing it to 30. Only in infantry regiments did the pay of NCOs and sepoys remain at its former monthly rate.
Another crucial area of military reform was an increase in the power of commanding officers to punish and reward. The vast majority of witnesses who gave evidence to the Peel Commission were of the opinion that Bengal officers, in particular, needed more authority over their men. But some, like John Jacob and the Punjab Committee, accepted that the quality of commanding officers had to be improved if they were to be entrusted with enhanced powers. This was achieved by the switch to the irregular system and the institution of the Staff Corps in 1861: henceforth regimental officers were selected. Later that year the revised Articles of War went a long way to satisfying the reformers’ other demands by giving commanding officers the summary power to reduce NCOs to the ranks and to discharge NCOs and ordinary soldiers (a punishment that carried with it a mandatory loss of pension). They were also given the authority to hold summary trials of NCOs and soldiers and, on conviction, to carry out sentences without confirmation from higher authorities, as long as the sentences were not more severe than could be awarded by district courts martial. By 1873 commanding officers could also deprive soldiers of good conduct pay.
In an effort to bolster further the authority of Bengal commanding officers, the Peel Commission recommended that efficiency should replace seniority as the dominant factor in the promotion of Indian troops. The reforms of the 1860s acted on this advice. No sepoy was to be promoted to NCO unless he possessed ‘a competent knowledge of reading and writing in at least one character, except when commanding officers may deem it desirable or expedient to make exceptions in the case of men who have displayed conspicuous courage, or who possess [other useful] qualifications’. In general, seniority was to be taken into account, but commanding officers had the discretion to override it. ‘The vicious system of promotion by seniority, in itself sufficient to destroy the discipline of any army, has been abolished,’ wrote Chesney in 1868, ‘and by the new Articles of War commanding officers are vested with considerable powers, both for reward and punishment.’
Another recommendation of the Peel Commission was that the uniform of Indian troops should be assimilated ‘more to the dress of the country’ and made ‘more suitable to the climate’. The hated leather stock had already been discontinued by a ‘General Order’ of 15 February 1859. So too had the bulky shako headdress, as the loyal sepoys of the Bengal Native Infantry took to wearing their undress Kilmarnock caps (first introduced in 1847) instead. From March 1860 commanding officers of native infantry regiments were given the option to issue pugris (turbans). Another major alteration took place in 1863 when the tight coatee was replaced by a long, red single-breasted tunic with cut-away skirts and no collar, not that dissimilar to the coat worn by the British Army. It was not particularly ‘Indian’ in style, but it was certainly more comfortable and durable than the old coatee.
Lastly, the Peel Commission recommended that ‘the Native Army should be composed of different nationalities and castes, and as a general rule, mixed promiscuously through each regiment’ and that ‘all men of the regular Native Army… should be enlisted for general service’. Both suggestions were aimed at dismantling the high-caste Hindu brotherhood in the Bengal Native Infantry that had made a general mutiny possible. Even before the appointment of the Commission, Indian levies had been raised in Bengal from mainly low-caste recruits. ‘The low castes and the untouchables sided with the British,’ wrote a leading Indian military historian, ‘probably because in the Hindu hierarchy they occupied a peripheral position and also because in the princely armies of pre-British India, they had no place. Military service with the British provided them with economic security and a channel for upward mobility.’ However, no decision had been taken on their long-term future by 1860 when Sir Hugh Rose, the new Commander-in-Chief of India, came down in favour of mixed recruitment. ‘The homogeneous composition of the old Native Army, fostering caste, combination and indiscipline,’ he remarked to Lord Canning, ‘was one of the springs of the mutiny, and has been proved to be an element of danger in a Native army.’ He therefore suggested limiting the proportion of any one sect or caste in each regiment to a quarter, with Sikh and Gurkha corps the only exceptions.
Sir Charles Wood disagreed. He was in favour of a general mixture system (different races and castes throughout the companies of regiments) in conjunction with a district system whereby each regiment was recruited from a particular locality. ‘The difference,’ he informed Rose on 25 April 1862, ‘will be greater in some regiments than in others, some regiments will be more, others less homogeneous and here another sort of variety will be created.’ His intention was divide and rule. He never wanted to ‘see again a great Army, very much the same in its feelings and prejudices and connections, confident in its strength, and so disposed to unite in rebellion together. If one regiment mutinies, I should like to have the next so alien that it would be ready to fire into it.’
A compromise was finally reached in November 1862 when the Government of India authorized three different systems of enlistment for regiments of Bengal Native Infantry: single class (the same type of recruits throughout), general mixture and class company (whereby each company was composed of a different race or caste). These systems remained unchanged for two decades. But during that time more and more commanding officers of the general mixture regiments began to report that long association removed any class or race differences between their men, thereby fostering a general esprit de corps. This trend was seen as increasing the threat of a mutinous combination, and the general mixture system was abolished in 1883. In general terms, the chief recruitment ground for the Bengal Army had moved from Oudh and its adjacent provinces to Nepal, the Punjab and the North-West Frontier. In 1893, for example, only nine of the sixty-four regiments of Bengal infantry were composed of high-caste men: seven of Rajputs and two of Brahmans.