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 boasted of physically tall and strong native Sepoys, the likes of which were not to be found in the armies of Bombay or Madras, barring 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 among the Bengali people but from the now historical regions of Oudh, the Doab, RohilaKund, Beneras (present day Uttar Pradesh) and parts of Bihar, and Orrisa. Some even from beyond the Indus.
Why 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 in West Bengal.
Clive’s prime objective for coming to Bengal was to aid in the defence of Fort Williams but having been blown off course by strong Moonsoon winds, he had arrived to find Fort Williams, stormed and captured by the Subedar Siraj-ud-Daulla, five months before, on the 20th of June, 1756.
The Subedar had declared hostilities on the Presidency on the pretext of violating standing orders and conspiracy. In 1756, after having acquired power, 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 presence of the other- with the French being the initiators and aggressors.
In 1756, while both sides, in reality, had refused to comply with the Subedar’s orders and continued work on fortifications. The French response was more diplomatic and convincing. In fact from what little is known, it is said the French Governor had swayed the new Subedar with eastern cajolry, stopping short of prostrating himself.
In the late war between our Nation and the French, they had attacked and taken the town of Madras contrary to the neutrality we had expected would have been preserved in the Mogull’s dominions; and that there being at the present great appearance of another war between the Two Crowns, we were under some apprehension they would act in the same way in Bengal, to prevent which we were only repairing our Line of Guns to the waterside.
Robert Drakes – Governor at Fort Williams, April 1756.
The English reply, on the other hand, was a matter-of-fact one but which had greatly incensed Siraj-ud-Daulla who had perhaps expected the English merchants to grovel as had the French. 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 there, proceeded on to attack Fort Williams.
Storming of Fort Williams, 20th June, 1756.
Fort Williams at this time was in urgent need of repairs and inadequately defended by a garrison of only 264 men.
The majority of these men were the Topasses – a word that had once described men with Portuguese and Indian parentage, and for the very distinctive hats they wore. There were also two companies of militia recruited from men of Armenian, Portuguese and other European descent. A handful of Buxaries (Matchlock men) and a small number of untrained native conscripts hastily raised for defence.
This force proved itself ineffective in battle and, Fort Williams, the headquarters of the Presidency was stormed and captured in a matter of days.
Records of the time tell us that after the Armenian, Portuguese and native levies had deserted en mass, the Governor of Fort Williams, Roger Drakes had fled with the women and children to Fulta. While those captured were imprisoned in a small 14 x 18 feet dungeon, later known as the infamous Black Hole of Calcutta Massacre.
An incident which had involved the overnight imprisonment of 146 prisoners in a small and cramped room, with only a few surviving till morning.
Clive begins rebuilding.
Upon landing at Fulta with his Madras troops, Clive had first engaged and expelled the Subedar’s forces encamped in the vicinity of Calcutta. This 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, Clive 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 East India Company had relied on this recruitment practice, for 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 points out, were of dubious quality, physically and morally. Men, who were short in height and physically too weak to be of interest to the Imperial Army.
During much of the eighteenth century, the company was not allowed to openly beat up for recruits within the British Isles in competition with the Regular army. Consequently, it had found its soldiers in strange and unusual places and often by dubious means. As to those sent out from England, they all too often turned out to be of dubious quality physically as well as morally. Often being men who were too short or too weak to be of interest to the Regulars.
Stuart Reid – Battle of Plasey 1757, the victory that won an Empire.
These hired 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 additionally performed the role of bodyguards.
Furthermore, unlike Mardras and Bombay, the Presidency in Bengal 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 had meant profitable trade and commerce. In fact, during the Subedari of Alivardi Khan, the Presidency in Bengal had little to fear.
Alivardi Khan, a just Subedar, had maintained peace in his province with an iron fist and this had prevented the French, the Dutch and the English merchants from declaring hostilities upon the other. To maintain peace and stability, the Presidency had also provided this Subedar with £ 10,000 as wartime funds to prevent the Marathas from raiding Bengal.
In 1742, unable to effectively counter the Maratha threat, Alivardi Khan had even permitted the Presidency to build a seven mile long ditch (later known as the Maratha ditch) to keep raiding parties at bay and erecting minor fortifications for protecting the company’s factories at Kashim Bazar.
“Hitherto the Bengal agents had been trying peacefully to prosecute the trade and commerce of the Company. They had no ambition to establish an empire or to maintain a considerable military force to defend one. They had been most reluctant to be involved in wars with the Indian powers, as peace to them meant the continuance of what for years had been a prosperous trade. But forced into war to secure the very existence of the Company’s activities in Bengal, they had now to prevent the defeated but still hostile native power from falling under the influence of the French.”
Amya Sen -Structure and Organization of the bengal Army
The threat of French interference.
But in this new and uncertain political landscape, Clive’s greatest fear wasn’t only a defeated Siraj-ud-Daulla abiding his time and 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 was fearful, 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 during his search for eligible men, had come across the Purbiyas. A word that in the local dialect stood for ‘easterners’ and 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. Their ranks had also included Jats, Pathans and Rohilias of Afghani and Turki parentage.
As mercenaries for hire, these Purbiyas had primarily served for personal gains and ambitions. They had not hesitated to desert or abandon their employers over more lucrative deals or unfavourable conditions. Likewise, they also had been hired on a seasonal basis by native Kings and Princes, and once an objective was accomplished, left to fend for themselves.
