Richard B. White
[I]n the Bombay Army, `the Brahmin stands shoulder to shoulder in the ranks, nay sleeps in the same tent with his Parwari [Mahar] soldier, and dreams not of any objection to the arrangement.’
–Brigadier John Jacob, Views and Opinions, 1858.
Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, is famous for being “the most highly educated Untouchable in India.” His education,[109] encouraged and financed largely by the Gaikwad of Baroda, led to his role as the Untouchable’s chief spokesman, the founder of a political party for Untouchables, and the moving spirit behind organizations, schools, and colleges established for their uplift. One of Ambedkar’s final acts was the initiation of a Buddhist conversion movement that ultimately attracted more than 3 million Untouchable adherents.[110]
This part of Ambedkar’s story is well-known. However, his family’s military service in the British Raj is not widely acknowledged for creating an environment that laid the foundation for his later success. Eleanor Zelliot, an expert on Dr. Ambedkar and the Mahar movement, maintains, “[T]he hundred year period of Mahar recruitment into British armies may well have been the single most important factor, aside from economic reasons, in producing the Mahar movement.”[111]This article examines the importance of military service in improving the social status of Ambedkar’s caste, the Mahars of Maharashtra. The focus is on their relationship with the British.
The Mahars benefited from their participation in the British Army in a number of ways. First, military service became “a significant part of caste élan and mythology.”[112] The first section provides the historical evidence they use to establish their credentials as a caste with martial traditions. The paper’s second section details the advantages, especially education, that accrued from military service and discusses their access to the government that otherwise was unavailable to Untouchables. The final section discusses the British decision to recruit only “martial races,” in which the Mahars were not included, for the British Indian Army and the Mahars’ efforts to gain reinstatement in the Army. The article does not focus exclusively on Dr. Ambedkar, but uses him as a point of reference for many of the examples given.
Early Military Participation
Eleanor Zelliot explains that the British gave Mahars the opportunity to seek different occupations from their traditional role as a village servant. She explains that before the arrival of the British, Mahars had no special skill or craft, but performed necessary duties for the village as watchmen, wall-menders, street-sweepers, removers of cattle carcasses, caretakers of the burning ground, servants of any passing governmental official…. Mahar service was essential for the village; his status was low, his work menial, but his place was secure. With the coming of the British and the spread of new ways of administration and communication, the Mahar place in the village grew less important.[113]
Military service provided Mahars with the opportunity to move beyond their traditional social position in the village. In fact, the Mahar tradition of being in armies precedes the British Raj.
The recorded history of the Mahars’ military achievements dates back to Shivaji’s Army in the 1600s. Cynthia Enloe, a noted sociologist who has written extensively on ethnic-military relationships, states, “The best of all militaries in the eyes of a state elite is one in which the most competent soldiers are also the most politically reliable, because they have the greatest stake in the continuation of the current system.”[115] The Mahars met this condition according to descriptions of their loyalty. Colonel V. Longer, author of Forefront Forever: The History of the Mahar Regiment, states:
There were a number of useful functions which the Mahars performed. Their Argus eye; their daring tenacity and determination; their faithfulness, loyalty and honesty; their courage and candour, were inestimable qualities which were always held in respect and were for ever utilized to advantage by the village …. In course of time, their voice carried great weight when there were disputes over property as their evidence was considered most accurate, intimate, and trustworthy.[116]
This sense of loyalty and trustworthiness led Shivaji to include Mahars as a vital component of his army.
Shivaji, leader of the Maratha nation, fought for a Hindu empire, but using Untouchables did not bother him. He “found the Mahars useful, for the wily Maratha chief realized that the best way of obtaining the maximum results was to mix up various castes in his garrison forces.”[117] He used the Mahars “to watch the jungles at the foot of the hill forts, act as scouts and [they] kept the forts supplied with wood and fodder.”[118] This was the first exposure of the Mahars to an organized army that provided its soldiers with steady pay and benefits. After Shivaji’s death, Mahar units continued to serve his descendants throughout the 1700s.[119] Their experience with Shivaji and others encouraged them to seek similar employment as sepoys of the British East India Company.
Ardythe Basham, in her detailed examination of the Mahars and the military, found the perceived early martial history to be an important part of Mahar identity. She concludes, “Whether or not these incidents are historically true, they are widely accepted by the Mahars as part of their tradition, and now form part of the official history of [today’s] Mahar Regiment.”[120] The Mahars have often used this martial identity, rooted in the 1600s, to legitimate their continued presence in the military.
