title: Simon Commission

text: Some people in India were outraged and insulted that the Simon Commission, which was to determine the future of India, did not include a single Indian member. The Indian National Congress, at its December 1927 meeting in Madras (now Chennai), resolved to boycott the Commission and challenged Lord Birkenhead, the Secretary of State for India, to draft a constitution that would be acceptable to the Indian populace. A faction of the Muslim League, led by Mohammed Ali Jinnah, also decided to boycott the Commission.


title: Simon Commission

text: In face of the opposition from the Congress, F.E Smith wanted to publicize the meetings of the Commission with "representative Moslems" in order to "terrify the immense Hindu population by apprehension that the Commission is being got hold of by the Moslems and may present a report altogether destructive of the Hindu population."


title: Simon Commission

text: However opinion was divided, with support for co-operation coming from some members of the Muslim League and also both Hindu Mahasabha and members of the Central Sikh League. An All-India Committee for Cooperation with the Simon Commission was established by the Council of India and by selection of the Viceroy, Lord Irwin. The members of the committee were: C. Sankaran Nair (Chairman), Arthur Froom, Nawab Ali Khan, Shivdev Singh Uberoi, Zulfiqar Ali Khan, Hari Singh Gour, Abdullah Al-Mamun Suhrawardy, Kikabhai Premchand and Prof. M. C. Rajah.


title: Simon Commission

text: In Burma (Myanmar), which was included in the terms of reference of the Simon Commission, there was strong suspicion either that Burma's unpopular union with India would continue, or that the constitution recommended for Burma by the Commission would be less generous than that chosen for India; these suspicions resulted in tension and violence in Burma leading to the rebellion of Saya San.


title: Simon Commission

text: The Simon Commission left England in January 1928. Almost immediately with its arrival in Bombay on 3 February 1928, its members were confronted by throngs of protesters, although there were also some supporters among the crowds who saw it as the next step on the road to self-governance. A strike began and many people turned out to greet the Commission with black flags which was written 'Simon Go Back'. Maghfoor Ahmad Ajazi led the demonstrations against Simon Commission in Patna. Similar protests occurred in every major Indian city that the seven British MPs visited.


title: Simon Commission

text: One protest against the Simon Commission became infamous. On 30 October 1928, the Commission arrived in Lahore where it was met by protesters waving black flags. The protest was led by the Indian nationalist Lala Lajpat Rai, who had moved a resolution against the Commission in the Legislative Assembly of Punjab in February 1928. The protesters blocked the road in order to prevent the commission members from leaving the railway station. In order to make way for the Commission, the local police led by Superintendent James Scott began beating protesters. Lala Lajpat Rai was critically injured and died on 17 November 1928 due to the head injuries he had sustained.


title: Simon Commission

text: The Commission published its 2-volume report in May 1930. The commission proposed to abolish the diarchy, an extension to autonomy of provinces by establishing representative government in provinces. However it allowed the British governors of provinces to retain much of their emergency powers, hence in practice very little autonomy was to be given to the provinces. Most notably the commission's report did not mention dominion status at all. The commission also recommended to retain separate electorates as long as inter-communal tensions between Hindus and Muslims remained.


title: Simon Commission

text: In September 1928, ahead of the Commission's release, Motilal Nehru presented his Nehru Report to counter its charges that Indians could not find a constitutional consensus among themselves. This report advocated that India be given dominion status with complete internal self-government.


title: Simon Commission

text: Jinnah declared the report as "Hindu Document" and presented Fourteen Points of Jinnah in response to the Nehru Report. The Fourteen Points consisted of Muslim's minimum demands from the British Rule.


title: Simon Commission

text: By the time it was published the commission was already overshadowed by a declaration by the Viceroy of India Lord Irwin on 31 October 1929 which reinterpreted the 1917 declaration (which had led to the Mortagu-Chelmsford reforms) as the British government's final policy goal always being India's attainment of dominion status. He also called for a round-table conference in London regarding this. Although this remained controversial among many conservatives in London, in reality there was no change in British policy as the promise was very vague and far in the future.


title: Simon Commission

text: The outcome of the Simon Commission was the Government of India Act 1935, which called for a "responsible" government at the provincial level in India but not at the national level—that is a government responsible to the Indian community rather than London. It is the basis of many parts of the Indian Constitution. In 1937 the first elections were held in the Provinces, resulting in Congress Governments being returned in almost all Provinces.


title: Simon Commission

text: Clement Attlee was deeply moved by his experience on the Commission and endorsed the final report. However, by 1933 he argued that British rule was alien to India and was unable to make the social and economic reforms necessary for India's progress. He became the British leader most sympathetic to Indian independence (as a dominion), preparing him for his role in deciding on Indian independence as British Prime Minister in 1947.


title: Simon Commission

text: 9. Dr. Babasaheb AmbedkarWritings and Speeches Vol. 2 (Dr. Ambedkar in the Bombay Legislature; With the Simon Commission; at the Round Table Conferences) Education Department, Government of Maharashtra (India) 1982


title: British Indian Army

text: The British Indian Army, commonly referred to as the Indian Army, was the main military of the British Raj before its dissolution in 1947. It was responsible for the defence of the British Indian Empire, including the princely states, which could also have their own armies. As quoted in the Imperial Gazetteer of India, "The British Government has undertaken to protect the dominions of the Native princes from invasion and even from rebellion within: its army is organized for the defence not merely of British India, but of all possessions under the suzerainty of the King-Emperor." The Indian Army was an important part of the British Empire's forces, both in India and abroad, particularly during the First World War and the Second World War.


title: British Indian Army

text: The term "Indian Army" appears to have been first used informally, as a collective description of the Presidency armies, which collectively comprised the Bengal Army, the Madras Army and the Bombay Army, of the Presidencies of British India, particularly after the Indian Rebellion. The first army officially called the "Indian Army" was raised by the government of India in 1895, existing alongside the three long-established presidency armies. However, in 1903 the Indian Army absorbed these three armies. The Indian Army should not be confused with the "Army of India" (1903–1947) which was the "Indian Army" itself plus the "British Army in India" (British units sent to India), which was later split into the Indian Army and the Army of Pakistan.


title: British Indian Army

text: The Indian Army has its origins in the years after the Indian Rebellion of 1857, often called the Indian Mutiny in British histories, when in 1858 the Crown took over direct rule of British India from the East India Company. Before 1858, the precursor units of the Indian Army were units controlled by the Company and were paid for by their profits. These operated alongside units of the British Army, funded by the British government in London.


title: British Indian Army

text: The three Presidency armies remained separate forces, each with its own Commander-in-Chief. Overall operational control was exercised by the Commander-in-Chief of the Bengal Army, who was formally the Commander-in-Chief of the East Indies. From 1861, most of the officer manpower was pooled in the three Presidential Staff Corps. After the Second Afghan War a Commission of Enquiry recommended the abolition of the presidency armies. The Ordnance, Supply and Transport, and Pay branches were by then unified.


title: British Indian Army

text: The Punjab Frontier Force was under the direct control of the Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab during peacetime until 1886, when it came under the C-in-C, India. The Hyderabad Contingent and other local corps remained under direct governmental control. Standing higher formations – divisions and brigades – were abandoned in 1889. No divisional staffs were maintained in peacetime, and troops were dispersed throughout the sub-continent, with internal security as their main function. In 1891 the three staff corps were merged into one Indian Staff Corps.


