World War I (WW I) and World War II (WW II) witnessed hundreds of thousands of Indians gathered, recruited and shipped overseas to fight for the British. The colonial Indian army was the chief imperial reserve for the British Empire. The experiences of these soldiers or sepoys are the dominant theme of The Testimonies of Indian Soldiers and the Two World Wars: Between Self and the Sepoy. Based on a doctoral dissertation, this book explores the condition of native sepoys through colonial narratives as well as soldiers’ own testimonies between WW I and WW II. It attempts to define the term sipahi (i.e., soldier/sepoy) and the social spaces such individuals occupied under colonial rule. It explores the colonial roles that Indian soldiers played and how they came to terms with imperial military conflicts. Singh effectively uses primary source materials—which include soldiers’ censored letters and their courtroom testimonies—for narrating his arguments. He documents how personal letters, written during the two world wars, provide information that relate to the soldier’s loyalty, bravery, honour and their working conditions. According to the author, such sources are historically “hidden transcripts”.

In chapters one and two, the author focuses on how colonial narratives represent soldiers. With elaborate citations, he shows how British military officials announced the martial race theory to determine how some communities were fit for military service while others were not. According to the author, this theory was a colonial fantasy (7). While describing this fantasy-theory, he details how factors like geography (19), social custom/caste (22) and sexual orientation (28), which were thought to be “inimical to military efficiency” (30), dominated these fantasies. To help produce these fantasies, the colonial state commissioned “ethnographers” to compose anthropological accounts (i.e., handbooks) for martial communities like the Sikhs, Pathans and Brahmins. Singh argues that the changing imperial environment altered the colonial fantasies for these three communities and handbooks had to be revised to meet new historical realities or what Singh calls “new negatives”. Under these changing circumstances, loyal Sikhs became seditious, skilled Pathans becomes perverts for their habits of sodomy and bestiality, and incapable Brahmins became faithful soldiers in the 1940s. By combining soldiers’ testimonies with colonial descriptions, the author develops a fuller understanding of the Indian army in colonial times.

The third chapter describes the ways that soldiers perceived themselves. Letters and testimonies in this chapter act as catalysts for realising soldiers’ self-positions. They described their agony and grievances: for example, the non-availability of leave, restrictions on their sexual liaisons with white women, the catastrophic conditions of the 1943 Bengal famine and, ultimately, the condition of their families during WW II. Singh argues that such grievances did not lead to disloyalty or rebellion. Although, in the following chapter he does address “transnational” discord among Indian Muslim soldiers regarding Islamic issues during WW I and WW II.

The fourth chapter analyses the testimonies of four soldiers during the Singapore Mutiny Case of 1915. Singh argues that, in accounts of this mutiny, the roles of common soldiers have been missing while those of the white officers who suppressed it get attention (129, 131, 133-4). In the next chapter, Singh elaborates on this point by analysing how British imperial authority interpreted the way the soldiers challenged and manipulated their space within the colonial administration. The final chapter examines the interrogation of Indian soldiers who joined the Japanese sponsored Indian National Army (INA) during WW II. Singh deftly illustrates how these interrogation reports can be used to reconstruct daily life in the INA.

This book is an important addition in the study of the colonial Indian armed forces since it goes beyond the usual colonial archives to capture and decipher often unheard voices in military history. The approach, tone, methodology and contents of this book make it important. Its extensive notes and bibliography also make it praiseworthy. Nonetheless, the book could have been streamlined by avoiding lengthy block quotations from primary sources. Despite this stylistic criticism, Singh deserves compliments for this very interesting book, which should adorn the bookshelf of any military historian. I would also recommend it to a wider popular audience due to its innovative approach to military history.