Ashoka's Lions: The Warrior Spirit of India

By Henry Jesuadian

While researching for my book about the Indian Air Force Himalayan Eagle – The Story of the Indian Air Force, I came across some very interesting details about the military/warrior traditions of India that seemed at odds with the general image of a country thought to be spiritual and pacifist - the Buddha and “Mahatma” Gandhi immediately spring to mind in this context.
The details were intriguing enough for me to embark upon another ambitious project - to gather together and collate the data available on this Indian warrior tradition and its resurgence in modern-day India.
This work is the presentation of certain pertinent details that are available in the open sources but told in a comprehensive, objective and readable form so that an interested reader gains a better understanding of India’s little-known martial and warrior history!
It is a narrative of the warrior/military traditions of India going back to its pre-Vedic roots and covers the birth of the Indian warrior caste, the Kshatriyas. How these warriors dominated among the empire builders, and how their pre-eminence was superseded by civilian rule, a change in the political scene of India that was to have ramifications from the 10th to 20th century CE.
The title chosen for this work may confuse those readers who are aware that the emperor Ashoka eschewed violence for pacificism as a Buddhist. The lions in the title refer to the four represented on the Ashoka pillars at Sarnath, each facing to the points of the compass and which are symbolic of the present-day warriors of the country, the Indian armed forces, guarding against intrusions from any point.

• Language: English
• Publisher: VIJ Books (India) Pty Ltd
• Release date: May 31, 2021
• ISBN: 9789390439935

Henry Jesuadian

Born in India in 1940, educated at a British oil company school in Iran and then at high school in India, the author was unable, due to parental objection, to continue a career in the Indian Air Force, for which he retained a life-long admiration. (The paternal objection was ironic – father was in Indian Army in WWI, and two uncles in WWII) Working in an industrial organization, he wrote a humourous play for his company’s social club which garnered some acclaim, and then won a State award for a paper on Industrial Relations in Industry. He gained some flying experience in gliders to satisfy his love of flying. He also gained a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology. (Used to counsel Indian Army friends traumatized in 1962 Sino-Indian War and 1965 Indo-Pak War) Migrating to Australia in 1973, was soon involved in writing rebuttals of anti-Indian bias in local defence magazines such as the Pacific Defence Reporter, and international news magazines like Asiaweek and Far Eastern Economic Review and others, most of which were published. He was a prominent member of many professional and social clubs and associations. Currently a member of the Old Boys’ Association of Bishop Cotton Boy’s School Bangalore, and a permanent guest of the IAF Retirees Group in Sydney Australia. Retained friendships with many classmates and friends in Indian military, including two retired Vice Chiefs of Air Staff IAF. A keen reader and collector of books, with an interest in humour, aviation and Indian military history His first book, written after retirement in 2008 as a Forensic Accountant, was titled “Himalayan Eagle – The Story of the Indian Air Force” which was published in India in January 2018. The research for that book led to the writing of a follow-on about the warrior spirit of India. “Ashoka’s Lions – The Warrior Spirit of India” is the result. He is married, with two children and five grandchildren and currently resides in Sydney, Australia.

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Prologue

While this work tells of the martial traditions and warrior ethos of the people on the Indian subcontinent from ancient times, the reader should bear in mind that the military forces in existence at that time were NOT national forces, but individual state forces of emperors, kings and other rulers.

Even the grand epics of the Mahabharata and Ramayana speak of wars fought BETWEEN such states within the boundaries of what is broadly referred to as India.

While not detracting from India’s warrior heritage, the military forces that developed as a national entity currently in India today had their origins, whether the reader agrees or not, with the British colonial rulers of India.

The Origin of Modern India’s Armed Forces

Indian Army

While many military formations on the Indian subcontinent existed in the various empires, kingdoms and republics, as previously stated, the modern Indian Army had its origins in the ‘native’ levies, with British officers, raised in 1643 by the British East India Company to guard its rapidly growing trading empire in India. The Indian soldiers were referred to as ‘sepoys’.

