The Indian Order of Merit

(1837-1947)

Edward S. Haynes
© 1998, 1999, all rights reserved

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Among the oldest and most venerable of decorations for bravery, the Indian Order of Merit ("Order of Merit" until 1903) ranks high.  Pre-dating the Victoria Cross by nineteen years and the U.S. Medal of Honor by twenty-four years, the Indian Order of Merit remains one of the most important -- and, yet, most understudied and generally unknown -- decorations in phaleristic history.

The Order of Merit (as it would be called until 1903) was created not by the British Crown, but by a British-chartered joint stock company, the Honourable East India Company (and see another source on the Company), on 1 May 1837. (For more information on the other awards of the H.E.I.C.O., see this site.)

The original proposal for a decoration for Indian officers and enlisted men was put forward in 1834 by Lord William Bentinck when he argued: "As natives are now employed in important civil situations with corresponding salaries, justice and police alike, it required that some improvement be effected in the condition of their military brethren." While Bentinck clearly overestimates the career equality enjoyed by Indian civil employees, his desire to establish some means of rewarding military achievement is clear. Equally clear is the fact that Bentinck's focus was more toward the concept that blossomed into the Order of British India for meritorious service that toward the establishment of any award for bravery.

The order that finally established the Order of Merit (General Order of the Governor-General of India, No. 94 of 1 May 1837) established the award "to afford personal reward for personal bravery, without reference to any claims founded on mere length of service and general good conduct. . . .  [The award] is to be obtained by any conspicuous act of individual gallantry on the part of any native officer or soldier in the field, or in the attack or defence of fortified places, without distinction of rank or grade." Meritorious service was to be recognized by the Order of British India, which was established in the same government order.

The Indian Order of Merit can be generally described as follows:

The complex award can, perhaps, be better understood by an outline of the varieties (which will be discussed in more historical detail below):

An elaborate process of recommendation and approval for the award of the order was established.  Basically, the act being recognized must have either taken place under the eye of the general officer commanding (probably a rare case) or must have been attested to, to the satisfaction of the general officer commanding, through the written testimony of eye-witnesses. Moreover, as para. 2457 of the Army Regulations (India) stated: "Admission to each of these classes is obtained upon application to the Government of India, with whom alone the power of confrring this order rests. [There had been embarassing cases of Eurpopean officers promising the I.O.M. to their soldiers.] The application must particularly specify the act of gallantry for which the soldier is supposed to have a claim and in order to maintain its value and prestige the strictest care should be taken in recommending for admission into it, a sit is very desirable that the reward should only be granted in those instances which can clearly be defined as cases of conspicuous gallantry, and not for any act of ordinary gallantry preformed by the soldier in the simple exercise of his duty." Clearly, the I.O.M. was to be taken as an award of considerable importance by all involved.

It is important clearly to understand and to recall the basis on which the Order of Merit was formed. It had three classes, but successively higher classes did not represent higher orders of bravery. For an initial act of bravery the third class would be awarded. Successive acts of bravery would warrant promotion, within the order, to higher degrees. A second act of bravery by an individual soldier would allow promotion to the second class and, on the third brave action, to the first class. Upon promotion, recipients of the decoration were expected to surrender their insignia for lower ranks within the order. In many ways, the most analogous system is that followed by the Soviet Union's Order of Glory (1943-91).

The establishing order established a system of financial reward for the receipt of the decoration: "Admission into the Order of Merit will confer on a member an additional allowance, equal in the third class to one-third, in the second to two-thirds, and in the first to the entire of the ordinary pay of his rank, over and above that pay or the pension he may be entitled to on retirement."  While the initial establishing order made no provision for posthumous awards, it did allow the continuance, for three years, of the additional pension to the senior wife of a deceased recipient of the order. To gain a sense of what was involved, I reproduce here the monthly allowance rates (in rupees/annas/pice) by rank for Indian cavalry in 1893. Absolute rates of exchange mean little, but the relative amounts make clear the financial basis of the award:

 1st class

 2nd class

 3rd class

Rissaldar and Rissaldar-Major  

60/0/0

40/0/0

20/0/0

Ressaidar

36/0/0

24/0/0

12/0/0

Jemadar

14/0/0

9/5/4

4/10/8

Woordie-Major

50/0/0

33/5/4

16/10/8

Kote Duffadar

12/0/0

8/0/0

4/0/0

Duffadar and Lance-Duffadar

10/0/0

5/5/4

2/10/8

Trumpeter and Sowar  

8/0/0

5/5/4

2/10/8

For infantry troops, the corresponding ranks would of course be substituted (e.g., Rissaldar=Subadar, Duffadar=Havildar, etc.).  Other allowance rates were established over time. An important factor, however, is that this allowance would be set at the soldier's rank at the moment when he received the I.O.M.  For example, if a Sepoy received the I.O.M. 3, his allowance would be set at Rs. 2/10/8 per month. As he would be promoted through the ranks, this I.O.M. allowance would stay constant, even though his rate of pay for his rank would, of course, rise.  If he were promoted to the I.O.M. 2 for a second act of bravery when he had attained the lofty rank of Subadar, his new I.O.M. allowance would then be raised to Rs. 40/0/0 per month.  It is, perhaps, another indication of the importance of this award that the bookkeepers of the army were able and willing to deal with this system.  Awards to personnel with vague rang (including non-combattants) would be set at the tiem of award.

The first awards of the Order of Merit came in 1839 to Subedar Devi Singh and his party from the Bengal Sappers and Miners, rewarding their gallant action in destroying the Kabul Gate of Ghazni in July 1839, directly leading to the city's capture as one of the few British successes in their Afghan War (1839-42).

The total awards of the order throughout its history are approximately as follows:

 1st class

 2nd class

 3rd class

1837-1857  

9-x

 41-y

 1396-z

1857-1858  

35

89

1344

1858-1912

x

y

z

1912-1919

21

1034

n/a

1919-1939  

25

1257

n/a

1939-1945

2

332

n/a

1945-1947  

35

n/a

n/a

Until records in New Delhi can be consulted in detail, many aspects of the history of the order are likely to remain obscure.

When the Victoria Cross was created in 1856 (somewhat drawing on the example of the Order of Merit), it was restricted to Europeans in the Indian Army. While British officers were awarded the V.C. for brave service in the forces of the East India Company (and, later, Indian Army), Indians were to remain content with the I.O.M. While, on one level, this reinforced the heritage and status of the I.O.M., it does carry a certain whiff of "separate but equal" phaleristic and paternalistic attitudes. The status of "Anglo-Indians" (the term later became "Eurasians," Indians of mixed parentage) remained unclear until 20 February 1879 when eligibility to the I.O.M. was extended to them.

In 1858, in the aftermath of the Indian "Mutiny," the East India Company was abolished. By 1860, its authorities, lands, and army had been absorbed by the British crown (though the precise constitutional terms and ramifications of this absorption took some years to resolve). Included in this absorption was the army which the company had recruited in India and the various awards of the "Company Bahadur." This included the Order of Merit, the Order of British India, the various campaign medals which had been created prior to 1858, and the meritorious service and long service awards of the H.E.I.C.O.

On 3 May 1902, a civil division in three classes was created for the Order of Merit, intended "to provide for the suitable recognition and reward of conspicuous acts of gallantry performed by Natives of India, whether servants of Government or not, in aid or support of public authority of safety." Stress should, perhaps, be especially laid on the word "public" in the establishing orders.  Appointment to the first and second classes was, as the military division, to be carried out by promotion from lower classes; in fact, no promotions were ever made and all appointments were made to the third class. From the first awards in 1902 until 1933, thirty-nine awards were made to the civil division. In effect, the civil division fell out of favor after 1922, as the Medal of the Order of the British Empire for Gallantry (E.G.M.) and the King's Police Medal (K.P.M.) came to supplant the Indian Order of Merit (Civil). In 1939, the civil division was reduced to a single class and only nine additional appointments would be made in this class before the last civil I.O.M. award in March 1947. These awards are summarized below:

1902-1922  

   38

1922-1939

1

1939-1947

9

The civil division badge can be described as follows:

The complex award stucture and its changes over time can. perhaps, be better understood from an outline of the varieties, which are mainly determined by the royal cipher that they bear:

I have very consciously listed the unawarded varieties, as enterprising dealers sometimes "helpfully" make them available. While mint specimens must have been struck, there is no record of awards of most of the theoretical varieties of the civil I.O.M.  Only the Edward VII third-class, the George V third-class, and the George VI single-class badges were ever awarded.

