How the Bengal army came to be an army of robust Sepoys.

The Bengal army was the military force of the Bengal Presidency – a colossal administrative division of the East India Company. This army was not only the largest in terms of manpower but had boasted of physically tall and strong native Sepoys, the likes of which were not to be found in the armies of either Bombay or Madras, barring aside exceptions.

Moreover, the infantrymen of this army were predominantly high-cast vegetarian farmers, tillers of the soil and landholders, hailing in large numbers from wheat-producing regions. Men who were not recruited from the Bengali people but came from distant homes in Oudh, the Doab (Uttar Pradesh), Bihar and RohilaKund. Some even from beyond the Indus.

How this army with the nomenclature ‘Bengal’ came to be populated with such native men was primarily because of two East India Company administrators. Namely, the lesser-known Robert Orme and the more celebrated Robert Clive – who among his other accomplishments is remembered as the father of this military force, for it was he who had created the army’s first native infantry battalion and spearheaded the initial growth of the army.

The first native battalion of the Bengal army is recorded to have come into existence in January 1757. Its creation, necessitated by political instability and the need for manpower to defend the Bengal Presidency and its trade from threats and invasions.

Clive arrives in Bengal.

Clive, then a Colonel in the Madras army, had landed at Fulta on the 20th of December, 1756, after having endured a difficult sea voyage that had lasted almost two months since his departure from Madras in October, 1756. His anchorage of Fulta, now the village of Falta in the 24 Parganas, West Bengal. Clive had come to Bengal with the prime directive of liberating Fort Williams – stormed and captured by the Subedar Siraj-ud-Daulla on the 20th of June, 1756.

The Subedar had declared hostilities on the Presidency on the pretext of violating standing orders. In 1756, Siraj-ud-Daulla had sent letters to the French and English warning them from interfering in local politics and demanding both parties demolish any newly erected fortifications. A standing order that was in effect since the time of his maternal grandfather and predecessor, Alivardi Khan – Subedar of Bengal from 1740 to 1756.

Seven Years’ War, 1756-1763.

The outbreak of the Seven Years’ War between the European powers of France and England, however, had prompted the rival merchant companies of the two respective nations to strengthen their defences and for good reasons too. Previously in the Carnatic, the rivals had taken advantage of similar circumstances to eliminate the other- with the French being the initiators and aggressors.

In 1756, while both sides, in reality, had refused to comply with standing orders and continued work on fortifications. The French response had been more diplomatic and convincing.

The English, on the other hand, had responded with a matter-of-fact reply which had greatly incensed Siraj-ud-Daulla. To complicate matters even more, the Presidency, at this time, had also provided shelter to the Hindu Nobleman Krishna Das, an accomplice of Gheseta Begum, the aunt and political rival of the new Subedar of Bengal.

Thus in April 1756, Siraj-ud-Daulla had declared war on the Presidency for refusing to dismantle fortifications and harbouring political rivals. His forces had at first blockaded Kashim Bazar, now Cossimbazar – a suburb of Baharampor city in West Bengal, and after thoroughly plundering the Company’s factories and storehouses, proceeded on to attack Fort Williams.

Storming of Fort Williams, 20th June, 1756.

In urgent need of repairs and inadequately defended by a garrison of 264 men of which the majority were the Topasses – a word that had once described men with Portuguese and Indian parentage and for the hats they wore. Two companies of militia – each comprising of 250 men of Armenian, Portuguese and other European descent. A handful of Buxaries (Matchlock men) and a populace of untrained native conscripts hastily raised for defence. The headquarters of the Presidency had been stormed and captured in a matter of days.

After the Armenian, Portuguese and native levies had deserted en mass, the Governor of Fort Williams, Roger Drakes, had vacated the fort and along with the women and children fled to Fulta. Those captured had been imprisoned in a small 14 x 18 feet dungeon, later infamously recalled as the Black Hole of Calcutta Massacar – an incident involving the overnight imprisonment of 146 prisoners in a cramped and suffocating environment with only a few surviving till morning.

Clive begins rebuilding.

