SEPOY HONOUR

New Zealand Times, Volume XLII, Issue 9620, 28 March 1917, Page 5

SEPOY HONOUR

CASTE CUBES OUTCASTS THE LAST IGNOMINY. On service the essentials of caste rtte observed in the Indian Army us fastidiously as in peace time, only a certain amount of ceremonial is dispensed with, writes Mr Edmund Candler from British Headquarters in Mesopotamia. •At ordinary times the high-caste Hindu, when lie is away from homo, prepares his own dinner and eats it alone, A small square is marked oli tor cooking. This is called the ehauka. It is smoothed and plastered over with mud, or cowdiiiig when available.

Even on service tlio Hindu preserves the sanctity of the ohauka [ and, if not a Brahmin, takes with him a Brahmin cook, relaxes nothing in regard to tho purity of his water from contamination by the wrong kind of people, and would rather starve than eat meat killed in an unorthodox wpy. A Gurkha faubndar on board a transport between Bombay and -Marseille!! was asked if his men would cat frozen meat, and replied, after consulting them’: “Sahib, they will hare no objection whatever provided one of them may bo permitted each day to see tho ani nal frozen alive.” There hare been occasions, oven among Sepoys, when ritual and casteexclusiveness have been turned to' disciplinary uses. "There was a company of Rajputs .somewhere in the neighbourhood of Suez which contained a draft of very raw recruits. Four wore holding a picket on the oast hank of the Canal when they lost their heads,. One blazed off at a .shadow. A panic set in, and all throw down their rules, bolted as' if tho devil were behind them, and wore only held up by file br.rbed who of their own outpost. Tho officer commanding and the ad jutaut were considering how to deal with them when the Suhadar major entered tho orderly room. The man was a veteran, with a double row ol ribbons on his breast, and he had never let tho regiment down in all hit. service. He bogged as a special favour that Rajput officers should be permitted to wipe out tlm stain “Leave it to ua, Sahib,” he said; “w<J will put such an indignity on them that there will not bo a jiwan in the regiment who will shrink from bairadri (bravo deeds) again."’ The colonel saw the wisdom of this So the Indian officers of the regiment wore deputed to deal with, the case themselves. Tho jiwans were tapped on the head with a slipper, the _ last ignominy that can befall a Rajput. After such disgrace they could not enter the chauka and moss with theii caste companions. That is to say, they were socially excommunicated until their honour was retrieved. Foi nearly eighteen months they lit their outcast fire and took their moaln apart at a measured distance from the chauka, at such a distance that no ray of contamination could proceed from them to it.

They were still under the ban whet, the regiment left Egypt for Mesopotamia. When they went into action with the relieving column before Kut all four rehabilitated themselves. Two died honourably, one was awarded the Indian Order of Merit, and the fourth was promoted. The casts instind made a man of him.