Page 87 - Leadership in the Indian Army

and join them. Motilal Nehru advised them against it. He felt that the
Indianisation of the army had been achieved after a lot of effort. When India
achieved Independence, she would require trained officers for her army and

Thimayya and his colleagues would then form the hardcore of the officer
cadre. ‘There are enough of us in the Congress; we need more people in the
Army,’ said Motilal. After some introspection, Thimayya was convinced
that the elder Nehru was right. A few years earlier, Moti Lal had given the
same advice to Nathu Singh when he was contemplating quitting the army.
It is interesting to note that most leaders in those days held similar views. In
1926, Lala Lajpat Rai had given the same advice to S.P.P. Thorat, newly

commissioned from Sandhurst, on board the ship that was taking them to
India. In 1942, when P.S. Bhagat met Mahatma Gandhi in Poona, where he
was imprisoned, and asked him how he could contribute to the nationalist
cause, Gandhiji had replied in a similar vein.
For Thimayya personally, the tenure at Allahabad was rewarding.
Lieutenant Colonel Hamilton-Britton had given him excellent reports and

when the new CO, Lieutenant Colonel Nicholls arrived, his lack of
knowledge about Indians made him rely heavily on Thimayya. In
September 1930, Thimayya was appointed Adjutant—a post normally given
to a senior captain or a major—while he was still a subaltern and had yet to
pass the examination for promotion to captaincy. Three more Indians had
joined the battalion—Naranjan Singh Gill, who had graduated before
Thimayya in September 1925; Ganpat Ram Nagar, who passed out in

February 1928; and Kunwar Yadunath Singh, who was commissioned in
September 1928. The problem of club membership for Indians remained
unresolved. The Allahabad Club refused to accept them as full members, in
spite of Colonel Hamilton-Britton efforts to get this rule changed. Indians
had been in the army for almost 10 years and were members of the officers’
messes of their respective regiments. But the clubs at all stations in India

continued to remain the preserve of Europeans right up to 1947, when the
country became independent, and in some cases for several years
afterwards. For many Englishmen, the club represented the last bastion of
the Empire and they were reluctant to surrender it until forced to do so by
events of history.
In 1931, the battalion moved to Fort Sandeman on the North West
Frontier. En route, while changing trains at Quetta, Thimayya joined some

friends at a party and missed the train. As a result, he reported late at Fort