Mahars began their service with the British in the 1750s. Stephen P. Cohen, an expert on the Indian Army, discusses the importance of Mahars in the Bombay Army in his seminal work, The Indian Army: Contribution to the Development of a Nation. He writes that Mahars were a sizeable portion of the armies of the Mahratta chieftain Shivaji, served as hereditary local policeman, and were thus a “natural” martial class. Heavily recruited in the premutiny years, the Mahars constituted a fifth to a quarter of the entire Bombay Army.[121]
In addition to the size of the Mahar contingent, they were also praised for their conduct as soldiers. The Mahars rewarded the British with the same loyalty that Shivaji had enjoyed.
The Bombay Army fought in several battles, and in most, the Mahars were recognized for their skills. Longer proclaims:
Much praise was showered on the Mahar Sepoys of the Bombay Army who endured the rigours of difficult marches when rations were low and disease was high among men and animals. Whether they were charging ahead or were besieged or taken prisoner-of-war, whether they were storming fortresses or making tactical withdrawals, they always stood steadfast by their officers and comrades, never letting down the honour of their Regiments.[122]
The recorded history of their exploits, especially prior to the mutiny of 1857, supports this effusive adoration. Basham located evidence of Mahar participation in the Second and “Third Anglo-Maratha War, the Second Anglo-Sikh War and the Second Afghan War.”[123] The Mahars’ exploits in these conflicts form an important part of their military lore.
The Mahar participation in the battle of Koregaon on 1 January 1818 is the most famous, and also the best documented, action involving Mahar soldiers. This battle gave the British the advantage in the Third Anglo-Maratha War. The successful defense of Koregaon by a small force of 500 men … under the command of Capt. F. F. Staunton [who] fought without rest or respite, food or water continuously for twelve hours against a large force of 20,000 Horse and 8,000 Infantry of [Maratha Leader] Peshwa Baji Rao II who was threatening the British garrisons at Kirkee and Poona.
Mahars dominated Staunton’s unit. The Peshwa’s troops inexplicably withdrew that evening, despite their overwhelming numbers, giving the British an important victory. The men of the 2/1st Regiment Bombay Native Infantry, including many Mahars, who fought in this battle, were honored for their bravery. The official report to the British Resident at Poona recalls the “heroic valour and enduring fortitude” of the soldiers, the “disciplined intrepidity” and “devoted courage and admirable consistency” of their actions. Further, the action is commemorated by a monument, with the names of twenty-two Mahars killed there, erected at the site of the battle and by a medal issued in 1851. Today, the monument still “serves as a focal point of Mahar heroism.”[125] Similar anecdotes are recorded in the written histories of the Mahar Regiment and Bombay Army. All demonstrate that most Mahars soldiers were dedicated and courageous.
In addition to Army units on land, the Mahars formed a vital component of the Bombay Army’s Marine Battalion. This unit’s history is well documented and provides numerous examples of Mahar actions including several acts of bravery by Mahars in the battalion. In September 1810, during the Second Maratha War, several Mahars proved their loyalty when captured by the French Navy. The French tried to induce their prisoners to enter their own service, a practice which enjoyed some success with Irish, Madrassi and Bengali troops. On this occasion, the Bombay sepoys [soldiers] were shown the captured Bengal and Madras Sepoys dressed in French uniforms and enjoying considerable privileges and luxuries, whereupon the Bombay Detachment started abusing them as being dead to all shame that they could forget the oath and desert their colours.
The upshot was that they were very roughly treated and some were severely wounded. To the seventeen survivors who reached Bombay a special medal was given and of this number twelve were Mahars.
This is just one of many cases where Mahars distinguished themselves as a part of the Marine Battalion and is another part of the martial history that the Mahars used to legitimize their important role in the British Indian Army. But, in the wake of the 1857 mutiny and threats from Russia, the British reexamined their recruitment policies. The Mahars were a casualty of this new thinking.
The Mahars Delistment
Despite the Mahars’ long martial history, the British ceased recruiting them in 1893. The Bombay and the other Presidency Armies were reevaluated following the 1857 mutiny. The Peel Commission[128] first examined class composition of the armies in 1858. One report to the Commission “emphasized that `we cannot practically ignore it (the caste system), so long as the natives socially maintain it.'”[129] This led to the discrimination against the Mahars and other low-caste groups as well as some Brahman castes which were considered unreliable.
