Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v2.c10.s2.t25: Amar Singh
Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v2.c10.s2.t25
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Amar Singh
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Amar Singh (1878-1942) belonged to an illustrious Thakur family of Kanota, which was linked to the Rajput Champawat Rathore clan. His grandfather was Thakur Zorawar Singh who had laid the foundation of Kanota State. His father, Thakur Narain Singh, was the Chief of Police in the erstwhile Jaipur State as well as a minister in the neighbouring Alwar State. Singh grew up under the guardianship of Sir Pratap Singh, the influential Prime Minister of the Jodhpur State who was a much acclaimed loyalist of the British colonial rulers and recognised as one of ‘Indo-Victorians’. He rose to become the Commander in Chief of the Jaipur State Police Force during the tenure of Maharaja Sawai Man Singh.
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Amar Singh’s upbringing in a royal set up exposed him to the culture and ethos of ‘martial’ Rajputs. He was inducted in the Jodhpur Lancers – the cavalry of the Jodhpur State. In 1900, the Lancers were deputed to China to join the Allied Expeditionary Force along with other British Indian forces to suppress the Boxer Rebellion. As a *rissaldar* (Junior Commissioned Officer) in the cavalry, he accompanied Sir Pratap Singh, the commander of the Jodhpur Lancers. This facilitated his entry to the exclusive British social and political space as a military officer and a member of nobility. After his return from China, he continued his military career by joining the first batch of the Imperial Cadet Corps (ICC) which was commissioned in 1901 by the British as an independent native army of the princely states. He served in wars at Europe, Iran and Afghanistan as a military officer. In spite of his valiant services, he was however denied honourable mention and promotion by the British. Provoked by racial injustice he resigned from the service and finally joined the Jaipur State after the ascension of Sawai Man Singh.
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Straddling between Indian elite and British colonial culture, Singh was an able administrator, efficient military commander and enthusiastic sportsperson. He would have remained an obscure subject in history. But for his personal diaries that he wrote to keep himself amused, not only provide an excellent ethnographic account of contemporary Rajput nobles, their individual characters and rivalries, competing social hierarchies, contemporary power games, and local elite culture under the British and Rajputs but also report on his exploits. These candidly convey his opinions on contemporary social, political and cultural structure. Kept in English for 44 years from 1898-1942, these diaries are in 89 folio volumes, each with 800 pages. Excerpts from his diaries have been edited with commentary by Susanne H. Rudolph and Lloyd I Rudolph with Mohan Singh ‘Kanota and published as *Reversing the Gaze: Amar Singh’s Diary, A Colonial Subject’s Narrative of Imperial India*, Westview Press, USA, 2002.
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These diaries have also China as a backdrop and provide an elite Indian’s perspective on China and the Boxer Rebellion there. As a part of the Joint Foreign Expeditionary Force to suppress the rebellion, his Jodhpur Lancers under Sir Pratap Singh reached Hong Kong on September 9, 1900 and finally stationed in quarters at Shanhaiguan in Zhili province on October 12, 1900. They were followed by the Camel Corps under Maharaja Major Ganga Singh of Bikaner. Their forces were involved only in a few engagements with Boxers at Lijiabu. Staying there for a little more than eight months, the Lancers left China on July 2, 1901. Singh was however appalled by what he saw and experienced in China. He was bitter that in spite of his even relationship with the English Officers the Indians were looked upon as inferiors in the scale of humanity. “I would not like to be treated like a coolie,” the letter stated. Racial discrimination by other Europeans hurt him too. Plundering and brutality by the Expeditionary Force saddened him. He highlights the cruelty and mismanagement of Russians and their looting, killing and destruction of Chinese villages. Searching for arms in Boxer infested villages where all able bodied male have either been killed or fled, he wrote, “It is quite a shame to bring so many troops to fight or rather to frighten such poor and harmless women.” He felt guilty about bringing a mare and mule foal as a plunder which he happily returned when was ordered by the general to do so. He was appreciative of industriousness of Chinese and cleanliness of their village but found the city of Shanhaiguan ‘dirty and filthy’. He sums up contemporary problem of China by quoting an unnamed poet that, “Even heaven would be ruined if it had no master, if its masters were too many, or its masters were weak, a minor, or a woman. What then of the world? The same thing is happening in China. If under able hands, China can put in the field an army that would compete with any power in the world…” He recorded his China experiences with a balanced dexterity and provided a sympathetic picture of country.
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*(Kamal Sheel)*