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INTRODUCTION
THE GREAT MUTINY OF 1857 caused the British to reexamine the recruitment of Indian soldiers into the three respective presidency armies of Bengal, Bombay and Madras. Despite repeated recommendations that these forces henceforth be composed of "different nationalities and castes ... mixed promiscuously through each regiment"(1) as a classic "divide and rule" precaution, regimental commanders soon began favouring recruitment of men from north and northwest India. Here were communities which, for any number of reasons, British officers identified as having greater war-like characteristics than the central and southern peoples who had made up the bulk of pre-Great Mutiny troops.(2) The communal character of the Indian Army (unified in 1893) became entrenched with the introduction of "class" and "class company" regiments; the former made up of the same caste, or ethnic group, the latter with a different class in each of its three companies.
Despite an official post-Independence policy of recruitment open to all,(3) the Indian Army continued to enlist men from the north and northwest in numbers disproportionate to their respective communities' share of the national population. Maj. Gen. D. K. Palit describes how "many die-hard senior Indian officers" strongly resisted completely unbiased recruitment after Independence: "Brainwashed by long years of service under British officers, they firmly believed in the efficacy of tribal esprit de corps." The immediate post-Independence conflict in Jammu and Kashmir followed by years of Indo-Pakistani and Sino-Indian tension further "inhibited the government from enforcing radical changes in the organization of the fighting arms." Thus, writes Palit, while most "tail" units and all post-Independence raisings such as the Parachute Regiment have been constituted on an all-India basis, the majority of the Indian Army's "teeth" arms remain the preserve of personnel drawn from the north and northwest.(4)
Yet the continued recruitment and posting together of men drawn from specific communities may endanger both the Indian Army's corporate cohesiveness and even the country's continued civilian supremacy-of-rule. Any issue which strongly affects one member of a group united by ethnicity, community, religion and/or region may readily affect them all. If so motivated, the men and officers of one or more of the Indian Army's favoured communities may prove numerous enough to preserve, protect and/or enlarge their own group interests to the detriment of the...