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Troops of the Eight nations alliance of 1900. Left to right: Britain, United States, Australian colonial, British India, Germany, France, Austria-Hungary, Italy, Japan.
The Boxer Rebellion, also known as Boxer Uprising or Yihetuan Movement, was a proto-nationalist movement by the "Righteous Harmony Society" in China between 1898 and 1901, opposing foreign imperialism and Christianity. The uprising took place in response to foreign "spheres of influence" in China, with grievances ranging from opium traders, political invasion, economic manipulation, to missionary evangelism. In China, popular sentiment remained resistant to foreign influences, and anger rose over the "unequal treaties", which the weak Qing state could not resist. Concerns grew that missionaries and Chinese Christians could use this decline to their advantage, appropriating lands and property of unwilling Chinese peasants to give to the church. This sentiment resulted in violent revolts against foreign interests.
In June 1900 in Beijing, Boxer fighters threatened foreigners and forced them to seek refuge in the Legation Quarter. In response, the initially hesitant Empress Dowager Cixi, urged by the conservatives of the Imperial Court, supported the Boxers and declared war on foreign powers. Diplomats, foreign civilians and soldiers, and Chinese Christians in the Legation Quarter were under siege by the Imperial Army of China and the Boxers for 55 days. The Chinese government was split between destroying the foreigners in the Legation Quarter and extending olive branches. Clashes were reported between Chinese factions favoring war and those favoring conciliation, the latter led by Prince Qing. The supreme commander of the Chinese forces, Ronglu, claimed three years later that he acted to protect the besieged foreigners. The siege was ended when the Eight-Nation Alliance brought 20,000 armed troops to China, defeated the Imperial Army, and captured Beijing. The Boxer Protocol of 7 September 1901 ended the uprising and provided for severe punishments, including an indemnity of 67 million pounds (450 million taels of silver), more than the government's annual tax revenue, to be paid as indemnity over a course of thirty-nine years to the eight nations involved.
, Indian regiments made their way to the foreign quarter "crawling through the Imperial sewage canals", undetected by the Boxers, and were the first troops to come to the aid of the besieged foreigners.
At another point and date, On August 4, 1900, a relief force of more than 3000 soldiers from Sikh and Punjabi regiments left Tianjin, part of the larger eight-nation alliance that was dispatched to aid the besieged quarter, where 11 countries had set up legations. Indian troops were also dispatched to guard churches and Christian missionaries, the targets of the Boxer uprisings.
Later, the British also dispatched Indian regiments to China leading up towards the Opium War, which ended with the Treaty of Nanking in 1842 and the opening up of Chinese ports to the British.
The British deployed Sikh soldiers as law enforcement officers in ports like Shanghai, where their trading companies had set up a large presence by the early twentieth century. The Sikh soldiers were feared by the Chinese with their imposing figures, so much so that the British deemed that they did not even need guns when on duty, Colonel Jaishankar said, citing records from the time.
While these accounts of history don't paint Indian troops positively, historians claim that the acts need to be placed into context, where both India and China were colonies and made to be aggressive towards each other for foreign profit. There are also accounts of Indian soldiers sympathizing with Chinese peasants - Gaddhar Singh, a Rajput who was in Beijing in 1900-01, empathized with Chinese grievances in his accounts, arguing it was an entirely justified peasant rebellion.
Other examples include the Battle of Hong Kong during the Second World War, when Indian and Chinese troops fought together against the Japanese. The 585 Indians who lost their lives are still remembered today in Hong Kong's war cemeteries.
Another case in point was in 1994, when the Indian army returned a bell that was looted by British troops from Beijing's Temple of Heaven when the city was ransacked by foreign troops following the Boxer Rebellion. The bell was later put up for display by the Chinese military.
Some of the Indian Origin Regiments that fought in china during this campaign were
51st Sikhs (Frontier Force)
Skinner's Horse
Sources
http://bharat-rakshak.com/LAND-FORCES/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=411
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/51st_Sikhs_(Frontier_Force)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxer_Rebellion
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