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Jinnah & indigenisation of
Armed Forces
Brig M Sher Khan (R)
Indigenisation means the induction of Indians in the British Indian
Armed Forces as King’s Commission Officers (KCOs) before Independence
and the emergence of the Dominions of Pakistan and India. Prior to that,
all officers were European non-Indians, almost entirely British.
However, Viceroy’s Commissioned Officers (VCOs), who after Independence
came to be known as Junior Commissioned Officers (JCOs), were all native
Indians promoted from the rank and file. Few people are aware of the
crucial role Mohammad Ali Jinnah played in bringing about Indianisation
against all the odds in an environment that smacked openly about the
superiority of the White race and the inferiority of the natives.
The debate and foot-dragging on the part of the British government and
the Raj on the pace of Indianisation precipitated a crisis when on 3rd
March 1925 Mr. Jinnah, a secular nationalist, threatened a vote of
censure because the Government of India’s Indigenisation policy had been
‘disingenuous, dilatory and inadequate’. Earlier, he had scathingly
attacked the C-in-C India in the Assembly in February 1925 in no
uncertain words: “You come here with one excuse or other, and you tell
us that there is this difficulty and that, that there is this to be done
and that is to be done….Has there ever been a proposal which we have
suggested which was not rash…when have you Englishmen ever agreed with
us and said that any proposal we make is not rash? You say, ‘It is rash,
be cautious’.
We have been 150 years under this government. You have deprived the
people of India of arms. What have you done?” As quoted by Aziz Beg in
his book ‘Jinnah and His Times’, “The nationalisation of the Indian Army
had been a subject very close to the heart of Jinnah during the 20s and
he used all his powers of persuasion to convince the Government of India
to speed up the process of making the Indian army a truly national army,
officered by Indians. He had battled hard for the establishment of an
Indian officers’ training institution, which was then known as the
‘Indian Sandhurst’. He understood that no country could defend its
freedom without an armed force led by its own nationals and he found
that despite the Government’s acceptance of the idea of increasing the
proportion of Indian officers in the Indian army, the rate at which
Indians were given commissions was so slow that it would take centuries
before the Indian army could dispense with British officers. He was the
only Indian delegate who emphatically demanded that the recruitment of
British officers should stop immediately and that only Indians be chosen
for commissions in the Indian army. He concluded his remarks with these
words, ‘We have ample materials. Imagine 320,000,000 people with a
history behind them. Does any man believe that we cannot produce 120
boys per year who will be able to stand the rigorous and strictest test
of efficiency before they are granted the King’s Commission?’
Finally the Indian Military Academy (IMA) was established at Dehra Doon
in 1932 with an intake of only about 60 cadets, among them the late
General Mohammad Musa. Cadets receiving their commissions in the Indian
Army after training at IMA were referred to as Indian Commissioned
Officers (ICOs). This was but a small step towards the huge task of
Indigenisation at hand, considering that there were around that time
about 17,000 non-Indians serving in the British Indian Army, and by the
1960s only 50% Indianisation was expected to be achieved. This is ample
proof of British insincerity to the concept of Indigenisation, but they
were overtaken by events with the outbreak of the Second World War and
massive mobilisation in India, which resulted in the huge shortage of
trained officers, notwithstanding the meagre annual output of IMA. This
had to be overcome by granting Emergency Commissions by the thousands
(some 15,000) to meet the demands of the War, most of who were
demobilised after the War. During and after the War there was an upsurge
in demands for Independence that the British had promised for
cooperation in the war effort, and a weakened British Empire began to
unravel, close shop, pack its bags and return to its own shores post
haste. About one third of the Indian army came to the share of Pakistan,
but because of the tardy pace of the Indigenisation policy, both
Pakistan and Indian armed forces were severely short of officers,
compelling both the governments to request thousands of British
officers, especially in the technical branches, to stay on for some
years. Among those who opted to stay on for some time was Brig Ingall,
formerly of 6th DCO Lancers (the writer’s father’s regiment), who set up
the Pakistan Military Academy at Kakul after Independence. PMA’s
auditorium is named after him; he passed away in USA in 1977 while in
his nineties, soon after having paid a visit to PMA and 6 Lancers
courtesy GHQ.
Pakistan Army and Air Force set up their own cadet training Academies
soon after Independence to meet the needs of its officer cadres (the
Navy did so several years later), but in the initial years continued to
send some cadets to British Academies out of necessity. Over the years,
the Pakistani Academies, and other training facilities, have evolved
into world-class institutions, and have been attracting trainees from
many Asian and African countries. It is therefore incongruous as to why
Pakistan Army, if not the other two Services also, continues to send one
cadet each year to Sandhurst for training in a completely foreign
environment so that on return he can serve with native troops. (This
does not bear comparison with some foreign Staff Colleges, which is on a
reciprocal basis. Perhaps it has something to do with our psyche: after
six decades of Independence, we still don’t seem to want to cut the
apron strings of our former rulers in Britain. Why are trainees at
Pakistan Military Academy Kakul still called ‘Gentleman Cadets’? (The
newly inducted female cadets are called Lady Cadets). No one, including
officers who have served in the faculty at PMA, could give a
satisfactory answer when queried by the writer. The British did away
with the term long ago, and call their trainees ‘Officer Cadets’ ever
since; to find out why, go to the website of the Royal Military Academy,
Sandhurst. Maybe it is because we are all basically “lakeer kay fakir;
“theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die”?
Soon after Independence, a Joint Services Pre-Cadet Training School
(JSPCTS) was set up at Quetta. Trainees from all the three Services had
to successfully complete a course of about six months duration before
they joined their respective Service Academies. The scheme was
terminated around 1954. The greatest benefit of this scheme was that,
besides toughening up the young boys and introducing them to military
discipline, it created lifelong bonds between the officers of the three
Services. However, cadets from the Pakistan Navy used to join PMA Kakul
for the first term around the early sixties before going to the Naval
Academy in Karachi; this scheme too was terminated after some time.
—(The writer frequently contributes articles based upon his experience).
