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This month a century ago, Charles Metcalfe
Macgregor founded a unique institution in India which is, even
today, an unparalleled treasure house of literature on the art
and science of warfare. This nostalgic resume of the 100 years
of this remarkable institution makes a sad revelation that even
after one hundred years in existence it is still homeless. A
time came in its life when it could not afford to maintain even
a bicycle and its properly had to be sold to pay back the
arrears of municipal taxes. |
The United Service Institution began its life in a defunct Town Hall
in Simla in 1870, moved later to Army Headquarters, and then to
premises above the old Scotch Kirk. In 1910 it got its own building,
at a cost of twenty-six thousand rupees, near the Combermare Post
Office, on land leased by the United Services Club. Membership in the
year of the birth numbered 215.
The objective of the Institution was to promote the study of naval and
military art, science and literature. Today, it has voluntary
membership of 4,700. However, it is ironic that a hundred years after
its birth, USI still does not possess a building of its own housed as
it is in a few rooms of Kashmir House - the Secretary and his staff
operating from what was once the Maharaja's pantry!
There were many others associated with the USI during the hundred
years of its existence who added lustre to the Institution by virtue
of their own eminence. Among them were Lt. General Sir Douglas Haig,
the Honourable Sir Hery McMahon, Field Marshal Lord Birdwood, General
Sir Cloude Auchinleck, General Sir Phillip Chetwode, Lt. General Sir
Kenneth Wigram and Viscount Gort.
In 1933, Ram Chandra, an ICS Officer, became the first Indian member
of the Institution while the first President, after Independence, was
General K.M. Cariappa who was also the first Indian Commander-in-Chief
of the Army.
The USI library is a gold-mine of knowledge indispensable to the
development of thinking of Service Officers on defence and warfare.
The library boasts of forty thousand bound volumes, manuscripts, rare
old books and prices, including one of the only-six available copies
in the world of Aelian's “Tactics" published in 1616, a book that
revolutionsed warfare tactics in the 17th century. Tarlton's own
apologia of the conduct of his operations, during the American war of
Rebellion (1787) and Claude De Vauban's military history of
Marlborough and Eugene, published in 1737, are the other rare
acquisitions. The printed works deal with every aspect of warfare,
particularly the wars of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
February 1971 is therefore an important milestone for the USI. Its
100th birthday should afford a good opportunity for serious
stocktaking and a reappraisal of its future functions.
In the light of today's need it must evolve into an autonomous "Think
Tank", serving not only the Armed profession, but Government,
Parliament and the public at large.
Thanks to Metcalfe's foresight, we have today an institution which is
the second oldest of' its kind in the world, with a Journal that is
the oldest professional defence Journal with continuous publication in
India and in Asia. May that one small candle, that was lighted by
Metcalfe a century ago and which has shed light and understanding to
so many who have been involved in the search for knowledge and the
pursuit of historical fact, flare forth to illuminate the enquiring
minds of men for many centuries to come.
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