Upon landing at Fulta with his Madras troops, Clive had foremost engaged in expelling the Subedar’s forces encamped in the vicinity of Calcutta. An undertaking he had successfully accomplished with the support of Admiral Watson and the few ships the admiral had at his disposal. Siraj-ud-Daulla had sued for peace and returned the possessions he had not long before captured.

Next, he had committed himself to strengthening the military of the Presidency – and with the war in Europe making it impossible to request men from overseas, he had turned his attention to what was near at hand.

The state of the Bengal Army before Clive.

Before the arrival of Clive in Bengal, the army of the Bengal Presidency, so to speak, was made up of five understrength detachments of infantry and a few pieces of artillery. Some of these men had been procured across Europe but a large portion were Eurasians, men of Indian and European parentage.

The company had relied on this recruitment practice, since at this time, it had been barred from recruiting high-quality men for military purposes in competition with the Imperial army, within the British Isles. The few men recruited from Britain itself, as author Stuart Reids puts it, were of dubious quality physically as well as morally. Men, short in height and physically too weak to be of interest to the Imperial Army.

These men were chiefly employed to guard the company’s factories and protect the company’s trading posts. They had also served as a safety measure to dissuade local governors and official agents from extorting money, besides what was paid as tax and customs duty to the royal court. In times of need, they had also performed the role of bodyguards.

Furthermore, unlike Mardras and Bombay, the Presidency here had not deemed it necessary to maintain a large standing army. As the historian Amya Sen explains: Before Siraj-ud-Daulla’s hostile takeover and the outbreak of the Seven Years’ War, the Company’s agents in Bengal had been most reluctant to be involved in wars with the local powers.

They had desired peace above everything else because peace to them had meant profitable trade and commerce. In fact, during the Subedari of Alivardi Khan, the Bengal Presidency had provided the Subedar with £ 10,000 as wartime funds in his campaign to keep the Marathas from raiding Bengal.

The men of the Pesidency had also helped in the building of the Maratha ditch – a defensive measure put in place to keep Maratha raiding parties at bay.

The threat of French interference.

In this new and uncertain political landscape, Clive’s greatest fear wasn’t only the defeated Siraj-ud-Daulla plotting vengence, but the French as well.

In 1742, the ambitious and shrewd French Governor, Joseph Marquis Dupleix, taking advantage of local succession disputes had successfully advanced French interests. In 1746, the French had captured Madras. In 1747, Dupleix had converted the Nawab of Arcot, a loyal East India Company ally, to the French cause and captured the East India Company’s settlement of St. David. In 1748, Calcutta itself had been besieged.

Clive had been fearful, that like Dupleix, the equally competent and ambitious French governor, Charles Joseph Patissier de Bussy, then stationed in the Northern Cicars, barely 200 miles away from Fort Williams, would follow the same course of action to expand French interests – perhaps even attack Fort Williams in alliance with Siraj-ud-Daulah.

Thus Clive had devoted his attention to strengthening the military at Fort Williams with manpower, and in doing so he had come across the Purbiyas. A word that in the local dialect had stood for ‘easterners’ and had referred to a people whose ancestral homes were in the regions of the Doab, Oudh, Varanasi and Rohilakhand in Uttar Pradesh and Bojhpur in Bihar.

The Purbiyas.

These Purbiyas were, in essence, a class of farmers who had traditionally served as mercenaries in the armies of native kings and princes long before the arrival of the East India Company.

By ethnicity, they were high-caste Hindu Brahmins, Bhumiars and Rajputs. Among their ranks were also Jats, Pathans and Rohilias of Afghani and Turki parentage.

As mercenaries for hire, the Purbiyas had primarily served for personal gains and ambitions. Not hesitating once to desert or abandon their employers over more lucrative deals or unfavourable conditions. Likewise, they also had been hired on a seasonal basis by Kings and Princes and once an objective had been accomplished, left to fend for themselves.

The men Clive had come across were the descendants of ancestors who had assisted the Afghans and Mughals in the conquest of Bengal – and since had been settled in the region. Among them were also military adventurers who had previously served in the armies of the Nawab of Oudh, and who had come to Bengal to take up service with feuding chieftains.

