Army and Nation

Army and Nation

Author: Steven Wilkinson

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2015-02-12

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 0674728807

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Steven I. Wilkinson explores how India has succeeded in keeping the military out of politics, when so many other countries have failed. He uncovers the command and control strategies, the careful ethnic balancing, and the political, foreign policy, and strategic decisions that have made the army safe for Indian democracy.


The Indian Army and the End of the Raj

The Indian Army and the End of the Raj

Author: Daniel Marston

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2014-04-24

Total Pages: 401

ISBN-13: 0521899753

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A unique examination of the role of the Indian army in post-World War II India in the run-up to Partition. Daniel Marston draws upon extensive archival research and interviews with veterans of the events of 1947 to provide fresh insight into the final days of the British Raj.


The Late Colonial Indian Army

The Late Colonial Indian Army

Author: Pradeep Barua

Publisher:

Published: 2021

Total Pages: 374

ISBN-13: 9781498552202

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This book examines the British Indian Army during the later colonial era, from the First Afghan War in 1839 to Indian independence in 1947. During this period, it developed from an internal policing force to a frontier army, and later to a conventional Western-style fighting force.


The Forgotten Army

The Forgotten Army

Author: Peter Ward Fay

Publisher: University of Michigan Press

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 596

ISBN-13: 9780472083428

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The first complete history of the Indian National Army and its fight for independence against the British in World War II.


Armies of the Raj

Armies of the Raj

Author: Byron Farwell

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 1989

Total Pages: 404

ISBN-13: 9780393308020

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With a profusion of anecdotes conveying the character of India under British rule. Farwell offers a panoramic survey of the Indian army during the 90 years between the Sepoy Revolt and the births of independent India and Pakistan ...


India's Wars

India's Wars

Author: Arjun Subramaniam

Publisher: Naval Institute Press

Published: 2017-09-15

Total Pages: 548

ISBN-13: 1682472426

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India’s armed forces play a key role in protecting the country and occupy a special place in the Indian people’s hearts, yet standard accounts of contemporary Indian history rarely have a military dimension. In India’s Wars, serving Air Vice Marshal Arjun Subramaniam seeks to rectify that oversight by giving India’s military exploits their rightful place in history. Subramaniam begins India’s Wars with a frank call to reinvigorate the study of military history as part of Indian history more generally. Part II surveys the development of the India’s army, navy, and air force from the early years of the modern era to 1971. In Parts III and IV, Subramaniam considers conflicts from 1947 to 1962 as well as conflicts with China in 1962 and Pakistan in 1965 and 1971. Part V concludes by assessing these conflicts through the lens of India’s ancient strategist, Kautilya, who is revered in India as much as Sun Tzu is in China. Not merely a wide-ranging historical narrative of India’s military performance in battle, India’s Wars also offers a strategic, operational, and human perspective on the wars fought by independent India’s armed forces. Subramaniam highlights possible ways to improve the synergy between the three services, and argues in favor of the declassification of historical material pertaining to national security. The author also examines the overall state of civil-military relations in India, leadership within the Indian armed forces, as well as training, capability building, and other vitally important issues of concern to citizens, the government, and the armed forces. This objective and critical analysis provides policy cues for the reinvigoration of the armed forces as a critical tool of statecraft and diplomacy. Readers will come away from India’s Wars with a greater understanding of the international environment of war and conflict in modern India. Laced with veterans’ intense experiences in combat operations, and deeply researched and passionately written, it unfolds with surprising ease and offers a fresh perspective on independent India’s history.


Leadership in the Indian Army

Leadership in the Indian Army

Author: V.K. Singh

Publisher: Penguin Random House India Private Limited

Published: 2023-11-30

Total Pages: 456

ISBN-13: 935708360X

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Unlike traditional biographies of combat leaders, which focus primarily on military operations or regimental histories, in this book Major General V.K. Singh concentrates on personal accounts, anecdotes and reminiscences in order to highlight these leaders’ personalities, and to draw out the human face behind the military facade. Through the stories of these twelve military leaders, the book also throws new light on several historical events and the role of political leaders during India’s fight for independence and the partitioning of the subcontinent. He gives an overview of India’s military history after independence, including major operations, and describes many hitherto unknown or little-known incidents concerning smaller operations like Nathu La in 1967 and Goa in 1962. Written records tend to glorify the actions of battalions as well as individuals, Singh says, magnifying achievements while suppressing the mistakes and glossing over failures. Leadership in the Indian Army provides a truer picture of the strength of character and convictions of each of these leaders. A must-read for anyone interested in India’s military history.


Faithful Fighters

Faithful Fighters

Author: Kate Imy

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2019-12-10

Total Pages: 355

ISBN-13: 1503610756

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During the first four decades of the twentieth century, the British Indian Army possessed an illusion of racial and religious inclusivity. The army recruited diverse soldiers, known as the "Martial Races," including British Christians, Hindustani Muslims, Punjabi Sikhs, Hindu Rajputs, Pathans from northwestern India, and "Gurkhas" from Nepal. As anti-colonial activism intensified, military officials incorporated some soldiers' religious traditions into the army to keep them disciplined and loyal. They facilitated acts such as the fast of Ramadan for Muslim soldiers and allowed religious swords among Sikhs to recruit men from communities where anti-colonial sentiment grew stronger. Consequently, Indian nationalists and anti-colonial activists charged the army with fomenting racial and religious divisions. In Faithful Fighters, Kate Imy explores how military culture created unintended dialogues between soldiers and civilians, including Hindu nationalists, Sikh revivalists, and pan-Islamic activists. By the 1920s and '30s, the army constructed military schools and academies to isolate soldiers from anti-colonial activism. While this carefully managed military segregation crumbled under the pressure of the Second World War, Imy argues that the army militarized racial and religious difference, creating lasting legacies for the violent partition and independence of India, and the endemic warfare and violence of the post-colonial world.


India's War

India's War

Author: Srinath Raghavan

Publisher: Basic Books

Published: 2016-05-10

Total Pages: 591

ISBN-13: 0465098622

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Between 1939 and 1945 India underwent extraordinary and irreversible change. Hundreds of thousands of Indians suddenly found themselves in uniform, fighting in the Middle East, North and East Africa, Europe and-something simply never imagined-against a Japanese army poised to invade eastern India. With the threat of the Axis powers looming, the entire country was pulled into the vortex of wartime mobilization. By the war's end, the Indian Army had become the largest volunteer force in the conflict, consisting of 2.5 million men, while many millions more had offered their industrial, agricultural, and military labor. It was clear that India would never be same-the only question was: would the war effort push the country toward or away from independence? In India's War, historian Srinath Raghavan paints a compelling picture of battles abroad and of life on the home front, arguing that the war is crucial to explaining how and why colonial rule ended in South Asia. World War II forever altered the country's social landscape, overturning many Indians' settled assumptions and opening up new opportunities for the nation's most disadvantaged people. When the dust of war settled, India had emerged as a major Asian power with her feet set firmly on the path toward Independence. From Gandhi's early urging in support of Britain's war efforts, to the crucial Burma Campaign, where Indian forces broke the siege of Imphal and stemmed the western advance of Imperial Japan, Raghavan brings this underexplored theater of WWII to vivid life. The first major account of India during World War II, India's War chronicles how the war forever transformed India, its economy, its politics, and its people, laying the groundwork for the emergence of modern South Asia and the rise of India as a major power.