India’s colonial experience and contemporary geo-strategic significance makes the genesis of modern warfare in the subcontinent crucial to the understanding of international military history. Providing a comprehensive account, this Companion explores the transition in warfare especially focusing on strategy, technology, tactics, and the socio-political impact of modern warfare in the subcontinent from its inception in the 1740s till the present times. Beginning with the study of differences between western and pre-colonial warfare, the modernization of the Indian army, its role during the two world wars, and inside the subcontinent during the freedom struggle, the volume surveys the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth centuries. Bringing the narrative up to recent times, it analyses the events of the post-Independence era. Focusing on the interaction between military bureaucracy, technology, and society, it surveys the Indo-Pak wars, the Indo-Chinese frontier, the role of the IPKF in Sri Lanka, the Nuclear Question and the Kargil war, and the developments in northeast and Kashmir. Challenging the Euro-centrism in the available literature, the volume offers cross-cultural analyses by comparing the evolution of warfare with other parts of Eurasia. It underlines the new approaches and debates in the writing of military history.
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