title: British Indian Army

text: Two years later the Madras and Bombay armies lost their posts of Commander-in-Chief. In 1895, the Presidency Armies were abolished and the Indian Army created thereby was re-grouped into four commands: Bengal, Madras (including Burma), Bombay (including Sind, Quetta, and Aden), and the Punjab (including the North-West Frontier and the Punjab Frontier Force). Each was under the command of a lieutenant general, who answered directly to the C-in-C, India.


title: British Indian Army

text: The Presidency armies were abolished with effect from 1 April 1895 by a notification of the Government of India through Army Department Order Number 981 dated 26 October 1894, unifying the three Presidency armies into a single Indian Army. The armies were amalgamated into four commands, Northern, Southern, Eastern, and Western. The Indian Army, like the Presidency armies, continued to provide armed support to the civil authorities, both in combating banditry and in case of riots and rebellion. One of the first external operations the new unified army faced was the Boxer Rebellion in China from 1899 to 1901.


title: British Indian Army

text: The Kitchener reforms began in 1903 when Lord Kitchener of Khartoum, newly appointed Commander-in-Chief, India, completed the unification of the three former Presidency armies, and also the Punjab Frontier Force, the Hyderabad Contingent and other local forces, into one Indian Army; see Army of India (including also units of the British Army stationed in India).


title: British Indian Army

text: The principles underlying the reforms were that the defence of the North-West Frontier against foreign aggression was the army's primary role and that all units were to have training and experience in that role on that frontier. Furthermore, the army's organisation should be the same in peace as in war, and maintaining internal security was for the army a secondary role, in support of the police.


title: British Indian Army

text: Lord Kitchener found the army scattered across the country in stations at brigade or regimental strength, and in effect, providing garrisons for most of the major cities.


title: British Indian Army

text: The reformed Indian Army was to be stationed in operational formations and concentrated in the north of the sub-continent. The Commander-in-Chief's plan called for nine fighting divisions grouped in two corps commands on the main axes through the North-West Frontier. Five divisions were to be grouped on the Lucknow – Peshawar – Khyber axis, and four divisions on the Bombay – Mhow – Quetta axis. However, the cost of abandoning some thirty-four stations and building new ones in the proposed corps areas was considered prohibitive, and that aspect of the plan had to be modified.


title: British Indian Army

text: Under the compromise adopted in 1905, the four existing commands were reduced to three, and together with Army Headquarters, arranged in ten standing divisions and four independent brigades. The commands comprised: Northern Command, which consisted of the 1st (Peshawar) Division, the 2nd (Rawalpindi) Division, the 3rd (Lahore) Division, the Kohat Brigade, the Bannu Brigade, and the Derajat Brigade; Western Command, which consisted of the 4th (Quetta) Division, the 5th (Mhow) Division, the 6th (Poona) Division, and the Aden Brigade, located in Aden in the Arabian Peninsula; and Eastern Command, which consisted of s the 7th (Meerut) Division and the 8th (Lucknow) Division.


title: British Indian Army

text: Army Headquarters retained the 9th (Secunderabad) Division and the Burma Division under its direct control. The numbered divisions were organised so that on mobilisation they could deploy a complete infantry division, a cavalry brigade, and a number of troops for internal security or local frontier defence. Permanent divisional commands were formed with an establishment of staff officers under a Major-General.


title: British Indian Army

text: After the reforms ended in 1909, the Indian Army was organised along British lines, although it was always behind in terms of equipment. An Indian Army division consisted of three brigades each of four battalions. Three of these battalions were of the Indian Army, and one British. The Indian battalions were often segregated, with companies of different tribes, castes or religions. One and a half million volunteers came forward from the estimated population of 315 million in the Indian subcontinent.


title: British Indian Army

text: Regimental battalions were not permanently allocated to particular divisions or brigades, but instead spent some years in one formation, and were then posted to another elsewhere. This rotating arrangement was intended both to provide all units with experience of active service on the Frontier, and to prevent them becoming 'localised' in static regimental stations. In contrast, the divisional locations remained constant


title: British Indian Army

text: To emphasise that there was now only one Indian Army, and that all units were to be trained and deployed without regard for their regional origins, the regiments were renumbered into single sequences of cavalry, artillery, infantry of the line, and Gurkha Rifles. Regimental designations were altered to remove all references to the former Presidential Armies. Where appropriate subsidiary titles recalling other identifying details were adopted. Thus the 2nd Bengal Lancers became the 2nd Lancers (Gardner's Horse).


title: British Indian Army

text: The new order began with the Bengal regiments, followed by the Punjab Frontier Force, then the regiments of Madras, the Hyderabad Contingent, and Bombay. Wherever possible a significant digit was retained in the new number. Thus the 1st Sikh Infantry became the 51st Sikhs, the 1st Madras Pioneers became the 61st Pioneers, and the 1st Bombay Grenadiers became the 101st Grenadiers.


title: British Indian Army

text: The Gurkha Regiments had developed into their own Line of rifle regiments since 1861. They were five of these until they were joined by the former 42nd, 43rd, & 44th Gurkha Regiments of the Bengal Army, who became the 6th, 7th, & 8th Gurkha Rifles. The numbers 42, 43, & 44 were allocated respectively to the Deoli and Erinpura Irregular Forces and the Mhairwara Battalion from Rajputana.


title: British Indian Army

text: The mountain batteries had already lost their numbers two years earlier. Under the 1903 reforms they were renumbered with twenty added to their original numbers. The army had very little artillery (only 12 batteries of mountain artillery), and Royal Indian Artillery batteries were attached to the divisions. The Indian Army Corps of Engineers was formed by the Group of Madras, Bengal and Bombay Sappers in their respective presidencies.


title: British Indian Army

text: The Queen's Own Corps of Guides, Punjab Frontier Force, composed of cavalry squadrons and infantry companies, was renamed the Queen's Own Corps of Guides (Lumsden's) but stayed numberless. The new regimental numbering and namings were notified in "India Army Order 181", dated 2 October 1903.


title: British Indian Army

text: In 1903 the title of the Indian Staff Corps was abolished, and thereafter officers were simply appointed to 'the Indian Army.' A General Staff was then created to deal with overall military policy, supervision of training in peacetime, conduct of operations in war, distribution of forces for internal security or external deployment, plans for future operations and collecting intelligence. Functions were divided along British lines into two branches; the Adjutant-General, dealing with training, discipline, and personnel, and the Quartermaster-General, dealing with supplies, accommodation, and communications. In 1906 a General Branch was established to deal with military policy, organisation and deployment, mobilisation and war plans, and intelligence and the conduct of operations. The Chiefs of the staff branches answered to the Chief of the General Staff, whose post was held by a Lieutenant-General. To provide training for staff officers, the Indian Staff College was established in 1905, and permanently based at Quetta from 1907.


