Page 7 - ch 9

Module - III Colonial Era and the Indian Sepoy

Military History of the
Intext Questions 9.3
Colonial Era
1. What is the meaning of Presidency?

2. When was Bengal Presidency established?

9.2.1 The Organisation of the Presidencies
Having created the Presidencies the East India Company made an organization, in
Note
each of these locations, to rule the areas, which were annexed by them. The Presidencies
had one Governor who was the head and assisted by a council of four members. This
included one Commander-in-chief of the Army. Each of these presidencies had its
own army and was called Bengal Presidency (the Bengal Army), Madras Presidency
(the Madras Army) and Bombay Presidency (the Bombay Army). They had regular
regiments of British soldiers and officers. Slowly the Company started recruiting Indian
natives to serve as sepoys in these armies. You will learn in the later sections how men
were selected to become soldiers. In the map (Map 9.5) given below, you can see the
territory controlled by each of these presidencies with Bengal being the largest and
Bombay the smallest.

Map 9.5 - Administrative areas of India in the 1930s

9.3 Native Indian Army

The western countries believe that Indian army became a professional army because
of the British. This is wrong. You have seen in the previous lessons on how well we had
established armies and fought various wars. You will learn later how popular Western

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MILITARY HISTORY