General Lord Roberts, while not originating the concept of martial races, was instrumental in implementing a strategy of building “class regiments.” Recruiting policies were rewritten, and the Bombay Army “was notified that the Mahars, together with a number of other classes of the Bombay Army, would no longer be recruited to the Army.”[130] Lord Roberts recorded his rational in his autobiography, Forty-One Years in India. He writes:
I have no doubt whatever of the fighting powers of our best Indian troops; I have a thorough belief in, and admiration for, Gurkhas, Sikhs, Dogras, Rajputs, Jats and, selected Mahomadans; I thoroughly appreciate their soldierly qualities; brigaded with British troops, I would be proud to lead them against any European enemy.[131]
Roberts thought that the first step to making the Indian Army was “to substitute men of the more warlike and hardy races for the Hindustani sepoys of Bengal, the Tamils and Telagus [sic] of Madras, and the so-called Mahrattas [sic] of Bombay.” He was convinced that in the British Army the superiority of one regiment over another is mainly a matter of training; the same courage and military instinct are inherent in English, Scotch, and Irish alike, but no comparison can be made between the martial value of a regiment recruited amongst the Gurkhas of Nepal or the warlike races of Northern India, and of one recruited from the effeminate peoples of the south.[132]
The Mahars believed that their martial history demonstrated their abilities as warriors, but the British had made their decision. Mahars could only enlist as bandsmen or clerks. This would not provide the same opportunities for promotion, and allow little change in their social status. As expected, the Mahars felt the British had betrayed them after over 100 years of loyal service to the British Raj.
Throughout India, there was controversy about which groups should remain in the Army. The Mahars had support from some British soldiers, including three commanders who recommended their continued service. The commander of the 2nd Grenadiers argued that ‘the Parwari [Mahar] is of far better fighting material than the Deccani Mussulman,” and suggested that the Marine Battalion might be made a class regiment of Parwaries. The commanding officer of the 9th Bombay Infantry thought that a regiment of Parwaries, especially from the Deccan, would “give a very good account of itself.”
The Commanding officer of the 19th Bombay Infantry stated that:
“They are possessed of as much soldierly quality as many castes of whom much higher opinions are entertained.”[133]
However, their assistance was not enough to overcome the sentiments of Lord Roberts and other senior officers of the British Indian Army.
Longer provides an excellent commentary on the impact of the decision on the Mahars. He writes:
The excellent system with its cosmopolitan composition, which had worked out over the years, was dismantled and destroyed. The Mahars, who had proudly carried the Colours of various Regiments of the Bombay Army, were crestfallen and heartbroken. For years they had provided abundant evidence of their courage, resolution, perseverance, constancy, and fidelity. When they bade farewell to arms there were eight Subedar-Majors, 62 Subedars, 34 Jemadars, and a host of Non-Commissioned Officers and Sepoys of the Mahar community who had served with distinction in the Bombay Army.[134]
The Mahars would continue to fight for the right to re-enlist in the Indian Army. They were loath to lose the benefits that the military provided. Furthermore, the education provided to the soldiers had created an educated cadre that would transfer their skills into political action. However, there were few Mahars left in the Army by the beginning of World War I.
Benefits Of Military Service
Eleanor Zelliot notes that the “emergence of Mahar leaders and a new spirit of militancy in the 19th century was due in large measure to the influence of education acquired in the military.” The result was that [d]uring the 19th and 20th centuries, a substantial number of Mahars removed themselves from their traditional village servant role. The establishment of British rule in Bombay Presidency provided Mahars with the opportunity for service in the army, employment in cotton mills, ammunition factories, railroads, dockyards, construction work, and as servants in British homes. The 1921 Census records that only 13.5 percent of the Mahar working force of nearly 300,000 were employed in their traditional occupation even though most Mahars maintained strong ties with their ancestorial village.[135]
The Mahars’ ability to work among the British exposed them to Western ways, and helped them to realize that their status as Untouchables did not keep them from working in successful and satisfying occupations. They aggressively used the advantages provided by their relationship with the British.