Out of these men, Clive had created the Red Battalion or the Lal Paltan – officially the 1st Bengal Native Regiment.

The Red Platoon of the Bengal Army, Lal Paltan.

This battalion of some 515 men, Clive had clothed in European military uniforms and put under the command of the Company’s non-commissioned European officers. Furthermore, he had drilled and trained these men to fight as a European unit.

Commanded by Captain Richard Knox of the Madras army, the battalion’s first commander, the Lal Paltan was a military innovation of its time – and a military unit that later influenced a revolution in the armies of the Bombay and Madras presidencies.

Hitherto, native soldiers in the armies of the other two Presidencies had fought under the command of their chieftains, dressed in their traditional attire. The Lal Paltan, on the other hand, was the first Sepoy unit to be dressed in European military colours, and commanded by European officers.

The name ‘Lal Palton’, being a combination of the words Red and Platoon. It was a name affixed to the battalion by native levies with the word ‘Lal’ standing for the red uniform of the Sepoys and ‘Paltan’ a corruption of the English word, platoon.

What made Clive enlist the Purbiyas and not the natives of Bengal.

Though pressed for men at a critical juncture, Clive had refrained from recruiting men from the local populace of Bengal. The Bengalies had not only lacked the physical requirements but also the martial vigour and military qualifications – a practice, the Bengal Army had adhered to till its disbandment in 1858-59.

Since Bengali men were considered weak, effeminate and cowardly, the Bengal Army had never recruited men from Bengal proper – instead preferring Bihar, Orissa and later the Doab and Oudh in Uttar Pradesh.

Clive’s selection was also not in the least a random undertaking. In fact when recruiting he had followed a set of prescribed guidelines. The qualities he had looked for in the recruits were, foremost: Physical and military qualifications. Secondary factors, may have possibly included, their domestic occupations and if they were from the wheat-producing regions.

This fixation of East India Company administrators to hire native men from the wheat-producing regions was based on the findings of Robert Orme, a historian and administrator with the East India Company from 1743 to 1760.

In 1750, some seven years before Clive had set foot in Bengal, Orme had produced a case study on the martial races of India – in which he had stressed upon the finding that men from the wheat-producing belts were taller and more robust than those who came from the rice-producing regions, and therefore to be considered better soldier material.

Thus, it is very possible, that Clive had looked for men who had not only boasted of impressive physiques and came endowed with prior military experience but were also from the wheat-producing regions, and were farmers.

This last criterion was followed by the Imperial British army of the time, which had insisted on enlisting men from rural and farming backgrounds. For such men were found to be powerfully built and better suited for hard physical labour. More importantly, these men had obeyed orders far better than their urban counterparts.

Growth of the Bengal Army.

While the French general Joseph Marquis Dupleix was the first to recruit native men as Sepoys in European armies. A practice that began in the year 1742.

Bengal also wasn’t Clive’s first stage for recruiting native Sepoys. During the war with the French East India Company and the Nawab of Arcot in 1751, Clive had raised a battalion of Telangana men – a contingent of which had sailed with him for Bengal in 1756 with their bows, quivers, spears and swords, and proved their worth in combat and enduring hardship.

These Telengana recruits of his, however, were neither on the company’s payroll nor were they officially considered a part of the company’s military force – in contrast to the recruited Lal Palton.

Additional regiments of the Bengal Army.

Clive also had not stopped with the Lal Patan. Shortly after its creation, he had proceeded to create four more native battalions: The 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th Bengal regiment. With the 3rd and the 4th proving their mettle and valour later in 1759, when the Company had battled the combined forces of Shah Alam II and the Suja-ud-Daulla, the Nawab of Oudh, in the absence of Clive – who by then had left for England.

The practice of recruiting native regiments had thus continued after Clive and as new enemies had appeared on the horizon, to safeguard the growth of trade and commerce, the Bengal army too had burgeoned in size.

An additional benefit of recruiting capable fighting men locally available, was that it reduced the dependency of the Presidencies to submit requisitions to the Board of Directors for European troops. Thereby also ensuring the quality of fighting men in their armed forces was not the second-rated material usually sent from home at the time.

