It’s About ‘Naam, Namak aur Nishan’
In the article ’It’s Time to Update Army Regiment Names,’ it is argued that the regiment names in the Indian Army (IA) are divisive and a sign of the British legacy. Therefore, they are at odds with equality and national integration that the Armed Forces should symbolise.
The class or region-based nomenclature of units has retained its British origins. For instance, Infantry regiments based on caste names such as RAJPUT, GORKHA, JAT, SIKH, DOGRA, MARATHA or MAHAR, the Engineers regiment based on the presidency army identities such as Bengal Sappers, Madras Sappers and Bombay Sappers and Armoured Regiments with suffixes such as HORSE, LANCERS & CAVALRY/ LIGHT CAVALRY, and prefixes such as HUDSON’S, POONA, SCINDE, CENTRAL INDIA. Some erstwhile, now redundant roles have been retained as signified by suffixes such as Rifles or Light Infantry.
The author argues that the Armed Forces have not fulfilled the mandate to move to an ‘All India, All Class’ composition of its regiments in the decades since independence. The present composition of units in the IA has four class compositions as follows.
Four existing class compositions are - Fixed class, Mixed fixed class, Single class and All India All Class.
· Fixed Class - Troops in a unit/battalion/regiment are from two or three different ethnic groups, while sub-units (Rifle Companies/ Sabre Squadrons/ Gun Batteries) within the unit are of fixed ethnicity, e.g. a Rajputana Rifles Battalion (having four rifle companies) of Fixed class may have a Rifle Company each of Rajputs, Jats, Ahirs and Khemkhani (Muslim Rajputs).
· Mixed Fixed Class. Troops in a unit are from two or more ethnic classes, which together compose the Rifle Companies, which do not have a specific ethnic identity.
· Single Class. All troops in the unit are from a specific ethnic group, for example, a battalion of the Sikh regiment having only Sikh troops.
· All India All Class. All troops are from all classes, and so are their sub-units, such as a Maratha battalion that has troops from all over India.
. While the above may be true for most of the combat arms, the supporting arms and services have, by and large, been all-India, all-class.
. “The Army Aviation Corps, Corps of Signals, Parachute Regiment, Brigade of the Guards and all the services, namely Army Service Corps, Army Medical Corps, Army Dental Corps, Army Ordnance Corps, Corps of Electronics and Mechanical Engineers, Remount and Veterinary Corps, Army Education Corps, Corps of Military Police, Pioneer Corps and Army Postal Corps are all already ‘All India All Class’.”
I argue for the status quo at variance with the author’s argument for a change based on sociopolitical idealism . The rank-and-file of every unit carries its name with great pride and a sense of honour, borne more out of association through service rather than any profound reverence for the crown. Every time the name of a unit is changed, it loses a bit of its soul, and I argue that it should be done only if it brings any added advantage to its combat efficiency. Similar arguments have been made to justify dissociation from battle honours conferred to units in their campaigns against rebellions against the British Empire.
My views may be biased, coming from my association with my battalion. 1st Battalion, The Maratha Light Infantry (Jangi Paltan) was raised in 1768 as 2nd Bombay Sepoys and has been renamed seven times. It has, however, retained its identity as a unit for more than two and a half centuries despite having undergone nominal and structural changes as per evolving roles, tactics and equipping norms, as well as its class composition. It was under the Bombay Presidency, followed by the British Indian Army, and now the Indian Army. The fact that successive generations have chosen to join the outfit bears testimony that every soldier serving in the unit does so with a strong sense of belonging and affiliation to it, nurtured by the spirit of soldiering, something beyond mere class composition and dynamic political contexts.
Units, though aware of the political context of each engagement, approach their missions as a professional obligation to the spirit of ‘Naam, Namak aur Nishan’. To judge such soldiering retrospectively with evolving political contexts is to unfairly question the gallantry, the very sense of purpose towards the mission and the will to put oneself in harm’s way by soldiers who aren’t around to defend this front.