Among jobs performed by Indian personnel at RAF bases you see the likes of sweeper, cook, water carrier, and washer up. Self-explanatory stuff. Another job is "lascar," which obviously has a different meaning from the traditional seafaring meaning. I see from Google searches that it can mean a servant to officers, but does anyone know specifically what lascars actually did? Another job is "tindal," which from Google I see in defined as "a petty officer among lascars," but again this relies on the seafaring definition of lascar, which wouldn't apply at an RAF base. A better definition seems to be "an attendant on an army". Does anyone know from experience or inherited experience or knowledge of British India what these these jobs really involved?
I wonder if the use of 'lascars' by the RAF is simply a reference to trusted Indian nationals. Lascars at sea may also come from a specific region, e.g. Bengal. I note Wiki for once offers no help: Lascar - Wikipedia I did look online and found nowt to help, just another thread to create!
The RAF Marine Branch had a number of rescue launch bases in the Indian Ocean. Perhaps they did employ actual seafaring Lascars ? edit : and seaplane tenders.
Lascar might also reflect the terms of engagement, maybe? The Indian Army had well-established mechanisms for Non-Combatant Enrolled followers. Those could well have rubbed off on the RAF on the NW Frontier, but may not have been appropriate for more general civilian labour at whatever level. Was the long-standing merchant navy approach used instead?
Thanks for your thoughts. Thinking about it, I should have given an idea of numbers. The sheet below lists most of 20 Squadron's enrolled followers who are moving from RAF Chharra, an inland base flying mainly Lysanders, to RAF Kaylan, near Bombay where the squadron will be training on Hurricanes. I had to look up dhobi, but that was straightforward - a washerman or woman.
lascar - Meaning in Hindi (हिंदी मतलब) | lascar in Hindi at hindi-english.com This has definition of Lascar as 'a menial employed about arsenals, camps etc.; a camp follower.' ie: employed on work not requiring much skill. Tim
So we're looking at moving heavy stuff about, digging holes, emptying the thunderboxes... For the sake of completeness, here are the rest of the enrolled followers: chowkidar = a watchman or gatekeeper As an aside, it's surprising to me that six men were employed as mess waiters - a different era, I suppose.
I can't read the words punka and wallah in the same sentence without thinking of It Ain't Half Hot Mum. For some bizarre reason, I can't remember why, probably because I'd pestered him to, my dad taught me to count in Hindi. I probably asked him to teach me 1 to 10, so he went one further and did 1 to 11 - funny some of the things you learn. He did a good job - I've just listened to the words on Google Translate. The only weird thing is that the word he gave me for eleven sounded to me like budgie, but Google gives it as gyaarah in Hindi. The Urdu words for the numbers sound about the same as Hindi to my ears.
Gun Lascar is a longstanding term dating back to 1742. From the FIBIS Fibwiki page Gun Lascar Gun lascars, or gun-lascars, were Indian recruits retained for "manhandling and cleaning of guns, carriage of ammunition and had light pioneering tools for the construction of gun platforms, erecting batteries during siege warfare and throwing up protective earthworks around the guns. In fact the gun lascars did everything on and around the guns except aim and fire" They were also described as a native powder-monkey. https://wiki.fibis.org/w/Gun_Lascar There is a section "Indian Army Followers" on the FIBIS FIBIwiki Page Indian Army https://wiki.fibis.org/w/Indian_Army which has the following link Page 60, "Front Lines and Status Lines: Sepoy and Menial in the Great War 1916-1920" by Radhika Singha, a chapter in The World in World Wars: Experiences, Perceptions and Perspectives from Africa and Asia 2010 Google Books. This article includes information about Indian Army Followers. Radhika Singha is the (later) author of The Coolie’s Great War: Indian Labour in a Global Conflict, 1914–1921. "Interview: Radhika Singha" by Rohan Venkataramakrishnan c 16 July 2021. amp.scroll.in . Maureen
