British Indian Army

Hamid Hussain: Remembering Colonel Shuja Khanzada

Hamid Hussain remembers Colonel Shuja Khanzada (1943-2015), the Punjab home minister killed in a suicide attack in Attock, tracing his military family’s service in the British Indian army and his…

Brown Pundits Archive5 November 20150 comments
The (British) Indian Army’s Legacy in India and Pakistan

Hamid Hussain argues in this older piece that the armies of India and Pakistan share a heritage built in the Raj, when Muslim, Hindu, Sikh and Gurkha soldiers served together,…

Brown Pundits Archive4 August 20155 comments
World War One Indian Soldiers Write Home

The author links an article on letters written home by Indian soldiers in the First World War, quoting extracts from hospital patients in Brighton and Rouen.

Brown Pundits Archive10 May 20150 comments
Indian Troops in East Africa

Hamid Hussain writes about Indian soldiers in East Africa in the Great War, including the 129th Baluchis, as a piece of long-forgotten military archaeology, with the poster adding comments on…

Brown Pundits Archive16 February 20150 comments
Great Wars: Panipat (1761) – Ferozeshah (1845)

Prompted by another Middle East war, the author reflects on the cost of war in South Asian history, with extracts on Panipat in 1761 and the Sikh army at Ferozeshah,…

X.T.M26 September 20140 comments
Letter to India: what soldiers wrote in the first world war

Links a Caravan piece on David Omissi’s collection of letters by Indian soldiers in the First World War, and reproduces several of them.

Brown Pundits Archive27 August 20140 comments
Maharajah Ranjit Singh

Marking Ranjit Singh’s 175th death anniversary, the post sketches the Sikh empire’s reach and its fall to the British, then the Sikh turn to the British Indian Army, the pain…

Brown Pundits Archive30 June 20140 comments
Sikhs (15th Ludhiana infantry) save Sahibs

The poster notes that Britain gained hugely from Indian soldiers in the world wars and that a few words of gratitude would be welcome, citing David Cameron’s praise for a…

Brown Pundits Archive14 April 20140 comments
World War I (from an Indian viewpoint)

A note on the roughly 1.4 million Indians who took part in the First World War, mostly from Punjab, regretting that Indian historians have neglected the subject, with a quoted…

Brown Pundits Archive22 March 20140 comments
the 14th Ferozepur Sikh regiment…and some others

Hamid Hussain traces the 14th Ferozepore Sikhs from their raising in 1846 after the First Anglo-Sikh War, covering the 1857 uprising, Lieutenant Brasyer’s role, its First World War service and…

Brown Pundits Archive14 March 20140 comments