George Macmunn

The Martial Races of India George Macmunn

Great Britain and the rest of the Empire take in matters Indian, their appreciation of the share that Indian soldiers took by our side in all theatres of the World War and our admiration of the way that they and the police have resisted inoculation with the Ghandi poison, have induced me to try to present to the English-speaking world some account of the Martial Races of I ndia. India unlike almost any other country has a vast mass of unwarlike people whose hand has never kept the head. In this class must be mustered many who have the brains and aptitude to assimilate Westerfl Jeducation far more rapidly than the more virile races. But it is these virile races that have dominated India in the past, and as the Simon Report has stated, would do so again if British control were removed. It is moreover in these forceful classes that the real future of India for good must lie whether it be peaceful or whether it be otherwise. I have therefore endeavoured to draw the picture and tell the story of Rajput and Turk, of Afghan and Sikh, of Mahratta and Mogul, not as the scientist and ethnologist would want it, but rather as the ordinary reading and understanding public would wish to see it. I have therefore but drawn the outline, and tried to concentrate on the drama, the romance of the old time before and the times that have just gone, with all the fidelity to the British Crown and trust in British leaders that have been so phenomenal, and I have tried to gaze a little way into the future.