title: British Indian Army

text: With no intermediate chain of command, army headquarters was weighed down with minor administrative details. Divisional commanders were responsible not only for their active formations, but also for internal security and volunteer troops within their respective areas. On mobilisation, divisional staffs took the field, leaving no-one to maintain the local administration. Supporting services were insufficient, and many troops intended for the field force were not moved from their old stations into the areas of their new divisional command. These defects became clear during the First World War, and lead to further reorganisation.


title: British Indian Army

text: The Indian Army Act 1911 legislated the replacement of the Indian Articles of War 1869. It was passed by the Governor General. It was under aspects of this law that the Army charged defendants during the Indian National Army Trials in 1945. It was replaced by the ""Indian Army Act, 1950"" after partition and independence.


title: British Indian Army

text: Prior to the outbreak of the First World War, the strength of the British Indian Army was 215,000. Either in 1914 or before, a ninth division had been formed, the 9th (Secunderabad) Division. By November 1918, the Indian Army rose in size to 573,000 men.


title: British Indian Army

text: Before the war, the Indian government had decided that India could afford to provide two infantry divisions and a cavalry brigade in the event of a European war. 140,000 soldiers saw active service on the Western Front in France and Belgium – 90,000 in the front-line Indian Corps, and some 50,000 in auxiliary battalions. They felt that any more would jeopardise national security. More than four divisions were eventually sent as Indian Expeditionary Force A formed the Indian Corps and the Indian Cavalry Corps that arrived on the Western Front in 1914. The high number of officer casualties the corps suffered early on had an effect on its later performance. British officers that understood the language, customs, and psychology of their men could not be quickly replaced, and the alien environment of the Western Front had some effect on the soldiers. However, the feared unrest in India never happened, and while the Indian Corps was transferred to the Middle East in 1915 India provided many more divisions for active service during the course of the war. Indians' first engagement was on the Western Front within a month of the start of the war, at the First Battle of Ypres. Here, the Garhwal Rifles were involved in the war's first trench raid on 9–10 November 1914 and Khudadad Khan became the first Indian to win a Victoria Cross. After a year of front-line duty, sickness and casualties had reduced the Indian Corps to the point where it had to be withdrawn.


title: British Indian Army

text: Nearly 700,000 then served in the Middle East, fighting against the Turks in the Mesopotamian campaign. There they were short of transportation for resupply and operated in extremely hot and dusty conditions. Led by Major General Sir Charles Townshend, they pushed on to capture Baghdad but they were repulsed by Ottoman Forces.


title: British Indian Army

text: In the First World War the Indian Army saw extensive active service, including on the Western Front, notably in the Battle of Neuve Chapelle, participated in the Battle of Gallipoli and Sinai and Palestine Campaign. Furthermore, it fought in the Siege of Kut of the Mesopotamian Campaign, and campaigned in East Africa, including the Battle of Tanga.


title: British Indian Army

text: Participants from the Indian subcontinent won 13,000 medals, including 12 Victoria Crosses. By the end of the war a total of 47,746 Indians had been reported dead or missing; 65,126 were wounded.


title: British Indian Army

text: Also serving in the First World War were so-called "Imperial Service Troops", provided by the semi-autonomous Princely States. About 21,000 were raised in the First World War, mainly consisting of Sikhs of Punjab and Rajputs from Rajputana (such as the Bikaner Camel Corps and the Hyderabad, Mysore and Jodhpur Lancers of the Imperial Service Cavalry Brigade). These forces played a prominent role in the Sinai and Palestine Campaign.


title: British Indian Army

text: Elements of the Army operated around Mary, Turkmenistan in 1918–19. See Malleson mission and Entente intervention in the Russian Civil War. The army then took part in the Third Anglo-Afghan War of 1919. In the aftermath of the First World War, the Indian Territorial Force and Auxiliary Force (India) were created in the 1920s. The Indian Territorial Force was a part-time, paid, all-volunteer organisation within the army. Its units were primarily made up of European officers and Indian other ranks. The ITF was created by the Indian Territorial Force Act 1920 to replace the Indian section of the Indian Defence Force. It was an all-volunteer force modelled after the British Territorial Army. The European parallel to the ITF was the Auxiliary Force (India).


title: British Indian Army

text: After the First World War the British started the process of Indianisation, by which Indians were promoted into higher officer ranks. Indian cadets were sent to study in Great Britain at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, and were given full commissions as King's Commissioned Indian Officers. The KCIOs were equivalent in every way to British commissioned officers and had full authority over British troops (unlike VCOs). Some KCIOs were attached to British Army units for a part of their careers.


title: British Indian Army

text: In 1922, after wartime experience had shown that the maintenance of 130 separate single-battalion infantry regiments was unwieldy, a number of large (four to five battalion) regiments were created, and numerous cavalry regiments amalgamated. The List of regiments of the Indian Army (1922) shows the reduced number of larger regiments. Until 1932 most Indian Army officers, both British and Indian, were trained at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, after that date the Indian officers increasingly received their training at the Indian Military Academy in Dehradun which was established that year.


title: British Indian Army

text: At the outbreak of the Second World War, the Indian Army numbered 205,000 men and, as the war continued, this would rise to 2.5 million men to become the largest all–volunteer force in history. During this process, five corps would be raised; which consisted of the Indian III Corps, Indian IV Corps, Indian XV Corps, Indian XXXIII Corps and Indian XXXIV Corps. Furthermore, the 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 14th, 17th, 19th, 20th, 21st, and 23rd Indian Divisions were formed, as well as other forces. Additionally two armoured divisions and an airborne division were created. In matters of administration, weapons, training, and equipment, the Indian Army had considerable independence; for example, prior to the war the Indian Army adopted the Vickers-Berthier (VB) light machine gun instead of the Bren gun of the British Army, while continuing to manufacture and issue the older SMLE No. 1 Mk III rifle during the Second World War, instead of the Lee–Enfield No.4 Mk I issued to the British Army from the middle of the war.


title: British Indian Army

text: About 87,000 Indian soldiers died during this conflict. Indian soldiers were awarded 30 Victoria Crosses during the Second World War. (See: Indian Victoria Cross recipients.)


title: British Indian Army

text: The Germans and Japanese were relatively successful in recruiting combat forces from Indian prisoners of war. These forces were known as the Tiger Legion and the Indian National Army (INA). Indian nationalist leader Subhas Chandra Bose led the 40,000-strong INA. From a total of about 55,000 Indians taken prisoner in Malaya and Singapore in February 1942, about 30,000 joined the INA,


title: British Indian Army

text: Some Indian Army personnel resisted recruitment and remained POWs. An unknown number captured in Malaya and Singapore were taken to Japanese-occupied areas of New Guinea as forced labour. Many of these men suffered severe hardships and brutality, similar to that experienced by other prisoners of Japan during the Second World War. About 6,000 of them survived until they were liberated by Australian or US forces, in 1943–45.


title: British Indian Army

text: During the later stages of the Second World War, from the fall of Singapore and the ending of ABDACOM in early 1942 until the formation of the South East Asia Command (SEAC) in August 1943, some American and Chinese units were placed under British military command.


