First published in 1873, in translation from the original Hindi, From Sepoy to Subedar eventually became a standard text book for British Officers.
Sita Ram’s splendidly evocative chronicle of his forty-eight years ‘in the service of the English’ is a piece of first-hand military history.
It is apt that the year of that tragic imperial retreat was the year 1812, the same year that Sita Ram, a Brahmin and son of a Yeoman farmer of Oudh, enlisted as a sepoy in the infantry of the Bengtal Native Army. He served the colours with a blend of loyalty and ‘grumble and go’ through to 1860, when he retired with a pension and the rank of subedar. Through those years, he saw action against the Gurkhas and the Pindaris, fought in both Sikh Wars and in the ill-fated First Afghan War. He was wounded seven times and decorated with six medals. He was taken prisoner in the retreat from Kabul and later in that ‘wind of madness’, the Mutiny of 1857, when Sita Ram remained characteristically ‘true to his salt’.
Author: Lt Col Norgate
ISBN: 9788187583264
Pages: 227
Features: HB, BM |