The East India Company (E.I.C.) was forced to adopt this measure because the British government, while providing a regular British Army presence on the subcontinent, could not field a force large enough to police the whole country.

With the establishment by the E.I.C. of strongholds in Bengal, Bombay and Madras states, the levies were organised into three separate presidency armies. These armies were paid for from the profits made by the respective presidencies.

The Bengal Presidency Army was made up mainly of Muslims from Bengal, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, the latter two of which were then part of Bengal. The Bombay and Madras Presidency armies had mainly high-caste Hindu recruits in their ranks. The three armies were separate forces, each with its own Commander-in-Chief, but overall control lay in the hands of the C-in-C Bengal Army in his role as Commander-in-Chief East Indies. The three armies came under the civilian control of the East India Company and could thus operate as a single force when and if needed

There was a total strength of 238,000 Indian troops in the three armies, complemented by 45,000 British troops, by 1856.

With the outbreak of the Indian Rebellion of 1857, known in British history books as ‘The Indian Mutiny’ or ‘The Sepoy Mutiny’, the British Crown began to take a more serious interest in the East India Company and its increasing mismanagement of affairs on the Indian subcontinent.

After the Rebellion had been quashed in 1858, the Crown took over the running of the Company’s Indian trading empire, thus formalising British rule in India and creating the ‘Raj’!

From 1858 on, the three presidency armies were informally referred to as the ‘Indian Army’ which was used mainly to police both the north-west and north-east frontiers. Increasingly, though, it was soon used to support British foreign policy in China, the Middle East and Africa.

Also, from this point on, the British started recruiting mainly from the so-called ‘martial races’ of the subcontinent. These were the Sikhs, Awans, Gakhars and Muslims from the Punjab, Balochis, Pashtuns, Marathas, Bunts, Nairs, Rajputs, Ahirs, Kumoanis, Gurkhas, Garhwalis, Janjuas, Dogras, Jats, Gurjars and Sainis.

The officers of the three armies comprised three separate Presidential Staff Corps in 1861.

By 1863, the proportion of Indian to British troops had become 205,000 to 65,000.

There were various changes to the structures of the Presidency armies till about 1891, when the three staff corps were merged into a single Indian Staff Corps.

In 1895, the (British) Government of India raised the first official Indian Army, which co-existed alongside the three presidency armies, and was composed of British and Indian soldiers.

One source claims that the three Presidential armies were abolished on April 1st, 1895 by a Government of India notification vide Army Department Order Number 981 dated October 26, 1894, and that the new army was structured in four commands, ie Northern, Eastern, Southern and Western Commands. This new army continued to support the civil administration in maintaining internal order in suppressing rebellions and riots as well as suppressing banditry. Their first external operation was in the Boxer Rebellion in China that lasted from 1899 to 1901.

Another source claims that in 1903, the three presidency armies were incorporated into the official Indian Army as one of the reforms of Lord Kitchener. Basically, there were:

1. The Indian Army – which comprised local recruits permanently based in India, and included expatriate British officers.

2. The British Army in India – which were regular British Army units in India for a tour of duty, after which they could be rotated to other parts of the British empire or back to the UK.

3. The Army of India – which consisted of both the Indian Army and the British Army.

The Army of India was headed by the Commander-in-Chief India who reported to the (civilian) Governor-General. The C-in-C India and his staff were based at General Headquarters (GHQ) India.

While British Army postings were more prestigious than Indian Army postings, the latter’s pay scales were much higher, allowing Indian Army officers to live on their salaries rather than depend on a private income like their colleagues in the British Army. Consequently, there was a scramble for places in the former, with the vacancies being reserved for better- qualified officer-cadets from the Royal Military College at Sandhurst! A requirement for posting to the Indian Army was that the British officers had to learn Indian languages, especially Hindi as most of the rank and file came from the north of India.

The manpower of the Indian Army until 1914 was only 155,000 in eight divisions and smaller units. The 9th Secunderabad Division was formed at the start of that year to bring the Army’s strength up to nine divisions.

