Once a favoured destination for mercenaries from various parts of the world India is now reeling under the death of its own citizens fighting as irregulars in a war that has no relevance east of the Suez. The Russia-Ukraine war has attracted a fair share of irregulars from various countries serving as contracted combatants, befitting the sobriquet of being labelled mercenaries. Even though both sides of the conflict recruit mercenaries from around the world, the ones making the headlines are those who fight for Russia, especially after they die. This has been the case for Indians ‘recruited’ to serve Russia.
Even as distraught family members seek an answer, and a closure to the tragedy that has befallen them, there is no guarantee that this cycle of ‘recruitment’ by ‘illegal agents’ will not continue to be repeated. For this has been the nature of what is universally regarded as the second oldest business. With its illegal riches, it also brings in its share of misery, just as much for those on the frontline as for family members left holding the hat. India must prepare for all eventualities on this score since it was once a major recruiting zone.
India was a mercenary magnet
The chaos of medieval India’s polity and the emergence of various economically viable kingdoms attracted hordes of mercenaries to the subcontinent. They came in the thousands, across time zones, religions, continents and cultural boundaries. Arab mercenaries traded one peninsula for another, already nearer the subcontinent, which was easily reachable by favourable trade winds, and arrived by the thousands to influence power. In one form or another, they continued in that role until 1948. Coming in from the cold, literally too, were White Anglo-Saxon Protestants from Holland and the British Isles, as well as Catholic Portuguese and French mercenaries serving all and sundry
Afghan mercenaries even went on to found venerable dynasties in India, adding to the princely panorama in the subcontinent. Not to be outdone, and in fact, leaving a far greater military impact on the polity of India, were the Abyssinian slaves who soon enough transmuted into mercenaries with a distinctly military function. Malik Ambar, largely forgotten in India, and most certainly in his birthplace in the highlands of Ethiopia, was undoubtedly the biggest influence on Deccani politics through his adroit military tactics as well as administrative skills. His impact on Shivaji’s practice of guerrilla warfare was real, tangible, and long-lasting.
India was a magnet for mercenaries and slave traders only because the economics of the subcontinent allowed local rulers to buy or hire foreign labour, for military or non-combatant roles. For that is what labour, in all forms, is always drawn to. These basic economic theories, which are as old as human civilisation, rule the roost even today. Except that India is now exporting human labour since the economics of the subcontinent has taken a turn in that extraordinary direction. Russia, the importer in focus, is in no great shape either since it’s dependent on cheap labour to fight a war. So it has taken to importing mercenaries from various time zones, religions, continents and cultural boundaries.
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Mercenaries lured into warring Russia
From New World Cuban mercenaries to South East Asian combatants, various linguistic groups are represented in the battlefields that divide Russia from its ethnic, religious and lingual sibling Ukraine. And there is controversy in each society regarding the presence of its citizens in a conflict that has nothing to do with them, and which makes no sense to most who live east of the Suez. Many are now taking preventive steps so as to restrict the chances of their nationals from reaching warring Russia.
Probably none more so than landlocked Nepal, long a labour-exporting country. Even as its nationals have been working on construction sites across the Arabian Peninsula, its young men have been recruited in military and uniformed roles from Hong Kong and Brunei to India and England. Ever since its largest single employer, the Indian Army, implemented the short-term soldiering scheme, Agnipath, potential Nepalese recruiters have had their opportunities restricted by a decades-old treaty. As a result, energetic unemployed youth do what they need to do to feed themselves and their families, looking for alternative sources of employment.
Russia became a magnet for thousands of Nepalese looking for the thrills of uniform and an extra buck. So hundreds of Tejpals from Nepal were lured into the Russia-Ukraine conflict, setting off alarm bells in the Kathmandu Valley. Even as India reels from a number of combat-related deaths of nationals in Russia, Nepal is dealing with a far larger number on a more regular basis. Both countries are conjoined by a long and deep civilisational inheritance, though interspersed by an occasional foray into each other’s territories before the era of modern cartography. A lasting solution needs to be found together.
Manvendra Singh is a BJP leader, Editor-in-Chief of Defence & Security Alert and Chairman, Soldier Welfare Advisory Committee, Rajasthan. He tweets @ManvendraJasol. Views are personal.
(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)