title: British Indian Army

text: As a result of the Partition of India in 1947, the formations, units, assets, and indigenous personnel of the Indian Army were divided, with two-thirds of the assets being retained by the Dominion of India, and one third going to the new Dominion of Pakistan. As quoted by Brian Lapping, 'By comparison with the two great provinces [Punjab & Sindh] partition of the army and the civil service was easy, though by any other standard, it was difficult, wasteful, and destructive. ... The men were transferred in their units. Regiments of Sikh and Hindu soldiers from the north-west frontier had to make their way through Muslim territory to get out of what was to be Pakistan.' Four Gurkha regiments (mostly recruited in Nepal, which was outside India), were transferred from the former Indian Army to the British Army, forming its Brigade of Gurkhas and departing for a new station in Malaya. British Army units stationed in India returned to the United Kingdom or were posted to other stations outside India and Pakistan. During the transition period after partition, Headquarters British Troops in India, under then Major General Lashmer Whistler, controlled the departing British units. The last British unit, 1st Battalion, Somerset Light Infantry, left on 28 February 1948.


title: British Indian Army

text: The present-day Indian Army and Pakistan Army thus were formed from units of the pre-partition Indian Army. Both of these forces, and the Bangladesh Army which was created from the Pakistan Army on the independence of Bangladesh, retain many British Indian Army traditions.


title: British Indian Army

text: The armies of the East India Company were recruited primarily from forward caste Hindus and Muslims in the Bengal Presidency, which consisted of Bengal, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, and Oudh. This later expanded into the armies of the three Presidencies and provinces of British India.


title: British Indian Army

text: Writing in "The Indian Army" (1834), Sir John Malcolm, who had a lifetime's experience of Indian soldiering, wrote about the Bengal Presidency: "They consist largely of Rajpoots (Rajput), who are a distinguished race among the Khiteree (Kshatriya), or Brhamins (Brahmin) We may judge of the size of these men when we are told that the height below which no recruit is taken is five feet six inches. The great proportion of the Grenadiers are six feet and upwards."


title: British Indian Army

text: The meaning of the term "Indian Army" has changed over time, initially as an informal collective term for the armies of the three presidencies–the Bengal Army, Madras Army and Bombay Army–between 1858 and 1894. In 1895, the Indian Army began its formal existence and was the "army of the government of India", including British and Indian (sepoy) units; this arrangement lasted until 1902.


title: British Indian Army

text: Many of these troops took part in the Indian Mutiny, with the aim of reinstating the Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah II at Delhi, partly as a result of insensitive treatment by their British officers. During this period, the Company Raj relied heavily upon the armies of Princely states to quell the rebellion.Then in 1903, Lord Kitchener became the Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army; his tenure continued until 1909. He instituted large-scale reforms, the greatest of which was the merger of the three armies of the Presidencies into a unified force. He formed higher level formations, eight army divisions, and brigaded Indian and British units. Following Kitchener's reforms, terminology used for military forces in India was altered, with the "Indian Army" referring to "the force recruited locally and permanently based in India, together with its expatriate British officers." Whereas the "British Army in India" referred to the British Army units posted to India for a tour of duty, and which would then be posted to other parts of the Empire or back to the UK. Comparatively, the term "Army of India" meant the combined forces of both the Indian Army and the British Army in India.


title: British Indian Army

text: The officer commanding the Army of India was the Commander-in-Chief, India who reported to the civilian Governor-General of India. The title was used before the creation of a unified British Indian Army; the first holder was Major General Stringer Lawrence in 1748. By the early 1900s the Commander-in-Chief and his staff were based at GHQ India. Indian Army postings were less prestigious than British Army positions, but the pay was significantly greater so that officers could live on their salaries instead of having to have a private income. Accordingly, vacancies in the Indian Army were much sought after and generally reserved for the higher placed officer-cadets graduating from the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. British officers in the Indian Army were expected to learn to speak the Indian languages of their men, who tended to be recruited from primarily Hindi speaking areas. Prominent British Indian Army officers included Lord Roberts, Sir William Birdwood, Sir Claude Auchinleck and Sir William Slim.


title: British Indian Army

text: Commissioned officers, British and Indian, held identical ranks to commissioned officers of the British Army. King's Commissioned Indian Officers (KCIOs), created from the 1920s, held equal powers to British officers. Viceroy's Commissioned Officers were Indians holding officer ranks. They were treated in almost all respects as commissioned officers, but had authority over Indian troops only, and were subordinate to all British King's (and Queen's) Commissioned Officers and KCIOs. They included Subedar Major or Risaldar-Major (Cavalry), equivalents to a British Major; Subedar or Risaldar (Cavalry) equivalents to Captain; and Jemadars equivalent to Lieutenant.


title: British Indian Army

text: Recruitment was entirely voluntary; about 1.75 million men served in the First World War, many on the Western Front and 2.5 million in the Second. Non-Commissioned Officers included Company Havildar Majors equivalents to a Company Sergeant Major; Company Quartermaster Havildars, equivalents to a Company Quartermaster Sergeant; Havildars or Daffadars (Cavalry) equivalents to a Sergeant; Naik or Lance-Daffadar (Cavalry) equivalents to a British Corporal; and Lance-Naik or Acting Lance-Daffadar (Cavalry) equivalents to a Lance-Corporal.


title: British Indian Army

text: Soldier ranks included Sepoys or Sowars (Cavalry), equivalent to a British private. British Army ranks such as gunner and sapper were used by other corps.


title: British Indian Army

text: In the aftermath of the Indian Mutiny of 1857, also called the Sepoy Mutiny by the British, the three armies of the former Presidencies of the East India Company passed to the British Crown. After the Mutiny, recruitment switched to what the British called the "martial races," particularly Sikhs, Awans, Gakhars, and other Punjabi "Musulmans", Baloch, Pashtuns, Marathas, Bunts, Nairs, Rajputs, Yadavs, Kumaonis, Gurkhas, Garhwalis, Janjuas, Maravars, Kallars, Vellalar, Dogras, Jats, Gurjar, Mahars and Sainis. Gurkhas had gone into the British army and were known to have rarely rebelled. The Sikhs, after the First and Second Anglo-Sikh Wars, treated the British Army as a replacement for the Sikh Khalsa Army.


title: Maktoum bin Rashid Al Maktoum

text: Sheikh Maktoum bin Rashid Al Maktoum (; 15 August 1943 – 4 January 2006) was an Emirati politician who served as the vice president and prime minister of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as well as the ruler of Dubai. He was initially prime minister of the UAE from 1971 to 1979. He later served as the country's vice president and prime minister, and as ruler of Dubai, from 1990 to 2006.


title: Maktoum bin Rashid Al Maktoum

text: Maktoum was well regarded with being one of the key people in creating the UAE in 1971. He started the project of Dubai when he suddenly suffered a heart attack and was succeeded by his brother Mohammed, the current ruler of Dubai.


title: Maktoum bin Rashid Al Maktoum

text: His father Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum became the Ruler of Dubai upon the death of his own father, Sheikh Saeed bin Maktoum bin Hasher Al Maktoum (Saeed II), in 1958. Sheikh Maktoum was Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates first from the country's independence on 2 December 1971 until 25 April 1979, when he was replaced by his father, who had been Vice President since 1971. Following his father's death on 7 October 1990, he resumed his position as Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates, and also took over as Ruler of Dubai and Vice President of the United Arab Emirates. He served in all three positions until his death on 4 January 2006.