The men Clive met were the descendants of those who had originally assisted the Afghans and Gurkani conquer Bengal – and since were settled in the region. Among these military adventurers were also those 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, and those be had brought along with him from Madras, Clive 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 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 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 coined name ‘Lal Palton’, was a combination of the words Red and Platoon. It was a name given 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 and in a hurry to bolster defences, Clive had, nonetheless, refrained from recruiting men from among the local populace of Bengal for the reason, the Bengalies had not only lacked the physical requirements but also the martial vigour and military qualifications.
Further more, and in in doing so, Clive had, inadvertently, also set in motion the practice of not recruting Bengalies, and which the Bengal Army had adhered to till its disbandment in 1858-59.
Following in Clive’s footsteps later East India Company administrators and military commanders had continued to enlist men from outside Bengal and especially from the regions of Bihar and Orissa, and later the Doab and Oudh in Uttar Pradesh.
Like in modern day India, the general perception of Bengali men even back then, was that they were weak, effeminate and cowardly.
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.
Robert Orme and his research on the Martial races of India from 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 set foot in Bengal, Orme had produced a case study on the martial races of India – and in this case study stressed upon his finding that men from the wheat-producing belts were taller and more robust than those of 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 had 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 had been found to be powerfully built and better suited for hard physical labour. More importantly, they 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 recruting ground for enlisting 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 – and a contingent of which had sailed with him for Bengal in 1756. Armed with bows, spears and swords, they had 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.
Out of these early five regiments of the Bengal army, the 3rd and the 4th had proved their mettle and valour in 1759, when the Company had battled the combined forces of Shah Alam II and the Suja-ud-Daulla, the Nawab of Oudh, and 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, the Bengal army too had burgeoned in size to safeguard the growth of trade and commerce.
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 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”.
A bridage of our Sepoys can easily make anybody Emperor of Hindustan.
Lord Cornwallis
The European recruits, on the other hand, 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: Prior to the days leading up to the great rebellion of 1857, 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.
Indeed for the fidelity, gallantry and devotion to duty, the Bengal native soldier was much lauded.
Amya Sen -Structure and Organization of the Bengal Army
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. Furthermore, by this time, Army recruiters were being trained for selecting 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 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. However, it was also ignored when a candidate had possessed all other required qualifications, but lacked the desired 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 too had 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.
The Hindustani is larger and more robust than the native south of the River Narbada, and the presumption must be that he is considered a more powerful if not a better soldier
William Benedict.
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 the men of Oudh and the Doab.
This in turn had ushered in an all too 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, and a change that had come about 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, and in search of stable pay and better prospects, had made their way over to the Bengal army. 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 had 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, prepared for his PhD, while at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, one finds mention of the men’s eating habits.
Writes Saul David: To maintain their ritual purity, these men 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 had also 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.
The Moors are bound by no ties of gratitude, and every day’s experience conviences us that Mussulmen will remain firm to the engagements no longer than while they are actuated by principals of fear, always ripe for a change whenever there is the smallest prospect of success.
Letter from the Bengal Presidency to the Court of Directors, 31st December 1758.
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 continued to 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 physically impressive, tall and broad men, were prone to desert in large numbers, especially when ordered to travel overseas or to distant provinces.
Which was experienced first hand by commanders and administrators of the East India Company, when a large number of desertions took place in the first brigade of a Bengal Army regiment, 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.
Further reinforncing this fact are letters from East India Company Directors ordering the recruitment of men solely from the Company’s held territories of Bihar and Orrisa, and a Commander-in-Chief’s alarming request, urging officers to not recruit men west of the Beneras solely for their impressive physical attributes.
However, such was the fascination of populating battalions with Prussian-type physically impressive soldiers, that these orders and requests were rarely heeded by officers on the ground – and the known disadvantage of having Brahaman and Rajput soldiers reluctant to travel overseas, ignored.
Another additional factor that had led to the metamorphosis of the Bengal Army into an army of high castes, even when standing orders dictated recruits from any caste and religion could enroll, was that after a point in time, corruption had also set in.
Recruitment agents had begun to recruit men who had showed up on campus rather than visiting outlying areas, and the army’s trusted native Jamadars and Havaldars, when sent out to enlist the best men on unbiased principles, had returned with their own relatives and acquaintances from their own villages to strengthen their own sub communities within the army – and which had been largely overlooked by their commanding officers, as along as the new recruits had possessed the required physical measurements.
Clive’s plan for the Bengal Army.
Turning the Bengal army into a high-caste army, however, 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 an exclusive high-caste army had occurred because of the fascination officers had with populating their battalions with physically impressive Prussian-type warrior peasants, the notion Brahamins and Rajputs had cleaner habits and were more loyal, and the later practice of native recruitment officers enlisting men from only their communities.
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 explains, this had provided the legitimacy to rule the native populace.
I F I This is an independent story unraveling the creation of the Bengal Army and the East India Company’s fascination for recruiting only tall and broad men from wheat producing regions, particularly the Purbiyas, who hailed from the historical regions of Doab, Oudh and Rohilakund. It been created from facts curated from literary sources and historical documents. I