Military service provided important benefits to its soldiers. The benefits include “pay and pensions, access to education and/or specialized training, preferential access to employment, enhanced social status, and personal satisfaction.”[136]For the Mahars, the access to education and increased social status was the most important benefits. The best example of their results was Dr. Ambedkar. Zelliot writes that Ambedkar’s experiences were “[f]ree from the traditional village role, his early life was spent among educated ex-army men, imbued with the pride of soldiers and acquainted with a more sophisticated Hinduism than that found in the village.”[137] In fact, Ambedkar extends much of the credit for the start of the movement to improve the Untouchables’ place in society to contact with the British Army. He maintained:
Until the advent of the British, the Untouchables were content to remain Untouchables …. In the army of the East India Company there prevailed the system of compulsory education for Indian soldiers and their children, both male and female. The education received by the Untouchables in the army … gave them a new vision and a new value. They became conscious that the low esteem in which they had been held was not an inescapable destiny but was a stigma imposed on their personality by the cunning contrivances of the priest. They felt the shame of it as they ever did before and were determined to get rid of it.[138]
It is indisputable that this access to education was helpful to Ambedkar, and therefore, to all of India’s Untouchable communities.
Ambedkar’s family had extensive links to the military. Additionally, his mother’s “father and her six uncles were all Subedar Majors in the Army,”[139] the highest rank that Indians could hold. Ambedkar’s father also was a Subhedar Major and a full-fledged teacher trained at the Normal School then established by Government for turning out teachers to impart education that was then compulsory for the children as well as both male and female relations of the military servants. For fourteen years Ramji Sakpal served as Headmaster in the military school.[140]
Undoubtedly, the accomplishments of this family were exceptional. Nonetheless, the availability of education had a positive effect on all members of Mahars in the military, including women.[141] Consequently, Basham concludes, “The loss of this education option with the loss of their right of enlistment was therefore a real blow, not merely the loss of a theoretical benefit which few actually received.”[142] The quality of life for soldiers and their families suffered because of the loss of educational opportunities available through participation in the military.
Mahars joined the military with the intent of improving their social status. They were successful in this regard. As Basham explains:
Within the closed circle of the regiment, caste prejudice was, if not actually absent, at least officially discouraged. According to army regulations no distinction was made between soldiers on the basis of their caste or community …. Mahar officers were able to command men of other castes apparently without difficulty.[143]
After growing up in this environment of equality it was a shock for the Untouchables to travel and live in situations away from the military cantonments.
Ambedkar’s biographer, Dhananjay Keer, writes of young Ambedkar’s shock the first time he travelled outside the military environment while he was in school. He and his brother were travelling to meet his father in a distant village. At the railway station, they hired a bullock cart to take them to the village, but [h]ardly had the cart gone a few yards when the god-fearing touchable Hindu cartman, to his wrath, came to know that the well-dressed boys in his cart were the accursed Untouchables! In a fit of rage he threw them out on the road as one overturns the dust bins;for he felt they had polluted his wooden cart and destroyed the purity of his domestic animals![144]
This was Ambedkar’s first experience that forced him to confront his status as an Untouchable. Life in the military cantonment had sheltered him from the prejudice and discrimination for the early part of his life.
After retirement, there was a period of adjustment for Mahars who lived outside the cantonment. Basham concludes:
As nearly as can be deduced from rather limited information, it would seem that while actually in the army, or after retired or taking other employment, while in contact with British employers and officials, the Mahar soldier was not treated in any way differently from a soldier of higher caste. Once retired and living in his native village, a Mahar soldier, although he might have a relatively high status among the Mahar community and even among caste Hindus, would nevertheless once again have to accept his untouchable status.[145]
The important point is, even after retirement, Mahars with a military background still had access to the British government. The retired military officers were an effective lobby for Mahar rights.
Retired officers also created a group of political leaders with access to the Indian government. This was especially true near military cantonments in Poona, Satara and Ahmednagar.[146] Basham relates an incident where Mahar children were not being offered equal educational opportunities. Local caste Hindus and low-level British education officials refused the Mahar demands for Mahar boys to be integrated into classes with caste-Hindu boys. The dispute was resolved in favor of the Mahars. Basham argues that this demonstrates they were seeking not just education for their sons, although this was obviously important, but also an improvement in their social status. The fact that many of these parents were retired officers, and therefore could legitimately make a claim on the attention to government officials, indicates the value of military service in this respect.[147]
Clearly, the type of access available to the soldiers, active or retired, was unavailable to most Untouchables.
All the benefits the Mahars received were the result of their ability to develop a link with the British. This helped them overcome the obstacles erected by the Hindu social system. Zelliot observes:
[I]t was their entry into the British army which proved significant for the subsequent history of the Mahar movement. It is important to gauge this significance. It consists not in any automatic elevation in the social hierarchy through military service, which indeed is ruled out in a hierarchical system governed by considerations of ascriptive status and ritual purity. It rather consists in the fact that military service at such an early date exposed them to British institutions much before the dissemination of western culture took place on a large scale.