The Indian Army’s Battle Honours and Campaigns until India’s independence include:

⮚The Second Opium War (1856-1860)

⮚The North-West Frontier Campaigns (1858-1947)

⮚The British Expedition to Abyssinia (1868)

⮚The Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878-1880)

⮚The Anglo-Egyptian War (1882)

⮚The Third Anglo-Burmese War (1885-1897)

⮚The First Mohmand Campaign (1897-1898)

⮚The Tirah Campaign (1897-1898)

⮚The Mahdist War (1898-1899)

⮚The Boxer Rebellion (1899-1901)

⮚The British Expedition to Tibet (1903-1904)

⮚The First World War (1914-1918)

⮚The Third Anglo-Afghan War (1919)

⮚The First Waziristan Campaign (1919-1920)

⮚The Second Waziristan Campaign (1936-1939)

⮚The Second World War (1939-1945)

(The Indian Army’s activities are briefly described in the relevant chapters of this book.)

Indian Navy

While the many empires, kingdoms and republics on the subcontinent operated naval vessels, both seagoing as well as riverine, none of them could classify as a national navy.

When the British East India Company established itself on the subcontinent in 1599, it decided to create a fleet of fighting ships to protect its trade routes to India. The first of such ships arrived on September 5th, 1612, and this naval force was named the ‘Honourable East India Company’s Marine’ (HEICM) which provided naval assistance to all three of the Company’s presidency armies, and could thus be said to be truly national

The HEICM protected shipping lanes in the Gulf of Cambay and in the rivers Tapti and Narmada. The ships of the fleet also helped in the mapping of the coastlines of India, Persia and Arabia.

The ships used were a few English warships and lots of locally built gunboats crewed by local fishermen. These gunboats were of two sizes. The ‘ghurabs’ were large, heavy shallow-draft vessels weighing 300 tons each and carried a mix of six 9- and 12-pounder guns. The smaller and lighter ‘gallivats’ weighed about 70 tons each with armament comprising six of both 2- to 4-pounder guns.

The East India Company constructed a shipyard at Surat in 1635, which then built four pinnaces (light support sailing vessels) and some larger vessels to augment the HEICM. When the company moved most of its commercial activity to Bombay in 1686, the fleet was renamed the ‘Bombay Marine’. Its complement of ordinary sailors was Indian, but the officers were all British.

The commander of the Marine appointed in 1751 was Commodore William James. In April of 1755, with the Bombay Marine Ship ‘Protector’ as flagship, he led a fleet that attacked the Maratha fortress Tulaji Angre between Bombay and Goa at Severndurg. Though his orders were to only blockade the fortress, he managed to bombard and destroy it.

Between 1756 and 1763, when all major European powers were engaged in a bitter global struggle for predominance known as the Seven Years War the Bombay Marine was active in fending off attempts by England’s foes, especially the French, to seize their Indian possessions. The Marine’s support of Robert Clive and Admiral Watson in capturing the Vijaydurg Fort at Gheriah and in the skirmishes against the French helped strengthen Britain’s hold on India.

The Marine was also part of the British fleet in the American War of Independence in the years 1775 to 1783, helping thwart French aid to the American rebels.

Twelve ships of the Bombay Marine in 1809 bombarded the pirate fortress at Ras-al-Kaimah in an unsuccessful attempt to destroy the source of Arab piracy. A latter expedition with eleven ships in 1819 proved more successful, by blockading the city fortress for four days and forcing the pirate tribal chieftain to surrender.

The Bombay Marine was renamed the ‘Bombay Marine Corps’ in 1829, during which year it also received its first steamship, the SS Hugh Lindsay, weighing 411 tons. This ship was sailed to Suez, reaching the Egyptian port after 21 days on March 20, 1830 with an average speed of six knots.

That same year, the Bombay Marine Corps was renamed again, this time receiving the title of ‘Indian Navy’. The latter’s commitment in aiding the British capture of Aden led to the creation of the ‘Indus Flotilla’. In 1840, the Indian Navy took part in the First Opium War with China. The Navy finished its conversion from sail to steam in 1845.

