The 6th Battalion of the Punjab Regiment is one of the oldest units of the Pakistan Army. It was raised in 1858 by Capt Brownlow as the 24th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry (BNI) and during the Indian Army Reforms of 1904, it was renumbered as the 20th (Duke of Cambridge’s Own) (Punjab) Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry (Brownlow’s Punjabis). In the reorganization of the army in 1922, it became the second battalion of the 14th Punjab Regiment (2/14th Punjabis).
One of the central figures in any battalion is the Subedar Major and being an old battalion, 6th Punjab had its share of those who could be considered remarkable. Prior to the First World War, Subedar Majors were nearly always old men who had been in the regiment before their present colonels had joined as lieutenants. They were full of wisdom and possessed great influence. However, Subedar Major Mauladad Khan (1822-1890), a Kuki Khel Afridi, who had joined the 24th BNI on its raising was quite unique.
He had seen a great deal of service and wore medals for the revolt of 1857, Afghanistan 1881, Egypt 1882, with a clasp for the battle of Tel-el-Kebir; and also the N.W. Frontier medal with many clasps. Mauladad Khan was considered ‘As Brave as a Lion’, and held the prestigious I.O.M (Indian Order of Merit) which had been instituted in 1837 by the East India Company as an award for outstanding gallantry to native members of its forces. He was given the title of Sardar Bahadur and the C.I.E. (Companion of the Indian Empire), which in those early days was a particular honor, but he did not appreciate it. He explained that there was some sense in the Order of Merit, and in the Sirdar Bahadur, since a money allowance was attached to them but the C.I.E. was quite beyond his comprehension, a very barren honor.
Major-General L.C. Dunsterville had been associated with him when he was serving as the adjutant of the 20th Punjabis. Dunsterville was commissioned into the British Army in the Sussex Regiment in 1884. The battalion was subsequently posted from the UK to India and its first station was Rawalpindi where Dunsterville enjoyed the social life and the winter. In 1887 he decided to transfer to the Indian Army because he could not afford to serve in a British battalion and was posted to the Mian Mir Cantonment in Lahore. He was a very intelligent and hardworking officer and in three years had learned Urdu, Punjabi, Pushto and Persian and made himself familiar with the major religions of the subcontinent. In 1887, he joined the 20th Punjabis as an adjutant back in Rawalpindi and his autobiography has a tale to tell about Mauladad in a vein of comedy.
The duties of a conscientious adjutant were absorbing and difficult at all times, but Dunsterville found his position exceptionally challenging. Like many of the old Frontier regiments, the 20th Punjabis had retained a great deal of irregularity particularly in its uniform. The test for the dress of a battalion was the Guard Mounting, and on his first day of inspecting the guard, he saw that there was great variety in the manner in which the turbans were tied. He had learned that Sikhs, Dogras, and Pathans have each their particular way of arranging their head-dress but then he noticed that some of the fringes were black, some blue, and some green, some composed of long strings, some of little cotton balls. There was more fantasy in the footgear! The first man had plain leather sandals, the next a good blunt-toed Punjabi shoe, the next a pair of ornamental sandals with gold thread and silk tassels, the next a pair of light Punjabi shoes, with thin ornamental points extending some inches beyond the toe. There is a certain charm about minor irregularities in the dress that seems to have a fascination for soldiers but the adjutant was determined to set things right as soon as possible.
The chief obstacle to making an improvement in the regularity of dress was the Subedar Major. He was a fine old soldier with a noble war record and not much education but like all Subedar Majors, an ultra-conservative. He was a veteran of the old school, who could never be brought to believe that there could be anything good in a new way of doing things, and whose invariable reply to the suggestions by the adjutant was: ‘This is the custom of the regiment. What you suggest has never been done.’ Mauladad explained his way of doing it ‘as we used to do in Talagang’. Twenty-five years previously, the regiment had been stationed at a small place in Punjab called Talagang, and it seemed that most of the regimental customs had arisen during that period. Dunsterville came to hate the sound of the word ‘Talagang’. Whatever changes he suggested in any regimental matter with a view to introducing a little regularity, were always opposed because ‘it had not been done in Talagang’. And the Colonel was almost as bad as the Subedar-Major. When the adjutant would put any matter up to him, he would send for Mauladad and ask him, ‘How did we do it in Talagang?’
