{"id":1775,"date":"2018-09-14T21:27:50","date_gmt":"2018-09-14T15:57:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/?p=1775"},"modified":"2018-09-14T21:27:50","modified_gmt":"2018-09-14T15:57:50","slug":"a-lineage-of-military-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/a-lineage-of-military-service\/","title":{"rendered":"A lineage of Military Service"},"content":{"rendered":"

TEXT & PHOTOGRAPHS BY JASBIR SINGH MAAN
\n<\/span><\/strong>Mumbai, India <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

On 4 November 1886, my Great- Grandfather, Subedar Sardar Singh, was inducted as a Gunner in a newly formed No.1 Bengal Mountain Battery Regiment, raised at Rawal Pindi in 1886, by Capt. C.P Triscott. Eventually, the No. 1 Bengal Mountain Battery\u00a0 became the No. 7 Bengal Mountain Battery in 1899. It further became the Gujarat Mountain Battery in 1901, and then the 27th<\/sup> Mountain Battery in 1903.\u00a0Interestingly, his regiment still exists and is now called the 22 Field Mountain Battery. <\/span>The medals he earned as a member of the regiment go back nearly 132 years, and I was fortunate enough to trace his military records from the Indian Army List archives dating 1886- 1905, maintained by the Military Department. As per the records, he had an extensive tenure in the army :<\/span><\/p>\n

1. He served in the Burma Campaigns from 1885-87<\/strong> (in the Third Anglo-Burmese War) and 1887-89<\/strong> (Burma was annexed by British-Indian troops in 1886, which was followed by clear-up operation during the aftermath of the War).
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\n2. He served in the Zhob Valley, North West Frontier of India (present day Pakistan) in 1890<\/strong> (An expedition which took place under the leadership of Commander George Stuart White. It was a part of the North West Frontier Campaigns. Here the British and Indian troops fought Pakhtun tribesmen who adopted an hostile attitude towards them).
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\n3. And lastly, he served in Tibet from 1903-04<\/strong> (A British Expedition to annex Tibet, it was effectively a temporary invasion by the British Indian Forces under auspices of the\u00a0Tibet Frontier Commission, whose purported mission was to establish diplomatic relations and resolve the dispute over the border between Tibet and\u00a0Sikkim.\u00a0In the nineteenth century, the British conquered\u00a0Burma\u00a0and Sikkim, occupying the whole southern flank of Tibet. The expedition was intended to counter Russia’s perceived ambitions to advance into\u00a0Central Asia,\u00a0and fear of Russian invasion of\u00a0British India. The expedition reached Lhasa the capital of city of Tibet also home to then Dalai Lama. That is the reason why reverse of the medal depicts Potala Place, which was home to Dalai Lama)<\/span><\/p>\n