5 min learnChandigarhFeb 8, 2026 01:28 PM IST
The Military has lately taken a creditable step by renaming a number of roads in cantonments and navy stations that had been named after British navy figures. These have now been named after Indian navy personalities, together with gallantry award winners.
This can be a much-welcome step, though it comes a bit late. A number of years in the past, an initiative started in Ambala, but it surely was restricted to the Ambala Cantonment space. Nonetheless, there’s nonetheless way more for the Military to do to eradicate regimental associations with colonial figures which are nonetheless displayed with pleasure.
The identify of 4th Horse, higher generally known as Hodson’s Horse, is among the many first that involves thoughts. Whereas many different regiments and battalions carry the names of their erstwhile British officers, who raised the items, in brackets-such as Skinner’s, Outram’s, Rattray’s and many others, Hodson’s Horse carries the surname of Main William Stephen Rakes Hodson on its cap badge and in addition wears HH, denoting Hodson’s Horse-on shoulder epaulettes of uniform.
In his ebook A Soldier Remembers, in a chapter titled ‘Supersession’, Lt Gen S Okay Sinha, the then Vice Chief of Military Workers, recounts how he had taken up the problem with the Military Chief, Gen Okay V Krishna Rao, for the elimination of the identify Hodson from the regimental crest of 4th Horse. This was within the early Eighties, greater than 40 years in the past.
To cite verbatim from the passage within the ebook, “The final case I mentioned with him that day was the regimental crest of 4 Horse. This unit was raised by Hodson, an officer with a tainted private file who had murdered the 2 hapless Mughal princes of Delhi in 1857 in chilly blood. After Independence the identify of the unit modified from Hodson’s Horse to 4 Horse, and so had the shoulder titles worn within the regiment. However the phrase ‘Hodson’ continued to look within the regimental crest.”
“I acquired Krishna’s approval to suggest an appropriate change of crest. This needed to be permitted by the President. Though a call to suggest this modification was taken and duly recorded, mistaken loyalty for regimental traditions has managed to prevail and to at the present time the change has not been effected”.
Much more preposterous was the bust unveiling of Main Hodson, which befell in Lawrence Faculty, Sanawar, a decade in the past, by a Lt Common who was then GOC 9 Corps. Paradoxically, the one different bust within the faculty is that of the younger martyr of the 1971 struggle, 2/Lt Arun Khetarpal, Param Vir Chakra (posthumous), and the colonial officer, who had a distinguished function in establishing the college in Sanawar, additionally acquired a spot of pleasure.
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What may very well be extra dichotomous than having two busts that are completely at cross-purposes with one another? One in every of a nationwide hero who laid down his life defending the nation 40 years in the past, and one other of a colonial grasp who repressed the First Conflict of Independence with as a lot drive as he might.
Hodson shouldn’t be glorified
Hodson might certainly have performed a task in establishing the college at Sanawar however what objective does it serve to show his bust within the faculty? Does the college inform its college students in regards to the doubtful function performed by him whereas placing down the primary Indian Conflict of Independence in 1857, when he murdered the 2 sons of Bahadur Shah Zafar? Do they inform the scholars of the doubtful nature of his character as acknowledged by Lt Gen SK Sinha in his ebook? Why ought to he be glorified in any respect?
His affiliation with the college, as with the regiment, must be a footnote within the historical past of each and needn’t be highlighted past that time. His affiliation with each is a historic reality and have to be acknowledged as such, however glorifying him is sickening.
It’s nothing however a misplaced sense of regimental honour when the identify of a assassin shouldn’t be faraway from the regimental crest and when the officers of the regiment go about establishing the bust of the identical assassin in faculties.
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There’s definitely no hurt in perpetuating regimental traditions. A number of cavalry and infantry regiments within the Military have participated within the energetic suppression of the 1857 Conflict of Independence. However these are solely spoken of in hushed whispers nowadays, and they don’t adorn the cap badge of each rank and file. The least that the armoured corps brass can do is to get this anomaly corrected, which Lt Gen Sinha tried to do even on a day when his dream of heading the Indian Military lay in ruins.
There’s a lot that the Military has to do to eliminate its colonial legacy. Let it’s a gradual course of. However as of now, let the 4th Horse eliminate Hodson’s ghost.
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