Military efficiency and loyalty of the Bengal Army.

There are several archived mentions from the period that attest to the military efficiency and loyalty of the Bengal Sepoys. These mentions also give us a glimpse of how highly regarded they were by East India Company administrators and military generals – and likewise their preference for tall and broad men of this stock.

In 1756, writes Lord Cornwallis, “A brigade of our Sepoys can easily make anybody Emperor of Hindustan.” In another letter, while praising the courage and patience of the Sepoys in bearing hunger and fatigue, he remarks, “The Native Black Troops were fine men and would not disgrace even the Prussian ranks”.

Yet at the same time, the European recruits had disgusted Cornwallis. In one of the same letters, mentions Cornwallis, “I did not think Britain could have furnished such a set of wretched objects.”

Discipline and Loyalty in the Bengal Army.

Moreover, as Amiya Sen explains: The discipline and loyalty of the Bengal Army was proverbial.

In the Anglo-Maratha wars of 1803 and 1804, the Sepoys inspite of being in arrears and ill-provided for had stood fast without grumbling. Furthermore, during the Anglo-Sikh War of 1849, some 10,000 of them had resisted bribery from Sikh agents for the reward of promotions and pay.

At Bharatpur, they had given astonishing proof of their chivalrous gallantry. In the Anglo-Afghan conflict of 1841, they had fought gallantly under the generals Nott and Pollock. While during the conquest of Sind in 1843, they had earned the praise of a commander who knew better than any man how to gauge a soldier’s qualities.

Height of the Sepoys, in the Bengal Army.

By 1796, the Bengal Army had become better organized and structured than Clive’s early regiments. Hierarchy in the army had been established, instructions and rules laid out and proper recruitment bases set up at Patna, Burhanpuar and Dinapore, now in present-day Bihar and later in the state of Orissa. Army recruiters had also been trained on how to select recruits for an army that remained fascinated with physically impressive soldiers.

According to historian Seema Alavi, the minimum height requirement for a Sepoy in the Bengal army was 5 feet 7 inches. But in certain regiments, such as the Grenadier regiments, men had towered over 6 feet. Moreover, writes historian Amiya Sen, by 1796 there had also appeared a guidebook to help recruiting officers pick the right candidates -see thesis.

Only in times of war when a large number of men were required was the height requirement relaxed. It had also been ignored when a candidate had possessed all other required qualifications, other than just the height.

Chappati eaters make better soldiers than rice eaters.

Like the Presidency at Bengal which had continued to recruit Sepoys, even after Robert Clive had permanently left for England. So to the preference for recruiting men from the wheat-producing regions not stopped after Robert Orme. Successive generations of East Indian Company Administrators had adhered to Orme’s logic – even when the Bengal Presidency had burgeoned in size and more recruitment pools were available.

In fact, some 71 years after the Lal Paltan was created, Orme’s logic was still in effect, as we find from the words of Lord William Benedict, who had served as the Governor-General of British India from 1828 to 1835.

Men from Uttar Pradesh and Brahmanization of the Bengal Army.

From 1780 onwards, it was this preference for recruiting physically impressive soldiers from wheat-producing regions that had opened the doors to men from the Oudh and Doab in large numbers.

This in turn had ushered in an all to visible change in the composition of the Bengal army. If in the early native Sepoy regiments, Mohemmadeans had overshadowed their Hindu counterparts.

By the mid-1700s, Hindus had come to populate in greater numbers. A change that had come to affect the Bengal army after the battle of Buxar with the defeat of the Nawab of Oudh and Shah Alam II, the Mughal emperor.

Treaty of January, 1798.

By the treaty of January 1798, the privileges of the vanquished Suja-ud-Daulla, the Nawab of Oudh, had been curtailed. Which in turn had prevented him from recruiting or maintaining a substantial force.

Thus men erstwhile in the service of the Nawab had for lack of employment made their way over to the Bengal army in search of stable pay and better prospects. As also had fresh recruits who hitherto had found employment in the Nawab’s army.

This large and steady influx of men from what is now Uttar Pradesh had gradually turned the Bengal army into a high-caste army of Brahman and Rajput Sepoys – as these wheat-producing regions were largely populated by such communities.