Such an exposure socialized them sufficiently early to the new political order so that when new opportunities and alternatives became available, they were found prepared to use them more effectively than those groups which did not have this opportunity.[148] Following the delistment of 1893, the Mahars would need all the access and knowledge they had gained to overcome the impact of being refused service in the Army.
The Fight For Re-enlistment
The Mahars did not give up their positions in the Army easily. The British decision of Mahar “[d]elistment in 1893 had been a severe blow to them as a community, not only threatening their economic status, but also (in their view) giving official sanction to caste Hindu discrimination against them.”[149] Overcoming both of these threats was the focus of two different efforts to petition the Government of India to reconsider its decision between 1894 and the start of the first World War.
The Mahars used two different strategies to influence the government; with both they tried to regain enlistment privileges in the army and an improved social status. Zelliot maintains that these efforts “illustrate the importance of army service to the Mahars. This was clearly the beginning of their efforts to induce government to intervene on their behalf, and their questioning of their traditional inferior status.”[150] In both instances, the movement was led by educated, former military officers.
The first organized attempt was in April 1895. Some of the details of the petition drive presented by Zelliot and Basham are speculative. Basham, who has completed the most recent study, states it was originally presented to the Viceroy, but was later returned for resubmission through the Bombay Government.[151] It appears that the petition was submitted by Gopal Baba Walangkar, a retired military officer, on behalf of the Anarya Doshpariharak Mandali, the non-Aryan committee for the rightings of wrongs, an Untouchable organization. Dr. Ambedkar, following the death of his father, found a copy of the petition in his papers. Ambedkar “believed that his father had obtained the assistance of Justice M. B. Ranade in preparing the petition.”[152] The petition compares Mahar actions to those of the higher castes and requests reinstatement in the military.
The petition’s pleas were simple. The Mahars believed that, in 1859, the Government had declared that the castes who fought loyally for the British were to be given due preference for military enlistment. Therefore, they demanded:
In view of that promise, Government should employ in civil, military and police department without any discrimination these faithful and honest persons. They should also be given education and proper opportunity for suitable posts in the department.[153]
The case they presented for reinstatement was more complicated than their demands. Much of their argument attempts to demonstrate that their identification as Untouchables was a mistake.
The 1895 petition argues that the Mahars as a group who are actually of the Kshatriya caste.[154] This represents the Mahars attempt to change their position in the caste structure by “Sanskritization.”[155] The petition states:
Our ancestors were Kshatriya. In about the year 1396 there was a great famine for about 12 years which was called Durhavedi famine. That time our ancestors survived by eating whatever they could find. Therefore, they were considered low case under the Peshwa rule.
It continues by attacking the legitimacy of the higher castes. It claims, “The so called high caste and pure people’s ancestors were as degraded as our people and were used [sic] to eat flesh of cow and beef. They wrote their own religious scriptures.” Finally, the petition provides a “creation myth” about the high castes. It maintains:
The high caste people of the South are progeny of Australian Semitic Anaryas and African Negroes whereas the high caste people from North are mixture of several castes …. Several castes of foreign origin became high caste Hindus by giving up beef-eating.
The Chitpavan Brahmins of Konkan came from the Jewish race. They fled from Africa for fear of their lives by the invaders and their ship was wrecked nearby Malabar coast. Their children and women drown and died in the sea. Those men who survived, married the native low caste women…. [W]hen they became rulers, they called themselves Brahmins.[156]
The document’s tenor shows the importance of military service to the Mahars and the use of Sanskritization tactics to show they were at least equal to the alleged high castes.
This campaign was unsuccessful. The Mahars were unaware of the debate “over recruitment policy or the acceptance of Lord Roberts views on martial races” which was the prime component in the British decision. However, Basham shows “the government of India took the petition seriously enough to request information about the Koregaon monument from the government of Bombay (presumably to verify the petitioners’ claims). Eighteen months after the initial submission of the petition, the Indian government replied that it was “unable to rescind the orders which have been issued regarding the castes to be admitted to the Bombay Army.”[157] Shortly after the turn of the century, a second attempt was organized.
The second major petition was submitted to the government three times between 1904 and 1910. The document’s “signatories included forty-two military pensioners” including Dr. Ambedkar’s father. Basham’s research found that “[s]everal of the signatories had also written letters to newspapers or had signed at least one other petition, suggesting a long-term commitment and a willingness to agitate for change.”[158] This petition had a broader base of support than the one in 1895.
