Race, politics, and armies: The dynamics of military modernization in twentieth-century colonial India
Barua, Pradeep P.
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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/22078
Description
Title
Race, politics, and armies: The dynamics of military modernization in twentieth-century colonial India
Author(s)
Barua, Pradeep P.
Issue Date
1995
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Kling, Blair B.
Department of Study
History
Discipline
History
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
History, Asia, Australia and Oceania
Sociology, Ethnic and Racial Studies
Language
eng
Abstract
During the first half of the twentieth century the colonial Indian army underwent a dramatic transition. What had hitherto been a predominantly glorified colonial police force was transformed into a relatively modern army, complete with its own institutionalized officer corps. This impressive achievement was the culmination of a complex, if cautious, program of military modernization and has practically been ignored by the historiography on the colonial Indian army. The scant work that has been done tends to underplay this crucial development. This dissertation analyses some of these neglected institutional and organizational reforms.
Institutional reform refers to the development of a professional officer corps along with the training establishments that sustain such a cadre; organizational reform refers to the structural and doctrinal evolution of the colonial Indian army. This study demonstrates that the dynamics of colonial military modernization in India was a complex process of interaction, involving British with Indian and British with British. The end result of which was the creation of a highly professional national army, one of the few in the developing world to be untainted by involvement in politics.
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