title: Maktoum bin Rashid Al Maktoum

text: Sheikh Maktoum also briefly served as acting President of the United Arab Emirates on 2–3 November 2004 between the death of Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan and the proclamation and installation of his son Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan as President of the United Arab Emirates on 4 November 2004.


title: Maktoum bin Rashid Al Maktoum

text: Sheikh Maktoum ran the emirate of Dubai along with his two brothers, Sheikh Mohammed (Crown Prince and Minister of Defense) and Sheikh Hamdan (Minister of Finance) of the United Arab Emirates. Internationally, he was also known as co-owner (with his brothers) of Dubai's Godolphin Stables, which competes in major horse races around the world.


title: Maktoum bin Rashid Al Maktoum

text: Sheikh Maktoum bin Rashid al Maktoum died on the morning of 4 January 2006, suffering a heart attack while staying at Palazzo Versace Hotel in Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia. He was succeeded by his brother, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, as ruler of Dubai. His body was brought back from Australia and buried in Dubai.


title: Maktoum bin Rashid Al Maktoum

text: Sheikha Alia bint Khalifa Al Maktoum was Al Maktoum's wife until his death in 2006. They were married on 12 March 1971. Sheikha Alia, like other members of the Maktoum family, is involved in horse racing.


title: Maktoum bin Rashid Al Maktoum

text: One of Al Maktoum's daughters with Alia bint Khalifa bin Saeed Al Maktoum, is Lateefa bint Maktoum Al Maktoum (born 11 February 1985). She has kept her life very private after her kidnapping following her wedding into the Al Nahyan family. Sheikha Lateefa bint Maktoum is the founder of the art center Tashkeel Dubai. Sheikha Alia's other children are Sheikha Hessa, Sheikha Maitha, Sheikh Saeed and Sheikh Rashid (1979-2002).


title: Maktoum bin Rashid Al Maktoum

text: Sheikha Bouchra bint Mohammed was Al Maktoum's second wife and had three sons named Sheikh Mohammed, Hamdan and Zayed with him. She was a hobbyist painter and a horse racing enthusiast.


title: Gwen Verdon

text: Gwyneth Evelyn "Gwen" Verdon (January 13, 1925October 18, 2000) was an American actress and dancer. She won four Tony Awards for her musical comedy performances, and served as an uncredited choreographer's assistant and specialty dance coach for theater and film. Verdon was a critically acclaimed performer on Broadway in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, having originated many roles in musicals, including Lola in "Damn Yankees", the title character in "Sweet Charity" and Roxie Hart in "Chicago". She is also strongly identified with her second husband, director-choreographer Bob Fosse, remembered as the dancer-collaborator-muse for whom he choreographed much of his work and as the guardian of his legacy after his death.


title: Gwen Verdon

text: Verdon was born in Culver City, California, the second child of Gertrude Lilian ( Standring) and Joseph William Verdon, British immigrants to the United States by way of Canada. Her brother was William Farrell Verdon. Her father was an electrician at MGM Studios, and her mother was a former vaudevillian of the Denishawn dance troupe, as well as a dance teacher.


title: Gwen Verdon

text: As a toddler, she suffered from rickets, which left her legs so badly misshapen she was called "Gimpy" by other children and spent her early years in orthopedic boots and rigid leg braces. At age three, her mother enrolled her in dance classes. Further ballet training strengthened her legs and improved her carriage.


title: Gwen Verdon

text: By age six, she was dancing on stage. She went on to study multiple dance forms, ranging from tap, jazz, ballroom and flamenco to Balinese. She also studied juggling. At age 11, she appeared as a solo ballerina in the musical romance film "The King Steps Out" (1936), directed by Josef von Sternberg and starring Grace Moore and Franchot Tone. She attended Hamilton High School in Los Angeles and studied under ballet enthusiast Ernest Belcher. While in high school, she was cast in a revival of "Show Boat".


title: Gwen Verdon

text: In 1942, Verdon's parents asked her to marry family friend and tabloid reporter James Henaghan after he got her pregnant at 17 years old, and she quit her dancing career to raise their child. In 1945, she appeared as a dancer in the movie musical "Blonde From Brooklyn". After her divorce, she entrusted her son Jimmy to the care of her parents.


title: Gwen Verdon

text: Early on, Verdon found a job as assistant to choreographer Jack Cole, whose work was respected by both Broadway and Hollywood movie studios. During her five-year employment with Cole, she took small roles in movie musicals as a "specialty dancer". She also taught dance to stars such as Jane Russell, Fernando Lamas, Lana Turner, Rita Hayworth, Betty Grable and Marilyn Monroe.


title: Gwen Verdon

text: Verdon started out on Broadway going from one chorus line to another. Her breakthrough role finally came when choreographer Michael Kidd cast her as the second female lead in Cole Porter's musical "Can-Can" (1953), starring French prima donna Lilo. Out-of-town reviewers hailed Verdon's interpretation of Eve in the "Garden of Eden" ballet as a performance that upstaged the show's star, who reputedly demanded Verdon's role be cut to only two featured dance numbers. With her role reduced to little more than an ensemble part, Verdon formally announced her intention to quit by the time the show premiered on Broadway. But her opening-night "Garden of Eden" performance was so well-received that the audience screamed her name until the startled actress was brought from her dressing room in a towel to take a curtain call. Verdon received a pay increase and her first Tony Award for her performance.


title: Gwen Verdon

text: Verdon's biggest critical and commercial success was her following show, George Abbott's "Damn Yankees" (1955), based on the novel "The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant." The musical ran for 1019 performances. Verdon won another Tony and went to Hollywood to repeat her role in the 1958 movie version "Damn Yankees", famously singing "Whatever Lola Wants". (Fosse can be seen partnered with her in the original mambo duet "Who's Got the Pain".)


title: Gwen Verdon

text: Verdon won another Tony for her performance in the musical "New Girl in Town" as a hard-luck girl fleeing from her past as a prostitute. She won her fourth Tony for the murder-mystery musical "Redhead," Fosse's Broadway debut as a director/choreographer. In 1960, Fosse and Verdon wed.


title: Gwen Verdon

text: In 1966, Verdon returned to the stage in the role of Charity in "Sweet Charity," which like many of her earlier Broadway triumphs was choreographed and directed by husband Fosse. The show is loosely based on Federico Fellini's screenplay for "Nights of Cabiria." It was followed by a movie version starring Shirley MacLaine as Charity, featuring Ricardo Montalbán, Sammy Davis Jr. and Chita Rivera, with Fosse at the helm of his very first film as director and choreographer. Verdon helped with the choreography. The numbers include the famed "Big Spender", "Rhythm of Life", "If My Friends Could See Me Now", and "I'm a Brass Band". Verdon also traveled to Berlin to help Fosse with "Cabaret", the musical film for which he won an Oscar for Best Director.


title: Gwen Verdon

text: Although estranged as a couple, Verdon and Fosse continued to collaborate on projects such as the musical "Chicago" (1975) (in which she originated the role of murderess Roxie Hart) and the musical "Dancin'" (1978), as well as Fosse's autobiographical movie "All That Jazz" (1979). The helpmate/peer played by Leland Palmer in that film is based on the role Verdon played in Fosse's real life. She also developed a close working relationship with Fosse's partner, Broadway dancer Ann Reinking, and was an instructor for Reinking's musical theatre classes.


