Castes and Creeds in the Indian Army.—The Indian officers being much divided in opinion concerning the relative insubordination of Mohammedans and Hindoos in the native regiments, it may be useful to record here the actual components of one Bengal infantry regiment, so far as concerns creed and caste. The information is obtained from an official document relating to the cartridge grievance, before the actual Revolt began.
The 34th regiment Bengal native infantry, just before its disbandment at Barrackpore in April, comprised 1089 men, distributed as follows:
| Subadar-major. | Subadars. | Jemadars. | Havildars. | Naiks. | Drummers. | Sepoys. | Total. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brahmin Caste, | 1 | 2 | 4 | 24 | 10 | — | 294 | 335 |
| Lower Castes, | — | 5 | 5 | 25 | 26 | 1 | 406 | 468 |
| Christians, | — | — | — | — | — | 10 | 2 | 12 |
| Mussulmans, | — | 2 | 1 | 12 | 24 | 8 | 153 | 200 |
| Sikhs, | — | — | — | — | — | — | 74 | 74 |
| 1 | 9 | 10 | 61 | 60 | 19 | 929 | 1089 |
The portion of this regiment present at Barrackpore—the rest being at Chittagong—when the mutinous proceedings took place, numbered 584, thus classified under four headings:
| Subadar-major. | Subadars. | Jemadars. | Havildars. | Naiks. | Drummers. | Sepoys. | Total. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brahmin Caste, | 1 | 2 | 1 | 12 | 5 | — | 175 | 196 |
| Lower Castes, | — | 1 | 4 | 13 | 14 | 1 | 193 | 226 |
| Mussulmans, | — | 1 | — | 7 | 14 | 4 | 85 | 111 |
| Sikhs, | — | — | — | — | — | — | 51 | 51 |
| 1 | 4 | 5 | 32 | 33 | 5 | 504 | 584 |
When 414 of these men were dismissed from the Company’s service, their religions appeared as follows:
| Commissioned Officers. | Non-commissioned Officers. | Sepoys. | Total. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brahmin Caste, | 2 | 12 | 135 | 149 |
| Lower Castes, | 4 | 19 | 150 | 173 |
| Mussulmans, | — | 14 | 49 | 63 |
| Sikhs, | — | — | 29 | 29 |
| 6 | 45 | 363 | 414 |
It is not clearly stated how many Rajpoots, or men of the military caste, were included in the Hindoos who were not Brahmins.
If the regiment thus tabulated had been cavalry, instead of infantry, the preponderance, as implied in Chapter I., would have been wholly on the side of the Mussulmans.
