Silladar Cavalry


The Silladar Cavalry was a cavalry force of some moment in Indian history traditionally composed of individuals who provide their own arms, as opposed to having them provided for them by any local or central group or command. Such men were usually relatively wealthy and prosperous high-caste landowning cultivators such as the Jats and Rajputs of all communities of the erstwhile undivided Punjab province and Rajputana. They were recruited from local dominant high-caste landowning clans who traditionally owned weapons and provided military service to local feudal chiefs. Thus most of the Silladar cavalry were recruited from the Kshatriya caste.

The system was extended to the regular cavalry of the Bengal and Bombay Armies in 1861.[1]

Units of note
  • 1861 9th Regiment of Scinde Silladar Cavalry
  • 1861 3rd Regiment of Bombay Silladar Light Cavalry

Further reading
  • For a modern context
  • Peers, Douglas M.; "Those Noble Exemplars of the True Military Tradition: Constructions of the Indian Army in the Mid-Victorian Press", in Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 31, No. 1 (Feb., 1997), pp. 109–142.

Notes
  1. British Library Archived 2008-05-08 at the Wayback Machine
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