title: Gwen Verdon

text: After originating the role of Roxie opposite Chita Rivera's Velma Kelly in "Chicago", Verdon focused on film acting, playing character roles in movies such as "The Cotton Club" (1984), "Cocoon" (1985) and "" (1988). She continued to teach dance and musical theater and to act. She received three Emmy Award nominations for appearances on "Magnum, P.I." (1988), "Dream On" (1993) and "" (1993). Verdon appeared as the title character's mother in the Woody Allen movie "Alice" (1990) and as Ruth in "Marvin's Room" (1996), co-starring Meryl Streep, Diane Keaton, and Leonardo DiCaprio. In 1999, Verdon served as artistic consultant on a Broadway musical designed to showcase examples of classic Fosse choreography. Called simply "Fosse," the revue was conceived and directed by Richard Maltby Jr. and Ann Reinking and choreographed by Reinking and Chet Walker. Verdon's daughter Nicole received a "special thanks" credit. The show won a Tony Award for Best Musical.


title: Gwen Verdon

text: In 1997 Verdon appeared in an episode of "Walker Texas Ranger" as Maisie Whitman. She reprised the role in 1999.


title: Gwen Verdon

text: Verdon played Alora in the movie "Walking Across Egypt" (1999) and appeared in the film "Bruno", released in 2000. Verdon received a total of four Tonys, for best featured actress for "Can-Can" (1953) and best leading actress for "Damn Yankees" (1955), "New Girl in Town" (1957) and "Redhead" (1959). She also won a Grammy Award for the cast recording of "Redhead".


title: Gwen Verdon

text: Verdon was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1981. In 1998, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts.


title: Gwen Verdon

text: Verdon was married twice and had two children. She married tabloid reporter James Archibald Henaghan in 1942. They had a son, Jim, the following year and divorced in 1947. In 1960, Verdon married choreographer Bob Fosse. They had a daughter, Nicole, in 1963. Fosse's extramarital affairs put a strain on their marriage, and by 1971, Verdon and Fosse were separated, but never divorced. She was involved in relationships with actor Scott Brady and actor Jerry Lanning, son of Roberta Sherwood. Verdon was with Fosse when he suffered a fatal heart attack at the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C., in September 1987.


title: Gwen Verdon

text: Verdon was a cat fancier, having up to six cats at one time, with the pets carrying names such as "Feets Fosse", "Junie Moon", and "Tidbits Tumbler Fosse".


title: Gwen Verdon

text: Verdon was a mental health-care advocate; later in life, she openly spoke about the positive effects of mental-health counseling. Along with teaching dance as a form of therapy, she sat on the board of directors for the New York Postgraduate Center for Mental Health, and actively raised funds to support mental health-care research.


title: Gwen Verdon

text: "Fosse/Verdon" is an 8-part American miniseries starring Sam Rockwell as Fosse and Michelle Williams as Verdon. The series, which tells the story of the couple's troubled personal and professional relationship, is based on the biography "Fosse" by Sam Wasson. It premiered in eight parts on April 9, 2019, on FX. At the 71st Primetime Emmy Awards, "Fosse/Verdon" received seventeen nominations, including Outstanding Limited Series and acting nominations for Rockwell, Williams, and Margaret Qualley (as Ann Reinking). Williams won the Emmy for Outstanding Actress in a Limited Series.


title: Gwen Verdon

text: Verdon died from a heart attack on October 18, 2000, aged 75, at her daughter's home in Woodstock, Vermont. Later that night, at 8 pm, all marquee lights on Broadway were dimmed in a tribute to Verdon.


title: Gwen Verdon

text: In 1956, Verdon released an album titled "The Girl I Left Home For". The album includes her covers of popular jazz standards of the time.


title: Aimee Carrero

text: Aimee Carrero (born July 15, 1988) is a Dominican-American actress. She is known for voicing Adora/She-Ra in the Netflix series "She-Ra and the Princesses of Power" and Princess Elena on Disney Channel's "Elena of Avalor". Her live action-roles include Sofia Rodriguez on the Freeform sitcom "Young & Hungry" and Angie on the Cartoon Network series "Level Up".


title: Aimee Carrero

text: Carrero was born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic to a Dominican mother and a Puerto Rican father and grew up in Miami, Florida. She is an alumna of Florida International University graduating in 2008 with a degree in international relations.


title: Aimee Carrero

text: In 2009, she appeared in the feature film "". Carrero's television credits include "The Mentalist", "Lincoln Heights", "Men of a Certain Age", "The Middle", "Greek", "Zeke and Luther" and "Baby Daddy". In 2011, she was cast as Angie in the Cartoon Network live-action film "Level Up". She reprised her role in the subsequent television series of the same name. The series ended in 2013 after two seasons.


title: Aimee Carrero

text: In 2012, Carrero played in the Lifetime television film "". That same year, she made her Off-Broadway debut in Atlantic Theater Company's world premiere play, "What Rhymes with America" in December 2012. In 2014, she co-starred in the horror film "Devil's Due". Carrero also had a recurring role in the second season of the FX series "The Americans" as Lucia, a Sandinista freedom fighter. She was also cast in the ABC Family sitcom "Young & Hungry", starring Emily Osment.


title: Aimee Carrero

text: In January 2015, it was announced that Carrero will be providing the voice of Elena, Disney's first Latina fairy tale princess for the Disney Channel series "Elena of Avalor". The series is a spin-off of the Disney Junior series "Sofia the First", and it premiered on July 22, 2016. In April 2016, it was announced that Carrero and her character Sofia would be co-starring with Ashley Tisdale in a potential spinoff series of "Young & Hungry", titled "Young & Sofia". However, the project did not move past the backdoor pilot phase.


title: Aimee Carrero

text: In 2018, Carrero was cast as the voice of main character Adora in the Netflix animated series reboot "She-Ra and the Princesses of Power". From June to August 2021, Carrero starred in the actual play limited series "Exandria Unlimited", a spinoff of the web series "Critical Role". In March 2022, she reprised her role in a two part special "Exandria Unlimited: Kymal".


title: Aimee Carrero

text: Carerro landed a recurring role as Danielle in the drama series "Maid", inspired by Stephanie Land's memoir "Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive", that premiered on Netflix on October 1, 2021. Her character is a survivor of domestic abuse who becomes friends with Alex, Margaret Qualley's character, at the women's shelter. Fans and critics of the show praised Danielle as a "fiercely determined character" and "another young mom at the domestic violence shelter who quite literally gets Alex back on her feet" but noted that her story was never completed and the audience is left wondering what happened to her.


title: Aimee Carrero

text: She would be cast in Mark Mylod's "The Menu" later in 2021, in addition to being cast in "Spirited" co-starring Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell.


title: Aimee Carrero

text: On October 16, 2022, Carrero was given the Breakout Performance Award at the Newport Beach Film Festival.