Men whose vegetarian diet mainly included: Atta, dal, ghee, salt, sugar, milk and vegetables. With fish, meat, pulao, curry and alcohol; as well as potatoes, eggplant, radishes and onions, strictly prohibited.

The diet of the men of Oudh.

In a thesis, the historian Julian Markum Saul David, had prepared for his PhD, while at the University of Glasgow in Scotland. One also finds a mention of the men’s eating habits. Writes Saul David, to maintain their ritual purity, these men had cooked their food, ate alone and then, as per the Shastras, spread cow dung over their repast – see thesis.

Furthermore, East India Company military commanders in turn had welcomed these men from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar and encouraged the Brahamization of the army. Important factors that had further encouraged the change was the distrust of Muhammadans and the habits of Sepoys.

High caste Hindus, Brahman and Rajput men, were generally regarded as more loyal and cleaner in habits when compared to men from lower castes.

Dependency on the Brahmins and Rajputs of Oudh.

Although by the mid-18th century, recruitment bases had sprung up in Delhi, Cawnpore and Lucknow. Jhansi, Hissar and Meerut. Moradabad, Karnal, Bareilly and Agra. Bharatpur, Farruckabad and Shahjehanpur- and after the Anglo-Sikh wars, Patiala, Ludhiana, Jalandhar and Hoshiarpur.

The majority of the high-caste Hindu men for the Bengal infantry had come from the region of Oudh. Evident in the words of Major-General Jasper Nicholls, William Henry Sleeman and General Patrick Grant.

If in 1831 Nicholls states, the whole Sepoy army of Bengal was from the province of Bihar and Oudh. In 1841, British administrator William Sleeman noted that nearly 3/4 of the recruits were Rajput peasants from Oudh.

Grant, likewise, informs that the men were chiefly from Oudh. Followed by Bhojpur in Bihar and the Doab – with only a few hailing from Punjab.

Preference for hiring the tall and broad Prussian-type men of Oudh, despite the disadvantages.

Hiring the men of Oudh, however, was not without disadvantages. These men though tall and broad were prone to desert in large numbers. Especially when ordered to travel overseas or to distant provinces.

As is attested by the large number of desertions that took place in the ranks of the first brigade of the Bengal Army, which was marching from Monghyr to Calcutta to sail for Madras in 1768 – and later in 1790 when troops were required to fight Tipu Sultan in the Carnatic.

So much so that there are on record letters from the Directors of the East India Company asking for men to be recruited solely from the Company’s held territories of Bihar and Orrisa. A sentiment also shared by a Commander-in-Chief of the army who is recorded to have urged his commanding officers to not recruit men west of the Beneras solely for their impressive physical attributes.

However, such was the fascination of commanding officers with populating their battalion with Prussian-type physically impressive soldiers, that these standing orders were rarely headed – and the known disadvantage of having Brahaman and Rajput soldiers reluctant to travel overseas, ignored.

Furthermore, recruitment agents had typically recruited men who had shown up on campus rather than visiting outlying areas in Orrisa and Bihar. Also when the army’s trusted Jamadars and Havaldars were sent out for recruitment, most had enrolled into the ranks their relatives or acquaintances from their villages.

Thus turning the Bengal Army into an army of high castes – in sharp contrast to standing orders that recruits from any caste and religion could enrol.

Clive’s plan for the Bengal Army.

Turning the Bengal army into a high-caste army was never Robert Clive’s intention. Right from the very beginning, Clive had wanted the army to have a balanced percentage of Hindus and Muslims – to improve competitiveness and prevent clanship.

The ethnic composition of Clive’s Lal Paltan lends weight to this argument. For this battalion had included Pathans, Rohilias, Jats, Rajputs and only a few Brahmans.

The transformation of Clive’s Bengal army into a high-caste army had occurred because of the fascination commanders had with populating their battalions with physically impressive Prussian-type warrior peasants. It had also come into effect because of Governor-General Warren Hastings, who had been keen to preserve caste roles in the military.

Since, and as Seema Alavi states, this had provided the legitimacy to rule the native populace.