Chandigarh: The Indian Army has embarked on ‘de-colonising’ its customs, uniforms and assorted rituals and procedures, however, nobody from the force – currently serving or retired – has even remotely mentioned assessing the invidious British tradition of ‘batmen’, or personal orderlies, who continue to be assigned to serve all army officers.Renamed ‘sahayaks’ (helpers) in the mid-1980s in a feeble attempt at distancing them from their colonial association, these soldiers conservatively number between 25,000-30,000 personnel – or the equivalent of a regular army corps.In continuation of colonial norms, all army officers from the time they are commissioned as lieutenants – earlier second lieutenants – are assigned sahayaks, as part of an accepted practice, which continues, uninterruptedly, till they retire, and at times even later. Additionally, senior army officers, in true colonial grandeur, were provided armies of khansamas (cooks), masalchis (assistant cooks), dhobis and gardeners, in addition to multiple guards around their massive Raj-era bungalows.However, queries regarding the perpetuation of sahayaks in the army, from both in-service and veteran officers, elicit either aggressive silence, an embarrassed chuckle or a vituperative tirade on the number of orderlies and other similar staff dragooned to serve police officers, civil servants and even retired judges, at government expense.None of the officers The Wire spoke with wanted to be quoted on the subject of sahayaks, terrified of being vilified and ‘savaged’ by their colleagues. But a handful of officers did offer feeble justifications for its continuance, vindicating it on grounds of hoary tradition, aspects of which the army’s Adjutant General was critically evaluating, at present, for discontinuation.“Nobody in the army wants to even discuss doing away with the sahayaks, as it’s a free perk and suits all officers concerned,” admitted a former two-star officer, declining to be named. It is demeaning for soldiers to be sahayaks, he declared, as in some instances, they are treated like domestic servants. This offensive colonial practice should have been scrapped years ago, he added.Another retired one-star officer, also requesting anonymity, conceded that the most ‘obvious and living’ legacy left behind by the British Indian Army, founded in the 18th and 19th centuries by the East India Company, was the ‘odious’, rechristened sahayak culture. Eliminating this, he said, should really have been high up on the long list of ‘archaic English practices and customs’, which the Adjutant General was appraising for termination.“The fact that there has been no mention of it at all, smacks of a conspiracy of silence in the entire force,” he said. Nobody wants to rock the sahayak boat, he said drolly.Also read: From Batmen and Sahayaks to Agniveers, Military Brass’s Attitude Towards Enlisted Men Is FeudalThe role of batmenThe term ‘batman’ emerged in the British Army before the advent of motorised transport during World War I, when soldiers were assigned to cavalry officers to mind their horses, with ‘bats’ or pack-saddles, which gave them their nickname. Thereafter, they were designated as ‘soldier-servants’, and in the Inter-War, they were formally deemed as ‘batmen’, before becoming an integral part of the British Indian Army and subsequently, after Independence, also of the Indian Army.Curiously, at the time ‘Bat-women’ too served in all-female English units like the Auxiliary Territorial Service, founded in 1938, and the Women’s Royal Army Corps, which succeeded it 11 years later.Batmen’s duties during World War II included conveying their officers’ orders to juniors, maintaining their uniforms and personal equipment, driving their vehicles, acting as their bodyguards in combat, digging foxholes for them and performing other miscellaneous tasks. In peacetime, batmen reverted to their role as ‘soldier-servants’ in the Indian Army, and around the mid-1980s, they were dubbed as sahayaks, in keeping with incipient notions within the army’s higher ranks of distancing the force from its colonial heritage.Regrettably, the nomenclature was all that changed; but not the sahayaks‘ duties which, in effect, gradually morphed depressingly into little more than performing domestic chores for many of their officers.Some years ago, numerous videos by a succession of sahayaks emerged on social media platforms, detailing their degradation at the hands of officers, which received much media attention, temporarily embarrassing the army. These clips portrayed sahayaks being forced to undertake menial chores like cleaning, gardening and even walking the dog, all of which were not at all their responsibility, which only comprised minding the officers’ uniform and performing sundry soldierly tasks.Thereafter, citing discipline, the army firmly clamped down on all sahayaks’ social media activity, putting the lid forever on the problem, rather than working to resolve it. In a sense, said one veteran, the army quietly sanctioned the sahayaks‘ perpetuation.For some jawans, on the other hand, being a sahayak was, at times, desirable, as they were exempt from more onerous duties like parades, patrols and combat, and often got better rations and other favours from their officers and their families. Many even inveigled their officers into getting them promotions that carried a higher salary and, eventually, an ampler pension. But many who ultimately went back to their units were often accorded arduous duties, in a bid by their colleagues to make up for their easy years.Over the decades, the issue of doing away with sahayaks rumbled on, but with no outcome.In 2010-11, then Army Chief General V.K. Singh proposed replacing sahayaks with civilian personnel, dubbed as service assistants and non-combatant assistants. It was suggested that together these two categories could sustain some 46,000 officers in the 1.3 million-strong army by looking after their personal needs, which would also be clearly demarcated.But this putative plan, received half-heartedly by a majority of army officers, was quietly buried on the grounds that operatives from Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISID) would infiltrate the Indian army by getting themselves recruited as sahayaks. The understandable security argument trumped the debate and the sahayak issue, once again became dormant.Once again, in May 2018, then army chief and later Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat, resorting to convoluted logic, defended the sahayak system after one Lance Naik had complained of ill-treatment in a video he had posted online. But in a grand gesture, CDS Rawat had announced the termination of the practice of providing sahayaks for retired generals, which had prevailed till that time. “The main purpose of the army is to be ready for war and not for its men to caddy retired generals around the golf course,” General Rawat had said.A screen grab of one of the videos which emerged on social media of an Army sahayak.The army is rife with tales of high-profile three-star officers, including an illustrious vice-chief of staff, continuing for years to keep more than one sahayak, even after retirement as a courtesy by their respective regiments to help them relocate. One such reprobate used at least two jawans to look after his milch cows, whilst another of similar rank was threatened with criminal prosecution if he did not send the sahayaks back which he eventually did, nearly five years later.Also read: Indian Army Plans to Reduce Pomp but the ‘Batmen’ RemainThe Indian Navy and the Indian Air Force, on the other hand, also founded by the colonial administration in 1924 and 1932, respectively, never had a tradition of batmen or sahayaks. Instead, a handful of civilian non-combatants, paid market wages, were and continue to be employed in their officers’ residences and their messes. Unlike in the army, junior officers in both these services are normally not authorised support staff at home.The Pakistan Army and the Bangladesh Army too had moved on from the colonial concept of batmen. The former, for instance, employs civilian personnel today as batmen, who are designated non-combatant bearer or non-commissioned batman, both of whom are paid for by the force. These two categories, however, are not officially recognised in the Pakistan Air Force and the Pakistan Navy which, instead, financially compensate their officers to hire their equivalents. Officers and officer cadets of the Bangladesh Army too employ civilian orderlies.The British Army, for its part, too, had phased out the batmen system, except for officers of the household division, or historically, senior military units, because of their high proportion of ceremonial duties required of them, and were on display during Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral ceremony last week.The colonisers, it seems, had moved on from batmen; the colonised still persisted.