This campaign was more sophisticated than the first. The spokesman, Shivram Janba Kamble, spoke English (Walangkar could not). More importantly, the petition’s “appeal for consideration was not on the basis of the Mahars’ having been demoted from Kshatriyahood, but on the grounds of former service, English justice and human worth.”[159] This pragmatic approach attracted greater support than the earlier petition, and used arguments that were later refined by Dr. Ambedkar. In fact, Ambedkar took over leadership of the Mahars from Kamble.
The 1910 petition was more polite and less argumentative than the 1895 petition. The document states, “We do not aspire to high political privileges and positions, since we are not educationally qualified for them, but humbly seek employment in the lowest grades of the Public Service, in the ranks of Police Sepoys and of soldiers in the Indian Army.” It continued:
We are making no new demands; we do not claim employment in services in which we have not been engaged before. Indeed, some few of our people do still hold positions in the Police Force, and have acquitted themselves most honourably. So also have our people been employed in the Indian Army from the very commencement of the British Raj in our country, and they have risen to the highest positions by their valour and good conduct.[160]
Despite the reasoned arguments, this petition demands, like the first, were denied. The manpower demands of World War I had a greater effect, and beginning in 1914 Mahars, again, were recruited into the Army and given their own Regiment, the 111 Mahars. The Regiment’s three battalions “were formed the toward the end of the war, but they did not see action and their martial qualities were untested.”[161] Shortly after the war, the Regiment was disbanded by the British “on the excuse of the economy.”[162]
More important, however, is that the petition drives provided an organization for Dr. Ambedkar to use after the war to improve the social status of Untouchables. Basham correctly concludes:
Military service had been a significant factor for the Mahars in two respects. Education and skills acquired through military service created a class of community leaders, and the wish to retain the social and economic benefits derived from military service was a powerful incentive to organize behind these leaders and work for a common goal. A high level of organization and political activity in the Mahar community by the 1940s was therefore at least in part a consequence of their military past.[163]
The long association with the military gave Mahars an issue to organize around and the movement then worked to achieve more substantial achievements than just military service.
Conclusion
The 120 years of service in the British military gave the Mahars excellent skills. Basham concludes:
Mahar soldiers were able to establish a link with the most powerful institution in India–the British Raj–and in some instances to use that link to bypass local authorities. Military service was also a way to sever the ties of village customary law which maintained the inferior status of the Mahars. Other forms of employment could take the Mahar out of the village, but none offered long-term financial security in the form of pensions.[164]
This case study shows how military service has assisted the Mahars to fight the stigma of untouchability. Their positive experiences fighting with Shivaji encouraged them to seek similar opportunities from the British. It is clear, that in their service they received their most tangible benefits. Before delistment, Mahars in the Bombay Army received a steady wage, housing, and education. With this, many were able to retire with a pension, which, often, eliminated the need to return to the traditional Mahar occupations following their military service. These obvious benefits were eliminated following the 1893 decision.
However, military service still influenced Mahar life following delistment. As Basham argues:
If the army system of education had produced no effects for the Mahars other than to provide an appropriate environment for Ambedkar’s early life (since his father took a very strong interest in encouraging his sons’ education) this in itself would be a significant impact on the Mahar community.[165]
Furthermore, the petition drives provided political organizations to press for overcoming the stigma of Untouchability. There were other benefits that were accrued, even if their requests for reinstatement were refused until the beginning of the war. Kamble’s work in Poona that formed the base for Ambedkar’s later political movements is the best example of this. Therefore, even after military service was taken away from the Mahars, the traditions and accrued benefits continued to be an advantage to this Untouchable community.
Epilogue
A Mahar Regiment was reformed in 1945 and has existed ever since. The ceremonial Colonel of the Regiment is K. V. Krishna Rao, former Chief-of-Staff of the Indian Army and current Governor of Jammu-Kashmir. The preface of the Regimental History states:
Militarily, the Mahars faced the vicissitudes of fortune, but once the Mahar Regiment was reborn in 1945, it came into its own after India became free …. A three-battalion [one class] Regiment blossomed into a eighteen-battalion Regiment with men from all classes and communities of the country fused together to form a rich and radiant amalgam.[166]
The Regiment has taken part in all of India’s major military operations since 1947. Just as the Mahars have survived and prospered, so has the Mahars’ military legacy.
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This is article is from South Asia Graduate Research Journal
Courtesy: Ambedkar.org
