World War I and Gendering of the Army in Colonial Punjab

Abstract

This paper seeks to investigate the impulses that encouraged a ‘gendering’ process and its crystallization in colonial Punjab in relation to the masculine culture propagated by the institution of a military-martial structure by the British Raj. The imperial/colonial gender perceptions led to the creation of gendered spaces in a manner conforming to the masculine ideology of the army. This is highlighted through different aspects of the lives of both men and women – their struggles, works, contributions, dreams and politics – before, during and after the First World War (1914-18). As a result, there emerged amongst the soldiers’ new high-class martial castes, middle-class patriarchal structures, and ideological pillars keen on constructing and upholding ‘ideal masculinity’ and ‘safe femininity’. The paper argues that the process of ‘gendering’ took place at two levels. On the one hand, the army structure of the colonial state paved the way for military-martial culture to exist on extreme masculine lines and, on the other hand, this ‘high’ masculine ideology percolated in the society and presented itself in contrast to the women of the region by further relegating them to the feminine spaces. Thus, the society in colonial Punjab presented a layered martial structure, which, in turn, dichotomized the gender binary. The paper attempts to reveal such ‘gender’ realities and experiences witnessed by the region of Punjab. In this context, the operation of imperial power and the resistance of the colonized to it; the space that was denied to the disadvantaged gender – women – and; the changes they imbibed along with the history of the mutual roles of women and soldiers become crucial to understand the ‘gendering’ process.