During the Anglo-Sikh War of 1848, an Indian Navy contingent of seven officers and one hundred ratings participated in the Siege of Multan. Then, at the start of the Second Anglo-Burmese War in 1852, Indian Navy ships, under the command of the Royal Navy, assisted in the capture of Rangoon and Martaban.

When the British Crown took control of the East India Company’s holdings in India after the abortive Indian Rebellion of 1857, the Indian Navy came under the command of the British Government and was formally titled ‘Her Majesty’s Indian Navy’.

However, resuming the name ‘Bombay Marine’ from 1863 to 1877, it was then again renamed ‘Her Majesty’s Indian Marine’. The newly named HMIM had an Eastern Division based at Calcutta and a Western Division based at Bombay.

In 1892, HMIM was re-titled ‘Royal Indian Marine’ in recognition of its sterling role as a fighting service. It now consisted of more than fifty ships, and was described in 1905 as government vessels providing surveying, policing and revenue-collecting duties as well as troop-ship duties.

During World War One, the RIM provided troop carriers, patrol vessels and also minesweeping activities when mines were found off the cost of Bombay and Aden. The RIM also ferried troops and supplies from India to East Africa, Egypt and Mesopotamia (Iraq).

In 1923, the first Indian, Engineer Sub-Lieutenant D.N. Mukherji, was commissioned as an officer in the RIM in January of that year.

The Royal Indian Marine’s name was again changed in 1934, this time to the ‘Royal Indian Navy’, formally inaugurated on October 2nd through the enactment of the Indian Navy (Discipline) Act, and its ships carried the prefix HMIS or ‘His Majesty’s Indian Ship’

The Royal Indian Navy was very small when the Second World War started, having only eight ships. The number of personnel and ships in its inventory increased dramatically during the War. Also, the Women’s Royal Indian Naval Service or WRINS (often referred to as ‘Wrens’), was formed, though its female personnel did not serve on board RIN ships.

During ‘Operation Husky’ the Allied invasion of Sicily in 1944, two sloops of the Royal Indian Navy, the HMIS Sutlej and HMIS Jumna, played a vital role.

However, after the end of the War, Indian sailors on board over fifty ships and shore establishments of the R.I.N., both ratings and officers, mutinied against the perceived discrimination against them by their British counterparts during the War. The revolt quickly spread all over India, with support and similar revolts in the Indian Army and Royal Indian Air Force. Seventy-eight ships and twenty shore bases of the RIN were involved, comprising some 20,000 sailors.

Just before India gained her independence in August 1947, the chief of the RIN’s title was changed from ‘Flag Officer Commanding, Royal Indian Navy’ to ‘Commander-in-Chief, Royal Indian Navy’.

Unfortunately, with the partition of the country on independence, the Royal Indian Navy was split between the new Dominions of India and Pakistan, with two-thirds of its ships and complement going to India (which retained the title of Royal Indian Navy) and one-third to the newly constituted Royal Pakistan Navy.

Ironically, many British officers opted to continue service in the new RIN, unlike many of their counterparts in the Indian Army, who had opted for the Pakistan Army.

A new designation, ‘Chief of Naval Staff ’ was added in March 1948 over that of the C-in-C Royal Indian Navy.

When India declared itself a republic on January 26, 1950, the Navy dropped the ‘Royal’ prefix and replaced the Union Jack in the canton of its White Ensign and Red Jack flags with the Triranga. The ships of the service were re-designated as ‘Indian Naval Ships’ and the prefix of the ships’ names changed from HMIS to INS.

The Battle Honours and Engagements of the Royal Indian Navy until independence were:

⮚The Seven Year War (1756-1763)

⮚The American War of Independence (1775-1783)

⮚The Napoleonic War (1803-1815)

⮚The First Opium War (1839-1842)

⮚The Second Opium War (1856-1860)

⮚The Anglo-Burmese Wars (1885 +)

⮚First World War (1914-1918)

⮚The Second World War (1939-1945)

Indian Navy

The Navy’s activities are briefly described in the relevant chapters.

