Dividing the Indian Army

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25207, 11 June 1947, Page 6

Dividing the Indian Army

According to a New Delhi correspondent the first step in the division of the Indian Army between Hindustan and Pakistan will be taken this week with the formation of military committees to divide ordnance stores and factories. The correspondent says that the Viceroy has had a planning committee working on this problem for a month, and that the division will be on a territorial, not communal, basis. His explanation is that regiments of mixed troops will be posted to the Pakistan or Hindustan forces according to their domicile and not according to their communal composition. It is possible to see in this plan, if it is accepted by the Indian leaders, an attempt to guide India toward a sane and tolerant approach to its coming minority problems. For no matter how the boundaries of the new states are drawn, millions of Moslems will become citizens of Hindustan and as many or more Hindus will become subjects of Pakistan. In the Indian Army the various communities have lived and worked together in an atmosphere of tolerance and mutual respect. The superb corporate spirit of the Indian Army, shown in the honourable record of two wars, has been proof against the powerful disruptive influences of race hatred and communal strife. Throughout all the recent terrible events the Army has remained loyal, efficient, and impartial Military experts who have

! discussed the forthcoming division have assumed a communal partition. I Most of the battalions and regiments i contain Hindus, Moslems, Sikhs, and members of other communities. ; Where practicable, they are segregated in separate companies and squadrons, but all the headquarters companies and squadrons and a great many of tne technical units, down to their smallest elements, are completely mixed. Division on a communal basis would mean virtually the destruction of the Army, its associations and traditions, a prospect that has caused dismay among all in Britain who have had any connexion with it—“ the quite non-poli-“tical disappointment”, the “Eco- “ nomist ” remarked, “of the tech“nician who sees a mechanism he “ has constructed being scrapped by ' “ reckless and inexperienced hands The extent to which regiments are homogeneous territorially is not clear; but if they are manned fairly substantially by troops from the same province or district the worst damage of division may be avoided by the plan suggested. The method promises real benefit to the new states in more than a military sense. Nothing is more likely to promote understanding and goodwill between majorities and minorities than the example of soldiers from both serving together faithfully, efficiently, and as a matter of course, as Indian soldiers do in their present Army. On the other hand, exclusion of minority subjects from the armies of the new states would widen the communal cleavage. Up to the outbreak of war the Indian Army had made far more progress toward Indianisation in its lower ranks than in its officer corps. There were two or three Indian battalions to every British battalion; but most of the specialist and mechanised units were British and the commanders and staffs were wholly British. The growth of the Indian Army during the war to a strength of some 2,000,000 involved an increase in the proportion of Indians in all ranks. Nevertheless, the Indian officers as a whole lack experience and the Army still largely depends on British technicians. The division plan is stated to provide for the posting of British officers with the Indian units to one or other Dominion. As the plans for the postwar Army did not provide for the complete replacement of British technicians until 1951, it is to be assumed that they also will be retained until Indian replacements can be trained. The physical problems of division of the Army will be formidable because it has been built up as a single entity, with one defence headquarters, one training academy for cadets, and one staff college and with an organisation of communications, ordnance, and supply depots to serve a single entity. If the administrative difficulties are great, what of the strategic problems of defence that are created by | the splitting of one army into two, one part of which must be divided again between the widely separated North-West and North-East Components of Pakistan? Will the new states co-operate with each other—and with the British Commonwealth —in a common policy of defence? “ Everything would depend ”, said the “ Economist ”, “on whether “Hindustan and the two Pakistans “thought of war against each other “ as a contingency to. which military “ preparations should be directed, or “whether their planning would be “ on the basis of permanent alliance “for joint defence. If the latter, “ then there could still be an over“aU plan for the three armies in “ accordance with which the sorting- “ out and re-forming could be under- “ taken and carried out ”.