Manpower Mobilization and Indian Society
This chapter analyses the course and consequences of combatant and non-combatant manpower mobilization for the Indian Army during the First World War. The quantum of manpower mobilization by British India has been put in a proper context, by comparing it with other colonies and metropolitan powers. Recruitment of the combatants and the non-combatants is studied within the overall political, social, and military contexts. The pre-combat and in-combat motivations of the recruits have also been taken into consideration. This chapter is a fusion of both social history (which communities were recruited and why) and organizational aspects (changing mechanisms of military recruitment). At times, this chapter also takes on the colour of an exercise in the history of ideas, as the ideological roots of British recruitment policy are analysed.