Military Digest: When the British promoted Maharaja of Patiala to Major General ‘by mistake’

The British mistakenly promoted the then Maharaja of Patiala, Bhupinder Singh, to the rank of Major General whereas he was recommended to be promoted from Lieutenant Colonel to Colonel. As per documents in the National Archives, this happened due to a ‘misunderstanding’.

This fact is revealed in the archives in the correspondence between Lt Colonel G D Ogilvie, the Resident of Kashmir, and the Foreign and Political Department of the Government of India in 1930.

Ogilvie wrote a letter to Sir Charles Watson, Political Secretary to the Government of India, in the Foreign and Political Department on April 28, 1930, seeking the promotion of the Maharaja of Kashmir Hari Singh from the honorary rank of Colonel to Major General.

“His Highness was gazetted a Captain in 1918 and a Colonel in 1926 and now that four years have elapsed it is desirable that his further promotion should be considered, not only on personal grounds, but also in relation to the position he occupies in the Kashmir Army,” wrote Ogilvie.

He pointed out the strategic importance of Kashmir and the widespread deployment of its troops, which comprised seven battalions of Infantry, three batteries of Pack Artillery and one Regiment of Cavalry.

He went on to state that Hari Singh was 35 years old and that there was no great disparity of age between him and Maharaja of Patiala, whose army was smaller than that of Kashmir, and who was made a Major General when he was 29 years old.

This letter led to an elaborate correspondence within the Government of India where questions were raised on whether the British should appoint “quite a young man like the present Maharaja, who is now only 31 years of age, as a Major-General, we should have him not only going over the heads of a large number of influential Chiefs a great deal older than himself, but we should be embarrassed in a few years’ time by recommendations for still further rank to be granted to him”.

About the young age at which Maharaja of Patiala was given the rank of Major General, the correspondence reveals that he was recommended for the rank of Colonel by the Government of India, “but His Majesty’s Government, through a misunderstanding, gazetted His Highness as Major-General. No steps, of course, were taken to rectify the error. The case of Patiala does not, therefore, appear to be a safe precedent for regulating the promotion of H.H. the Maharaja of Kashmir”.

The British were also concerned that promoting Hari Singh to Major General would mean the supersession of the rulers of Ratlam and Alwar who had been given the honorary rank of Colonel before Hari Singh of Kashmir.

It is interesting to point out that while some princely states had a substantial number of troops in their army, Ratlam only had five despatch riders in its state forces. The archives reveal that the Ratlam ruler was still given higher military ranks because the “Maharaja had an excellent military record and was recommended in 1925 for the appointment of Honourary ADC to His Majesty the King Emperor”.

Hari Singh ultimately had to wait for five more years before he was granted the honorary rank of Major General in 1935. To make matters worse for the Kashmir ruler, Bhupinder Singh of Patiala pipped him to the Lt General’s rank, too, getting it in 1931 when Hari Singh was still a Colonel.