On 17 April 1903, after the creation of the Order of Merit by King-Emperor Edward VII in 1902, the Order of Merit (in both divisions) was renamed as the Indian Order of Merit.

The creation of the Indian Distinguished Service Medal in 1907 added a new award for gallantry by Indian soldiers, ranking below the I.O.M., and began the gradual erosion of the unique standing of the order.

From 1837 to 1912, the following Indian soldiers have been identified who were awarded the (Indian) Order of Merit (First Class):

As a representative of the scope of the awards of this period, I present the I.O.M. 3 group awarded to No. 2354, Havildar Atar Singh, 15th Bengal Infantry, for bravery in Uganda in 1898. From this same period, I also present photos of I.O.M. recipients, together with my best efforts to identify them:

For Indian soldiers, the Indian Order of Merit was the award "of choice" to reward all aspects of bravery before 1912. A Royal Warrant of 21 October 1911 (published in the London Gazette of 12 November 1911, p. 9369, but not publicaly announced in India until the coronation durbar in Delhi the following month) destroyed the preexisting de facto "color bar" for Victoria Cross awards in the Indian Army and allowed Indians to receive this decoration. Accordingly, the first class of the Indian Order of Merit was terminated by Army Order No. 757 of 3 August 1912 (w.e.f. 12 December 1911) and the remaining classes were renumbered. From 1912 until 1947, forty V.C.s were awarded to Indian soldiers, while in the same time frame twelve awards came to the British officers of the Indian Army. (For more information on the V.C. to the Indian Army, see this site.)

Recipients of the Indian Order of Merit were, at the same time, officially permitted to use the postnominal letters of "I.O.M." to reflect their receipt of the order.

When the I.O.M. was revised in 1912, the traditional first class was removed, and the lower classes (previously second and third) were renumbered as first and second classes, the new, renumbered, I.O.M. 1 did not carry quite the same value as the old first class -- and, over time, the decoration would be eclipsed by pan-Imperial awards. It is nevertheless useful to detail these known I.O.M. 1 awardees (out of a total of forty-eight):

As a representative of the scope of the awards of this period, I present the I.O.M. 2 awarded to Subadar Sundar Singh, 36th Sikhs (after 1922, 4/11th Sikhs) for bravery in Mesopotamia in 1916. From this same period, I also present photos of I.O.M. recipients, together with my best efforts to identify them:

The war saw the first awards of the V.C. to Indian officers and soldiers. Among these was Jemadar Mir Dost, I.O.M., Bahadur, 55th Coke's Rifles, the sole Indian awardee of both the V.C. and the I.O.M.

In the aftermath of the Great War, as Indians became (as much by custom as by regulation) possible recipients of other bravery awards (the M.C., D.C.M., or M.M., for example), the I.O.M. declined in importance. During the Second World War, in particular, awards of the I.O.M. declined in importance. From 1939 to 1945, the first class was awarded only twice:

The WWII second class was awarded to 332 brave Indian soldiers. In 1945 the I.O.M. was reduced, this time to a single class, with only 30 known recipients.  It was terminated by the independence of India and Pakistan in 1947. The last late awards were gazetted on 25 September 1947, leaving behind a often-forgotten record of one hundred and ten years of gallantry.

After the Partition of 1947, awards of the Indian Order of Merit ceased and with the attainment of full status of the successor states as self-governing republics new awards were created. In effect, the vacant phaleristic niche would come to be filled by the Maha Vir Chakra in India and the Hilal-i-Jur'at in Pakistan (although the Pakistani counterpart is less direct).

Any information on other recipients is solicited and will be welcomed and acknowledged.

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last revised 27 September 1999
Ed Haynes