3 Review(s)

Between Two Worlds: A Rajput Officer in the Indian Army, 1905-21 describes two societies in early twentieth century colonial India- the British governmental and military society and the regional Rajasthan aristocracy. The book portrays life in the peacetime cantonments of Mhow (1906-14) and New Delhi (1918-19), on the Western and Mesopotamian fronts of World War One, and on the Northwest Frontier (1919-21) during the Pathan uprising. The story is tied together by the pioneering experiences of Captain (later Major-General) Amar Singh, an aristocrat of Jaipur state. Singh's personal story, revealed through the diary that he kept throughout his adult life, details Indo-British cultural collaboration. Amar Singh was, unwittingly, an excellent ethnographer of Rajput society, extensively recording family tensions, marriages, estate development, and the decadent lives of Rajput princes. Singh, in 1905, was among the first Indians given an officers' commission in the British Indian Army. However, it was not until 1917 that he received his full officer commission.