Morale & Discipline

Unlike the Pavilion hospital, the Kitchener Hospital was a more restrictive environment for the Indian patients and well as all of the Indian medical staff. Rrestrictions were placed on the patients movements and activities were more strictly controlled.

During 1915 there were a total of 377 offences under military law committed in the Brighton hospitals. Most were relatively minor in nature such as breaches of discipline, petty theft and alcohol related disturbances and these were typically deal with fines. But 57 cases were deemed sufficiently serious to warrant imprisonment. The most persistent offenders were returned to India but from those that remained, Colonel Seton, the commanding officer  was determined to create a disciplined body of men. After subjecting them to 6 months of RAMC military drills, Colonel Seton prided himself in having produced a capable body of stretcher bearers and having reduced the incidence of petty crime to an acceptable minimum. [1]

All able bodied patients were required to participate in drills and a one hour military march through the town every day. Rur Singh of the 15th Sikhs, a patient at the Kitchener hospital, told a friend in Marseilles that ‘we are in great discomfort. The sick in all the hospitals are gathered together and paraded. The men cry and moan but no one listens to them’. [2] In a letter dated August 5, 1915 from Sir Walter Lawrence to Lord Kitchener, expressed the following belief: ‘The further the Sepoy gets from his regiment, the more he longs for his native home. As soon as he is fit for light work he should be drilled and given physical exercises, to get back the martial spirit.’ [3] Also PT drills were routine in the British Army, but in the British Indian Army, such drills during hospitalization were unprecedented as soldiers were used to recuperation without interference. These drills were viewed as a constraint on the soldiers liberty and a blow to their izzat or dignity. [4]

In the spring of 1915 Colonel Seton imposed a police cordon around the Kitchener to ensure that no Indian patients or staff could visit the town. Barbed wire was added to the walls of the hospital and a police guard placed along its perimeter [5] turning the Kitchener hospital into a virtual prison for its patients. Patients and Indian staff were threatened with flogging if they attempted to ‘break out’. The Indians were kept on a tight leash because the authorities did not want them to mix with the women of the town, for fear of what Colonel Seton called the ‘gravest scandals’. [6] This belief in potential scandal that was viewed as detrimental to the prestige and spirit of European rule in India also resulted in the ban of female nurses at the Kitchener Indian Hospital. For further details on the rationale behind these policies see Analysis - The British Raj and Imperial Benevolence.

‘They do not let us out to the bazaars. They do not let the French or English girls talk to us, nor do they let us talk to them. The English have now become very bad. They have become dogs. Our Indian soldiers are very much oppressed, but they can do nothing…There is abundance of everything but there is no izzat (honour)’ wrote a Kitchener patient to his comrade in the 40th Pathans. [7]

The Indian patients experienced the attention and affection from the women of Brighton. A British orderly in a letter dated February 4, 1915 wrote, ‘Brighton is covered with girls who make a lot of the natives ... they are seen to arm in arm with ward servants and are very fond of coloured people’. [8] A Sikh patient writing home in a letter from August 28, 1915 wrote, ‘I am very happy in this place…There are lots of women to be had. They write letters to us to come to their house and have food with them, and that we can get a woman. I am very much confused in mind’. [9]

The only ones allowed to visit the town were senior Indian officers who were provided with passes with restricted hours and accompanied by British officers. [10] For all other patients as well as Indian staff, Brighton was strictly out of bounds.

Although Colonel Seton was under the view that things were under control regarding his strict policies at the Kitchener hospital, things would quickly take a dramatic turn as the issue reached a boiling point. An Indian sub-assistant surgeon transferred to the Kitchener hospital from one of the Bournemouth Indian hospitals, in protest against the confinement of his comrades in the Kitchener hospital compound walked into Colonel Seton’s office and shot at him with a revolver. Luckily the shot missed and the man was sentenced to seven years ‘rigorous imprisonment’, a relatively light sentence which may have reflected the authorities concern not to provoke further unrest at the hospital, [11] or to have events and circumstances publicized in India.

After the attempted shooting of Colonel Seton the rules about mixing with British civilians were somewhat relaxed and all Indian soldiers or staff were eligable to stroll about the town in pairs for two and a half hours at a time accompanied by a British soldier. [12]

While patients at the Brighton hospitals had initially been enthusiastic about their treatment such as the letter home from Naik Sant Singh of the Garwhal Rifles, a patient at the Kitchener hospital writing to a comrade, ‘I have been in hospital for one month and 22 days…and the Government treated me so kindly that not even my own father and mother could have done more’. [13] Over time some became disillusioned with both their treatment as well as the war.

A Kitchener hospital patient wrote, ‘Anyone whose hand is wounded or who has a pain in his back {ie. Suspected of malingering} is branded with a hot iron. No one is allowed outside… altogether the treatment is harsh.’ [14]

With the low morale among Indian soldiers fighting on the frontlines in France and in the Brighton hospitals expressed through their letters the military authorities suspected that the cases of self-inflicted wounds were more common among Indian soldiers. Colonel Seton undertook a top-secret medical study based on 1,000 wounded Indian soldiers admitted to the Kitchener hospital. Colonel Seton chose wounds for study which were most likely to be self-inflicted: wounds to the hand, of the arm and forearm, and wounds of the let and foot. Colonel Setons findings indicated that the incidences of such wounds were by mere chance and statistics showed that the occurrences of such wounds among the Indian soldiers were no higher than among soldiers of other British regiments. [16]

Given the low morale, there were also fears among the British that the soldiers in hospital might become easily suceptable to anti-British propoganda. Not only were patients watched carefully but the Indian support staff which were mainly civilians were regarded with suspicion as potential agitators as well. This created a environment of mistrust and suspicion at the Kitchener hospital. For further details see Analysis - Enemy Propaganda & Sedition

Footnotes

1. Mark Harrison, Disease, Discipline and Dissent: The Indian Army in France and England, 1914-1915. in: Roger Cooter, Harrison Mark, Sturdy Steve, eds Medicine and Modern Warfare (Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam, 1999) 193

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid. 195

6. David Omissi, “Europe Through Indian Eyes”, English Historical Review (Vol. 122, Numb 496, 2007) 380

7. Mark Harrison, Disease, Discipline and Dissent: The Indian Army in France and England, 1914-1915. in: Roger Cooter, Harrison Mark, Sturdy Steve, eds Medicine and Modern Warfare (Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam, 1999) 193

8. Ibid. 194

9. Ibid.

10. Ibid. 195

11. Ibid. 195

12. David Omissi, “Europe Through Indian Eyes”, English Historical Review (Vol. 122, Numb 496, 2007) 380

13. Mark Harrison, Disease, Discipline and Dissent: The Indian Army in France and England, 1914-1915. in: Roger Cooter, Harrison Mark, Sturdy Steve, eds Medicine and Modern Warfare (Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam, 1999) 193

14. Ibid. 195

15. David Omissi, Indian Voices of the Great War, Soldiers’ Letters, 1914-1918 (St. Martin’s Press, Inc., 1999)

16. Mark Harrison, Disease, Discipline and Dissent: The Indian Army in France and England, 1914-1915. in: Roger Cooter, Harrison Mark, Sturdy Steve, eds Medicine and Modern Warfare (Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam, 1999) 198