Key developments in the armed forces took place after World War I, which had a long term political impact on the region and some of the key policies of the British government are still being followed by both India and Pakistan.

To understand what impact World War I had on the region, Dawn spoke to Prof Daniel Marston, who was recently in Islamabad and spoke at a symposium organised by National Defence University on ‘World War I and its impact on South Asia’.

Q. What was the key impact of World War I on the region?

A. The Indian Army expanded from just under 200,000 men to over one million within two years. Not only did these men serve abroad but also maintained the army’s traditional roles of providing aid to civilian power, as well as pacification efforts in the North-West Frontier. But recruitment was mainly from Punjab and by the end of WWI, Punjab had supplied more than 40 percent of all recruits for the combatant arms of the Indian Army.

Q. Why did the British focus on recruiting heavily from Punjab and not from modern day Sindh and Balochistan?

A. The recruitment structure of the old English East India Company (EIC) during the 18th and early 19th centuries was drastically different from that of the twentieth-century Indian Army. The Company was divided into the three presidencies of Bombay, Bengal, and Madras, each of which fielded their own units.

During the Indian Mutiny of 1857, eighteen new regiments were raised from Punjab which remained loyal throughout the crisis, in both the Punjab and the United Provinces. With the Punjab Irregular Force and the new regiment, this meant that there were more than 50,000 men under arms in the Punjab who were loyal to the British suppression of the mutinous Bengal Army regiments in northern India. Additionally, the anticipated threat psoed by Russia and the Second Afghan War (1879-1881) shifted recruitment towards the northern and northwestern regions as the main recruiting area.

There was a clear bias towards northern and north western parts of India. The old classes were dismissed. And also because the present day Sindh and Balochistan were recruiting grounds of Bombay Army. As the recruiting ground was expanded - by 1903, just 54 of 208 companies of Bombay Army the army were recruited from the old Bombay recruiting grounds. The rest of the companies were from Punjab, North-West Frontier regions, and Rajputana

Q. What were the long term impacts of these recruitment policies?

A. The social structure of Punjab changed, with land grants to the soldiers and the establishment of large cantonments, the province became more militarised. And the military commanders in India and Pakistan continued to come from Punjab even after 1947, as a result the recruitment grounds have largely remained the same too, despite opposition from the politicians in both countries.

— Text by Kalbe Ali

Published in Dawn, December 5th, 2014