title: Jango Fett

text: Jango Fett is a fictional character in the "Star Wars" franchise, created by George Lucas. He first appeared as an antagonist in the 2002 film "", played by Temuera Morrison. The character is a Mandalorian bounty hunter, regarded as the best mercenary in the galaxy of his era, and the "father" of Boba Fett, an unmodified clone of Jango whom he kept as payment for serving as the genetic template of the Galactic Republic's clone army and raised as his son. After Jango's death at the hands of Mace Windu, Boba follows in his father's footsteps, using his father's armor, equipment, and ship, "Slave I", to become a successful bounty hunter in his own right.


title: Jango Fett

text: Outside of the films, the character appears in a number of canonical and non-canonical "Star Wars" works, such as comic books and video games, which depict him as an antihero rather than a villainous figure, and explore his past as both a bounty hunter and Mandalorian warrior. Since the release of "Attack of the Clones", Jango Fett has become a popular figure within the "Star Wars" fanbase, gaining a cult following.


title: Jango Fett

text: In early drafts of "Attack of the Clones", Fett's first name was "J'mee". His name is a reference to Sergio Corbucci's 1966 Spaghetti Western film "Django", featuring a hyper-violent drifter of the same name played by Franco Nero. Django was very well known due to the uses and abuses that the Spaghetti Western industry made of his name and character during the 1970s and 1980s.


title: Jango Fett

text: Jango is covered in a sleek armored suit that conceals his scarred face, largely based on Boba Fett's iconic outfit (designed by Joe Johnston) from the original trilogy. His suit was initially planned to be white to match the concept art for Boba Fett, but this was changed to silver and blue, in contrast to Boba's green, red, and orange. Jango also uniquely has thigh, shin, and spat armor, as well as a comparative lack of accessories and trophies.


title: Jango Fett

text: Franchise creator George Lucas decided that Jango would wear Mandalorian armor but would not be from their planet.


title: Jango Fett

text: Jango Fett was portrayed by Temuera Morrison in "Attack of the Clones", who subsequently voiced the character in most of his video game appearances, including "", "", "", and the PSP version of "". According to Morrison, he "couldn't see anything" while wearing the costume's helmet due to fog from his breath, making it difficult to perform.


title: Jango Fett

text: Additionally, Jango was portrayed by Bob Marshall in a commercial for "Star Wars: Bounty Hunter" (but the voice was provided by a different, unknown actor), and voiced by Jeff Bennett in the games "" and "", and Andrew Chaikin in "".


title: Jango Fett

text: In "", Jango is depicted as a bounty hunter who had been hired to be the genetic template for the Grand Army of the Republic, becoming entangled in a shady plot by Sith lord Darth Tyranus (formerly known as Count Dooku). He is later hired by Viceroy Nute Gunray of the Trade Federation to assassinate Senator Padmé Amidala in retaliation for her actions in "". Fett subcontracts the job to shape-shifter Zam Wesell. Two failed assassination attempts on the Senator's life force Fett to kill Wesell with a poison dart, to prevent her from potentially leading the Jedi to the ocean planet Kamino.


title: Jango Fett

text: Despite Jango's efforts, Obi-Wan Kenobi's own investigation of the poison dart ultimately brings him to Kamino, where he soon learns that a cloning facility on the planet is using Jango's genetic template to produce a massive clone army, seemingly commissioned on behalf of the Galactic Republic. The ensuing confrontation between Obi-Wan and Jango forces the latter to flee to Geonosis, rendezvousing with his benefactor Tyranus. Jango takes part in the Battle of Geonosis, where he encounters a rhinoceros-like beast known as a reek, which tramples and damages his jetpack. Unable to fly away, he is then decapitated by Jedi Master Mace Windu.


title: Jango Fett

text: Jango's legacy is taken up in the form of the Republic's clone army based on his genetic material, as well as his son Boba, who inherits the armor once worn by Jango and goes on to become the most notorious bounty hunter in the galaxy.


title: Jango Fett

text: In the episode "The Mandalore Plot", Obi-Wan Kenobi mentions his encounter with Jango to Prime Minister Almec of Mandalore, who dismisses Fett's ties to the Mandalorian culture. In the episode "Clone Cadets", Prime Minister Lama Su of Kamino laments that Fett's death has resulted in the Kaminoan cloners' supply of his DNA being stretched thin. A hologram of Fett appears in the following episode, "ARC Troopers".


title: Jango Fett

text: In a three-episode story arc comprising "Death Trap", "R2 Come Home", and "Lethal Trackdown", Boba Fett works with fellow bounty hunters to exact revenge against Mace Windu for the latter killing his father. The boy sacrifices Jango's helmet to bait Windu toward an explosive device hidden inside it, though Windu senses the trap and survives. After Boba is apprehended by the Republic, he vows to never forgive the Jedi for his father's death.


title: Jango Fett

text: Jango is mentioned several times in the second-season episode "" of "The Mandalorian" streaming television series. Boba reveals that his armor (which he reclaims from the title character) is the very suit once worn by his father and thus his birthright. Between Boba's dialog and the holographic "chain code" he shows the protagonist, it is established that Jango was adopted into the Mandalorian culture by his mentor, Jaster; that he hailed from Concord Dawn; and that he fought in the Mandalorian Civil Wars—elements all broadly reflective of the character's backstory in the Legends comic "".


title: Jango Fett

text: Jango is mentioned again in "", a CGI animated spin-off from the "Clone Wars" series. The episode "Bounty Lost" reveals that Omega, an enhanced female clone who joined Clone Force 99 after the rise of the Galactic Empire, is a second unaltered replication of Fett's template and, therefore, his daughter.


title: Jango Fett

text: Jango is mentioned several times in "The Book of Boba Fett", a spin-off of "The Mandalorian". In the episode "Chapter 7: In the Name of Honor", Cad Bane Taunts Boba about being a killer like his father causing Boba to retaliate and kill Bane.


title: Jango Fett

text: Jango is the protagonist of the Marvel Comics one-shot "Star Wars: Age of Republic – Jango Fett" (2019).


title: Jango Fett

text: In April 2014, most of the licensed "Star Wars" novels, comics, video games, and other works produced since the original 1977 film were rebranded by Lucasfilm as "Star Wars" Legends and declared non-canonical to the franchise going forward.


title: Jango Fett

text: Fett appears in the Dark Horse comic books "Jango Fett", "Jango Fett: Open Seasons", and the Toys "R" Us promotional comic "Full of Surprises".


title: Jango Fett

text: He also appears in the "Star Wars: Adventures" books "Jango Fett vs. The Razor Eaters", "The Shape Shifter Strikes", and "Warlords of Balmorra".


title: Jango Fett

text: The character was also in the "Jedi Readers" book "Jango Fett: Bounty Hunter", in "Boba Fett: The Fight to Survive", and the novelization of "Episode II – Attack of the Clones".


title: Jango Fett

text: "Jango Fett: Open Seasons" is a comic written by Haden Blackman and published on 29 January 2003. The story begins shortly after the events of "Episode I – The Phantom Menace", with long flashbacks to earlier periods.