Indian Air Force

Again, notwithstanding the rather vivid descriptions of aerial battles in the Mahabharata and other Indian epics, there are no factual details of aerial arms in the national sense existing at any time during the country’s early history.

Aerial weapons were a relatively new concept that emerged in the early 20th century, and once again, it was the British ‘Raj’ in India that formed the first air arm of the Indian defence forces.

With the historical flight of the Wright Brothers in 1903, aircraft rapidly developed into weapons of war. At the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, there were already several national air units in the armies of many Western countries. The British had their Royal Flying Corps, and many Indians served in it. Also participating in the War was a unit that styled itself the Indian Air Corps, but the airmen in it were mainly Britishers in India with flying experience that had formed a purely voluntary organisation. This IAC was absorbed into the Royal Flying Corps.

With the realisation that Indian pilots had provided valuable and competent service in the War, steps were taken to form an Indian air arm to act as an adjunct to the Royal Air Force in India and thus relieve the latter of ‘watch and ward’ duties on the frontiers.

But it was some fourteen years after the end of the First World War, after stiff resistance from many diehard British conservatives, that an act was passed by the (British) Indian Government formalising on October 8, 1931, the formation of the Indian Air Force. Six Indians had already been chosen to attend the RAF’s prestigious Cranwell College in the UK to form the core of this new air arm.

Six months later, the physical manifestation of the Indian Air Force took place on April 1st, 1932 with the formation of ‘A’ flight of No 1 Squadron Indian Air Force comprising four (outdated) Westland Wapiti aircraft and thirteen aircrew including five pilots.

The new indigenous squadron provided valuable assistance to the RAF on the North-West Frontier and a couple more flights were raised with the output of the increased intake of Indians at Cranwell.

However, it was the Second World War that provided the impetus for the rapid expansion of the IAF in men, aircraft and materiel. It was able to take over the complete responsibility for the Frontier, replacing the RAF units that had been recalled to the UK for home defence. Then, with the entry of Japan into the War and the imminent threat to India, the IAF expanded and began to play a major role in the defence of the country on the eastern front and Burma against potential invasion of the country by the Japanese.

In recognition of the significant service provided by the IAF during this War, the IAF was awarded the title ‘Royal Indian Air Force’ and its No 7 Sqn selected to escort the Japanese military aircraft carrying the delegation flying in for the signing of the surrender documents.

With the end of the War and the subsequent independence of the country with its sad partition, the RIAF was divided between the two dominions of India and Pakistan, with two-thirds of its men and materiel retained by India including the title of RIAF and the remainder going to the new Royal Pakistan Air Force.

On the declaration in 1950 of the country’s status as a republic, the honorific ‘Royal’ was dropped from its name as was the Union Jack from the flag, the latter being replaced by the Triranga.

Battle Honours and Engagements of the IAF until independence include:

⮚North West Frontier Agency (1932-1947)

⮚Burma (1940-1945)

(Further details of the Indian Air Force can be found in my book "Himalayan Eagle – the Story of the Indian Air Force" published by Lancer Books, New Delhi.)

Introduction

The story of humanity is necessarily also the story of conflict! While ‘homo erectus’ is extolled as the epitome of an intelligent creature, top of the food chain in the animal world, and is praised for its perceived achievements, one major factor is overlooked.

Most of these achievements were gained through conflict and the subsequent horrendous loss of lives. When one group of us humans came across another, it usually resulted in bloodshed as each group battled for supremacy, be it for territory, food or plunder.

As such, a section of these groups came to be highly regarded by the rest of their peers because of their fighting skills. These were the warriors, the fighters that fought and defended the group at the behest of their leaders and people. Usually, the leaders themselves were warriors, considered to be the toughest of the tough.

This was true of all cultures and civilisations in the world, and also true of those on the Indian sub-continent.

