W&M ScholarWorks Undergraduate Honors Theses Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects 5-2019 Who Does The Dying?: 'Martial Races' and War Time Unit Deployment in the Indian Army Ammon Frederick Harteis Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wm.edu/honorstheses Part of the Comparative Politics Commons Recommended Citation Frederick Harteis, Ammon, "Who Does The Dying?: 'Martial Races' and War Time Unit Deployment in the Indian Army" (2019). Undergraduate Honors Theses. Paper 1417. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/honorstheses/1417 This Honors Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects at W&M ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Undergraduate Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of W&M ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Who Does The Dying? ‘Martial Races’ and War Time Unit Deployment in the Indian Army Ammon Frederick Harteis Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori Frederick Harteis 1 Abstract During the Second World War, the Indian Army held back units and soldiers that were not from the so-called “martial races” from frontline combat service. The British “martial races” theory held that only a small number of communities in India were fit for military service and people from all “non-martial” communities should be excluded from the Army. Has the Indian Army, after gaining independence from British leadership, contended the Second World War practice of deploying “martial” units in combat while assigning “non-martial” units to non- combat roles? It has been conclusively demonstrated that “martial race” groups have contended to be overrepresented in the post-colonial Indian Army.