USI Library
News Information Service
Times of India 6-7-2015
Were Army pay and perks better under the British
At Delhi's JantarMantar, armed forces veterans have been sitting on a relay hunger
strike since June 15 to protest against the Modi government's flip-flops on the
implementation of OROP (one rank one pension) scheme. "Is this a government of our
people? Even the British treated us better," a war veteran mutters.
So, did the Raj really treat Indian soldiers better? The Indian Army sepoy was never
really paid well at any point in history. After the Mughals, the East India Company
became the best paymaster in the subcontinent, and the prospect of regular pay
attracted talent from all corners of the country. It was perhaps rivalled only by the Sikh
Empire after Maharaja Ranjit Singh's death and that too for a short time (the Khalsa
Army's pay was double the Company salaries).
"The Army got a better deal during the Raj. Western societies look up to the Army as
an institution that upholds the nation state. It's still customary in the US for people to
say 'thank you' to a war veteran; in the UK, they make way for war heroes, and a
Victoria Cross winner always meets with a standing ovation wherever he goes. In
India, the colonial state accorded privileges to the Army because it was essential for
British rule," says military historian Squadron Leader Rana Chhina (Retd) of USICAFHR.
DrGajendra Singh, who teaches South Asian history at the University of Exeter, says
the monthly pay of a sepoy was fixed at Rs 7 in 1860, Rs 9 in 1895 and Rs 11 in 1911.
But the money was often lower than the cost of subsistence which was estimated in
1875 at Rs 7, two annas and five paise.
Indian officers in the 1860s and thereafter were, of course, better off. A risaldar major in
the cavalry was paid Rs 150, a risaldarRs 80, and a jemadarRs 50 a month. But even
these were extraordinarily low when compared to what the European officers received:
cavalry or horse artillery colonels, for instance, were paid Rs 1,478 per month,
lieutenant colonels, Rs 1,032 and majors, Rs 929. By today's standards, the colonel was
being paid the equivalent of around Rs 8 lakh then (as per the National Archives, UK's,
old currency converter, Rs 1,478 is approximately 280 pounds per day, which is
around Rs 8 lakh per month).
Worried that the Raj wouldn't attract top talent, sepoy salaries were upped in the latter
half of the 19th century. About 40% of the Indian Army in peacetime was allowed to go
on furlough to till their lands. "Also, extraordinary payments like batta were fixed at an
extra Rs 5 by 1914 and British officers were encouraged to shower gifts on their men.
Military service by the 1890s in Punjab was seen as a way of getting a land grant upon
discharge, of employment in other forms of colonial service, or of enabling migration
abroad—up to 50% of early Punjabi migrants to Canada and California in 1901-1911
were pensioned soldiers," Dr Singh says.
The pensions varied across ranks and number of years spent in service and was in the
range of 50%-70% of salaries (until 1973, officers were paid 50% and sepoys, 70% of
their salary as pension. Today, it is 50% across ranks.) While the salaries and perks
were good, the men were treated, says Dr Singh quoting Kipling, as 'half-devil and
half-child'-- in need of a nurturing, civilizing hand and back-of-the-hand discipline.
"Flogging remained a summary punishment in the Indian Army until 1921, about 60
years after it disappeared from the British Army; a full third of all military offences in
the Indian Army were punishable by transportation to the Kala Pani; and the very
remnants of soldiering testimony that we have from the two world wars are artefacts of
special colonial surveillance (censoring bodies, the files of Indian political intelligence
etc),"he says.
When India became independent, Raj-era privileges were systematically taken away
from the armed forces. "I suppose Nehru did it to make the forces coup proof and
ensure democracy thrived. But the bureaucracy got it wrong and continued to devalue
the military long after Nehru was gone," says Chhina.