However, the concept of the warrior seemed to have come rather later to the major ancient civilisations of the subcontinent than anywhere else. Strangely enough, these civilisations seemed to have thrived mainly through co-operation and self-sufficiency and as well as peaceful trade, till ultimately even they were forced to take up arms to defend themselves against external marauders.

Thus came into being the Kshatriya, the warrior caste of India!

A study of the Kshatriya of India is necessarily a study of Hinduism and Hindu culture. This culture claims greater antiquity than Assyrian and Egyptian cultures. An aspect of this ancient Hindu culture was in its political institutions that appeared to be quite advanced for its time, almost relevant to modern times.

It was thus relatively late in India’s history that the need for an army as part of the political institutions was realised and led to the setting up of a permanent militia for the purpose of dealing with unrest within the state and preventing aggression from external sources.

These warriors of ancient India were encouraged to display chivalry, individual heroism, qualities of mercy and nobility of outlook even during the worst periods of battle.

They were trained in armed and unarmed combat, with these martial arts eventually making their way to the Far East via Buddhist pilgrims returning to China, Japan and Korea and elsewhere in East Asia.

The Kshatriya was similar in concept to the Japanese Samurai and the Prussian Junkers.

But Hinduism gradually evolved into a spiritual belief system that eschewed violence, and the Kshatriya’s primacy in the caste system was eventually superseded by the Brahmin or priest. The Kshatriya caste declined in importance over the years, losing its pre-eminence as an aristocracy in Indian society.

This subordination of the Kshatriya in the re-formulated caste system was probably a major cause of India’s ultimate subjugation by foreign invaders from the 10th century CE onwards.

This period saw the Indian subcontinent fall prey to foreign colonialists due to the weak and fissiparous nature of the individual kingdoms and military forces which had become subject to excessive civilian control. Foreign domination over the Indian sub-continent was to last till the middle of the 20th century.

In recent times, the warrior class, as distinct from the warrior caste, transcends all religious lines in India’s modern military forces and the 21st century has seen a resurgence of martial pride and a re-emergence of military traditions, which has positioned India among the top five military powers in the world today.

01

India’s Early Years (30,000-500 BCE)

At the outset, it must be understood that the name "India in ancient times is used generically, in the same way as when one refers to Europe. Ancient India" covered an area from the eastern parts of modern day Iran, all of Afghanistan, and the northern part of the Indian sub-continent in the main, with the southern part of the sub-continental peninsula as an occasional adjunct. It sometimes also included modern day Burma (now Myanmar) and what used to be called Indo-China encompassing Siam/Thailand, Malaya, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos - Indonesia and the Philippines were probably also included occasionally (see Map 1). It is said that modern day Indonesian currency carries the image of the Hindu god Ganesh, an anomaly in the world’s largest Muslim nation, and explained by an Indonesian politician as Indonesians having changed their religion, but not their ancestors!

The origin of the name "India is variously ascribed to an ancient Persian word Hindu"(?) meaning ‘people of the river Indus’ or, as is more likely, to the Sanskrit word "Sindu which was the original name of the Indus River. The current Hindi name Bharat, recognised by the Constitution of India, is said to have derived from an historical name Bharatvarsha, though some scholars believe it derives from the Vedic tribe called the Bharata" whose ruler was so named.

While the earliest human remains found in the Indian sub-continent date back 30,000 years, the first known human settlements appeared on the sub-continent during Neolithic times, around 7000 BCE, at Mehrgarh and other sites in what is now Pakistan. These settlements gradually developed into the Indus Valley civilisation, which was the first urban culture in the region, flourishing between 2500-1900 BCE (see Map 2).

The first sign of human death due to conflict appears to have been about 11000-4000 BCE when a Microlithic arrow head was found between a skeleton’s rib-cage at a dig site at Sarai Nahar Rai, about 15 kms south-west from Pratapgarh in northern India. It was in the remains of one of nine males aged from 16 to 34, with four females aged 15 to 35 and a child, all buried in 11 oblong