Celebrating the Journey of the Indian Armed Forces and the Way Forward

The journey of the Indian Armed Forces over the last 100 years has in many ways mirrored the momentous history of the birth, struggles and victories of India. It straddles a colonial period in which the armed forces of India owed allegiance to a foreign sovereign and could readily be used to fight an alien power’s wars and promote its strategic objectives. This did not however erode the heroism and professionalism that the Indian armed forces came to be known for over two centuries. From the Afghan Wars to the Battle of Saragarhi, where a small band of Sikh soldiers wreaked havoc during a siege mounted by a numerically superior adversary, to the two great wars, and in numerous British campaigns across Asia and Africa, the Indian sepoy set the highest standards in valour. Even the apostle of peace and non-violence, Mahatma Gandhi, had served as a sergeant major of a medical ambulance corps that he had helped raise during the Second Boer War in 1899–1902 and Zulu War in 1906.