After the Egyptian Campaign of 1882, Mauladad had the honor of visiting England as the guest of Queen Victoria, there being at that time no such thing as the appointment of an orderly officer to the Sovereign. Queen Victoria always took the deepest interest in her Indian subjects, and for that purpose had actually undertaken the study of Urdu. However, Mauladad was totally illiterate and his knowledge of that language was very limited and barely sufficed for any subject beyond military duties. He probably tested the patience of Her Majesty during the interview. He was taken to see all the sights of London, but took little interest in them and his memories chiefly consisted of admiration for the greenness of the fields compared with the barren hills of the Khyber, and the magnificence of the horses and cattle.
Since he was more irregular in every way than any man in the regiment it could be well understood how great an obstacle he was to the adjutant’s efforts toward regularity. He wore his turban as he pleased and had a habit of taking it off at most solemn moments to scratch his head. In place of a regulation sword, he carried an old tulwar, curved like the crescent moon. He did not appreciate the solemnity of a ceremonial parade in which he could see no sense, and his attempts to salute with his tulwar in the march-past consisted of a friendly wave and a shake of the blade in the direction of the Inspecting Officer. When the latter took exception to such a peculiar deviation from the proper salute, it had to be explained to him that ‘It was only Mauladad’, and no more was said.
Dunsterville did succeed in curing Mauladad of one of his peculiarities, i.e., the wearing of a colored handkerchief protruding from the inside of the collar of his tunic, and fluttering round his neck, but he only gave in to the adjutant out of pure friendship. In plain clothes he was hopeless. No one could recognize in the peculiar jumble of odd garments he wore, a distinguished native officer of Her Majesty’s Indian Army. Dunsterville spoke tactfully to him about this but to no purpose. It only made him laugh, and he related an amusing adventure that befell him. He was going home on leave and on his way to the Khyber Pass, the tum-tum (horse carriage) broke down and he continued on foot. It was a very hot summer afternoon and he came upon a Sahib lying in the shade of a tree. The Sahib seemed to be ill and Mauladad gave him some water and helped him to his feet. The Sahib was very grateful and attempted to give a baksheesh of four annas. He evidently thought Mauladad was one of the men employed on mending the road. Mauladad retuned it telling him who he was and that he had plenty of money, but the Sahib did not look as if he believed it.
Mauladad had the heartiest contempt for all ‘red books’, as he called the Military Regulations, and was continually giving punishments he had no power to give, in utter defiance of the Indian Articles of War. On visiting the Quarter Guard, Dunsterville often found a man imprisoned by order of Mauladad, often no one knew what for, and when the adjutant spoke to Mauladad about it, he did not seem quite sure himself. One morning the colonel asked Dunsterville how many men were on duty in the Quarter Guard and was told that there were 21. The next day the colonel who was very conscientious and a bit fussy, ticked off his adjutant. ‘You don’t know much about your work”, he scolded. “You don’t even know how many men you have on duty. I visited the Quarter Guard and found 24 men.” This was an unpleasant rebuff for Dunsterville who knew he had been right. So, he set to work to inquire and found that it was Mauladad again. ‘Yes,’ said the Subedar Major. ‘It was a dark and stormy night, so I put an extra sentry on the back of the Magazine.’ A very wise precaution, of course, but quite beyond his powers, and making things rather difficult for Dunsterville.
Up to 1882, Mauladad knew the drill movements well. Anything beyond that he refused to learn, regarding any change as mere foolishness. When a pamphlet was issued on new formations and movements, the Second-in-Command gave a lecture to the Indian officers on the subject which was very thoroughly done in a most painstaking way, with the aid of diagrams skillfully drawn on a blackboard. However, at the conclusion of the lecture Mauladad, had to have his turn and summed up the whole affair as follows: “You’ve all heard what the Major says, and you must try to remember all these new changes. What they are all about I don’t know, but it is God’s will that there have to change. But they are really of no importance at all. In the attack, there is only one thing to remember, and that is ‘Fix bayonets and charge”.
‘Fix bayonets and charge’, was his advice on all occasions. During an inspection, the General asked him what he would do if during an advance he suddenly found a body of the enemy on his right flank. His reply was, “Fix bayonets and charge.” “Very good,” said the General, “and if it seemed to you that the enemy entirely out-numbered you, what then?” ‘Fix bayonets and charge,” Mauladad replied without hesitation. The General did not put any further questions to him, but turning to the Colonel said, “That seems to be his solution to every problem, and I will not say anything to damp his ardor. I believe if I asked him what he would do if I dared to disagree with him, he would reply ‘Fix bayonets and charge’.”
Mauladad retired on a very handsome pension in 1888, and a year or two later the old hero died. His place was at once taken by an equally unprogressive Subedar Major. Dunsterville did not have the power to resist anymore and admits that the spirit of the regiment ala Talagang had conquered him and he became as bad as the rest.
References:
