Castro ki Paltan. The Raising Of The Jat Regiment

“CASTRO ki PALTAN

The Raising of The Jat Regiment

The confusion regarding the year of our Regiment’s raising arose from the First Volume of our Regimental History compiled by Lt Col WL Hailles,MC.in 1939. He starts our history with the troubled times prevailing in Northern India in the beginning of the Nineteenth Century,and the raising by the British of two more infantry regiments composed of two battalions each-one of which the 1^st Battalion of the 22^nd Bengal Native Infantry, raised in Fategarh in 1803, later became the 1^st Royal Battalion (6^th Royal Light Infantry) in 1922.

But while our Regiment kept thinking that we were raised in 1803, official history maintained our raising could be traced back to the Calcutta Native Militia raised in 1795.So this required some research to unearth the actual year of our birth.I accordingly started a correspondence with some of our old British officers,mainly with Late Capt William(“Bill”) Hislop, the then President of the Jat Regimental Association in UK.

The clue to our actual raising lay in the mysterious Captain Henry DeCastro who we find had raised “Castro ki Paltan”, at Calcutta in 1795,as the Calcutta Native Militia. In 1859,after the uprising of 1857, the Calcutta Native Militia ,was renamed the Alipore Regiment, and two years later in 1861,it became the 18^th Regiment of the Bengal Native Infantry. In 1864 it became the 18^th(The Alipore) Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry and in 1885,it dropped the “Alipore” part, to become simply the 18^th Regiment of Bengal Infantry. In 1902,it was renamed the 18^th Musalman Rajput Infantry, and then in 1903,the 18^th Infantry. This finally became 4^th Battalion,9^th Jat Regiment in 1922.But then the 4^th Battalion ceased to exist from 1923,when it was amalgamated with the Training Battalion of the 9^th Jat Regiment. The Battalion was raised as an entity in 1940,only to be captured in Malaya in 1942.It was disbanded in 1946,and finally came into existence in its present autar in 1962,after the Chinese War.

The Centre also went through a metamorphosis from its earlier raising in Agra on 20^th November 1917(that’s the day we celebrate as the Regimental Day) as the 2^nd Battalion 6^th Jat Light Infantry . The Jat Regiment Centre when it moved to Bareilly in April 1923. abandoned its perpetuation of the 2/6^th Royal Jat Light Infantry ,and assumed the identity of the old 18^th Infantry, predecessor of the vanished 4/9^th Jat Regiment. It was re-named 10th Battalion. Then during the 1939-45 War,it became “The 1Xth Jat Regimental Training Centre”,and finally just “The Jat Regimental Centre”,as it is known today.(Incidentally, in most older regiments ,the number “10” is always associated with the Centre. Hence we do not have a newly-raised 10^th Battalion).

Officially, the Indian Army List of 1927,traces the history of the Centre from Castro di Paltan. The Army HQ Letter No. A/21171/1(AC 2) of 1923,specifically mentions that in order to preserve the identity of the late 18^th Infantry, which in the reforms of 1922 became 4^th Battalion, 9^th Jat Regiment in the Regular Indian Army, “such identity would in future be incorporated in that of the 10^th Battalion,9^th Jat Regiment.”

Having pinned down our Centre’s(and our Regiment’s) Raising to 1795, what intrigued me was who the hell was Castro. I then started a correspondence with Bill Hislop and other British Regimental Officers. Bill’s reply is revealing.

“I have been able to do some research into H DeCastro. I spent a morning in the India Records Office and Library.and with two of the staff helping, all we could turn up was the enclosed information(now in the Museum as mentioned below).

“It is unfortunate that the H. DeCastro’s service record is not amongst those that came back to England.Even so we found it strange that that there is so little record about some one who served East India Company for over 50 years and who rose to the rank of Lt General. It is also strange that he was on the strength of the 23^rd,53^rd and 18^th Native Infantry,when he was a general officer.

“ We found no evidence that he had raised “The Calcutta Native Militia”.but the producers of the Amry List must have had this information to hand. My two friends in the Library,have promised to go on looking for any reference or information on DeCastro,and Patrick Emerson,who is Secretary of the IA Association, and a Member of the Council of the National Army Museum,has promised to do a search in the NAM records”.

I am afraid nothing came of subsequent research of the elusive Henry DeCastro and his record. Bill, however, who had just been learning the art of calligraphy in an Adult Course, did produce a lovely record of the service of Henry deCastro. This is not possible to reproduce in the article, so it is being displayed in our Museum.

Now the final lingering doubt about our origins remains. How is that we, the Jats, got associated with the “Calcutta Native Militia” ?. We are neither “natives” of Calcutta nor are we “easterners”. To cut a long story short, the answer lies in “trade”. Described as one of the greatest commercial enterprises ever, the “company of merchants of London trading unto the East Indies” the Honourable East India Company ,traded essentially in the principal ports of Bombay(now Mumbai), Madras(now Chennai) and Calcutta(now Kolkatta). Of these three trading posts, Bengal came to occupy the primus position. Hence, despite Madras being the first to recruit soldiers from local men, with some adventurers from further North, followed by the Bombay Army, which depended on men from Rajasthan. Oudh and Bihar( and not on the Marathas, who were then “enemies”), the Bengal Army stuck to recruiting people from Bihar,Oudh, Rohilkand, the Punjab and even Afghanistan- but seldom from Bengal itself.

Despite their “ impressive reputation as soldiers” after the formidable defence of Bharatpore against Lord Lake, the Jats were not exclusively recruited in the Bengal Army. However, towards the end of the 19^th Century, there began a policy to enlist these yeoman peasants, into two Bengal Regiments, the 6^th Jat Light Infantry and the 10^th Jat Infantry, both of which became Jat class regiments. The 19^th Bombay Infantry ,dispatched from Sind, stormed Multan, and after 1903,as the 119^th Regiment, bore the subsidiary title (“The Mooltan Regiment”),which the 2^nd Battalion, proudly bears to date.

Dehra Dun Lt Gen RK Jasbir Singh

September 2009