As the Batman fever is peaking, we look back on the Batmen of India who are serving the Indian army for decades. A thread on the fascinating history of the British Indian Army, curious word origins and a feudal system. (1/9) 
In the British Indian army, the high ranked officers would be given a soldier as a personal valet who often acted as an officer’s servant, taking care of his horses, cleaning his quarter and performing other miscellaneous activities. (2/9)
Curiously, they were known as Batman (Batmen), or orderly in the future, who had nothing to do with bats or the ubiquitous superhero of Gotham City. The usage of Batman in the British army across their colonies predates the origin of the Superhero. (3/9)
The origin of the British army’s Batman has a puzzling history. The story starts with a humble pack saddle - a contraption attached to the back of a horse to carry heavy luggage. On the same note, a pack-horse refers to a horse that carries goods on its back. (4/9)
The medieval Latin word for ‘packsaddle’ is bastum, which also means ‘carrying’. In the colonial armies, the soldiers who were assigned to manage the pack-horses that carried cooking utensils were originally known as Batman, derived from the same Latin word bastum. (5/9)
Surprisingly, the word bastum is also the origin of the word bastard which originally meant ‘the packsaddle son’ i.e the illegitimate child of a horse rider who uses a packsaddle for a pillow and disappears by morning. (6/9)
The evolution of the term batman - from the packsaddle of a horse to the personal orderly of British Indian army officers - is incredible, but the practice of employing batmen in the Indian Army emphasizes a dominant system of feudalism. (7/9)
Although the British army abolished the tradition of employing Batmen after WW2, the Indian Army continued the “imperialistic” practices of the British Raj 70 long years after their independence. (8/9)
Recently in the last decade or so, the Indian Government took several initiatives to curb many such colonial practices which are particularly demeaning for the servicemen of the Indian army. (9/9)
Acknowledgement: Mark Sundaram / alliterative.net, wikimedia.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