title: Jango Fett

text: 26 years before the events of "The Phantom Menace", the Mandalorians split into two factions: the barbaric Death Watch, led by Tor Vizsla, and the True Mandalorians, honorable mercenaries led by Jaster Mereel. The two factions battle on Jango's homeworld of Concord Dawn. Jango's family helps Jaster, inciting Vizsla and his men to kill them. A young Jango is the only survivor and, while horrified, helps Jaster and his men escape and ambush Death Watch. Jaster subsequently adopts Jango and welcomes him into his faction.


title: Jango Fett

text: Years later, Jango has become a full-fledged Mandalorian warrior under Jaster's tutelage. The Mandalorians are ambushed by Death Watch, and Jaster is killed by Vizsla. Sporting Jaster's armor, Jango becomes the new leader of the True Mandalorians. A Jedi strike force led by Count Dooku slays Jango's warriors, and Jango is sold into slavery to the planet's governor. Jango later escapes, attacks Death Watch and kills Vizsla, before beginning pursuing a career as a bounty hunter. Dooku, under instructions from his master, Darth Sidious, pits the most notorious mercenaries of the galaxy against each other in order to select a genetic template for an army of clones. Fett emerges victorious and in a tense meeting with Dooku, requests one thing in return for donating his DNA: an unmodified clone to be his son and apprentice.


title: Jango Fett

text: Pop culture website IGN named Jango Fett as the 30th greatest "Star Wars" character in their Top 100 countdown, citing his calm, effective demeanor and prowess in combat, despite not possessing a connection with the Force.


title: Romy and Michele's High School Reunion

text: Romy and Michele's High School Reunion is a 1997 American comedy film directed by David Mirkin and starring Mira Sorvino, Lisa Kudrow, and Janeane Garofalo. The plot revolves around two 28-year-old girls who appear to have not achieved much success in life, and decide to invent fake careers to impress former classmates at their ten-year high school reunion. The characters are taken from the stage play "Ladies Room", which also featured Kudrow.


title: Romy and Michele's High School Reunion

text: Two 28-year-old women, Romy White and Michele Weinberger, live together in an apartment in Venice, Los Angeles, California. Romy works as a cashier in the service department at a Jaguar dealership and Michele is unemployed. They are single, unambitious, and enjoy a casual lifestyle of slacking, mocking TV and movies, and elaborate amateur dressmaking. While working, Romy encounters her former classmate from high school, Heather Mooney, once a rebellious, troubled girl who frequently smoked cigarettes in school, who is now a businesswoman, having invented the paper of a special type of cigarette. Heather informs Romy about their upcoming ten-year high school reunion in Tucson, Arizona.


title: Romy and Michele's High School Reunion

text: As high school students in 1987, Romy and Michele were continually bullied by the "A-Group", a small group of popular, yet mean, girls, led by cheerleader Christie Masters, who humiliated them repeatedly. Romy also had a crush on Christie’s boyfriend, athlete Billy Christianson. Heather was in love with a geek named Sandy Frink, but Sandy had a crush on Michele. Heather often blew off steam by bullying a girl called Toby Walters. Finally, at the prom, Romy asked Billy if he would dance with her. Though he agreed, when he spoke to Christie about it, she decided to take advantage of the situation. Christie tricked Romy and Michele into thinking Billy was in love with Romy, and had dumped Christie to be with her. Romy waits all night to dance with Billy, who had already left with Christie. Michele dances with her instead.


title: Romy and Michele's High School Reunion

text: Romy realizes that their lack of achievements will not make a good impression at the reunion. Desperate to impress their former classmates, Romy and Michele make last-ditch attempts to improve themselves, hoping to avoid being bullied again.


title: Romy and Michele's High School Reunion

text: Romy tries to find Michele and her boyfriends by going to different gyms, but to no avail. Michele applies them for well-paid, difficult jobs but fails to get them hired. In the end, they decide to fake success by showing up in an expensive car and business suits. Romy borrows a Jaguar XJ-S from a co-worker, and Michele makes their outfits. En route to the reunion, they decide to claim that they invented the Post-it Note, believing that no one will know better. They argue over the details of their lie, which escalates into an argument about their friendship. They decide to go their separate ways once they reach the reunion.


title: Romy and Michele's High School Reunion

text: At the reunion, Michele hears Romy claiming that she invented Post-its by herself. Michele convinces the A-Group she invented a special kind of glue. Sandy Frink, the nerd who had a crush on Michele in high school, has become wealthy and attractive since high school, and hits on Michele after hitting her with his limo. Billy and Romy reunite and hit it off. Both Romy and Michele win awards as the "Most Changed For the Better Since High School" members of their graduating class, but still refuse to speak with each other. Seventy years later, an elderly Michele learns that Romy is on her deathbed, and calls her to make amends. However, they rehash the same argument and Romy dies without resolving their issues.


title: Romy and Michele's High School Reunion

text: Michele wakes up alone in the Jaguar, realizing that she was dreaming. At the reunion, Romy starts to tell the Post-it story to the A-group, who are all pregnant. Christie Masters is now a mother of two children, (a third on the way) and married to Billy, who she says works in retail. Heather arrives (hoping to seduce Sandy Frink) and Christie mentions Romy’s Post-it story, but Heather blows the lie by revealing the real inventor's name. Christie and her friends taunt Romy, and Michele ineptly defends her. Romy runs out, and Michele chases after her. They reconcile and decide to be themselves instead of trying to impress other people. They change into brightly colored homemade outfits and return to the reunion.


title: Romy and Michele's High School Reunion

text: They confront Christie, who makes fun of their clothes. A-Group girl Lisa Luder, who lost touch with the A-group after high school and has changed for the better, is now a fashion editor, announces that the outfits are actually "not bad". Christie verbally attacks Lisa, who coolly dismisses and mocks her. The other A-Group girls abandon Christie, while everyone else congratulates Romy and Michele. Heather apologizes to Romy and Michele for ruining their story, and admits she was miserable in high school because Sandy was in love with Michele, and didn’t even want to be friends with her. She also mentions that she had no idea Romy and Michele were so badly bullied by the A-group, thinking their lives were perfect. Romy and Michele comfort her by reminding her that she was always successful at making Toby Walters miserable. Just at that moment, Toby asks Heather if she will sign her yearbook as she never did in high school. After Toby admits Heather upset her when they were teenagers, Heather is amazed and happily agrees to sign Toby’s yearbook.


title: Romy and Michele's High School Reunion

text: Sandy, who turns out to be an actual billionaire, arrives via helicopter. He confesses that he still loves Michele and asks her to dance with him. Michele agrees, as long as Romy can dance with them. After their interpretive dance to Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time" they receive huge applause, Sandy escorts them to his helicopter. On their way out, they encounter Billy. Once a muscular and handsome athlete, he is now an overweight alcoholic who is married to Christie, has a dead-end job working for Christie's father, and is unsure if he is the father of her latest pregnancy. He hits on Romy, who tells him to wait for her in his hotel room. As revenge for making her feel so insecure because of the Prom trick, she plans to do the exact same thing to him. She then leaves the reunion with Michele as the two women join Sandy in his helicopter. The reunion guests watch as the helicopter takes off.


title: Romy and Michele's High School Reunion

text: Six months later, back in Los Angeles, Romy and Michele use money loaned to them by Sandy to open a successful fashion boutique with their homemade designs.


title: Romy and Michele's High School Reunion

text: The Romy and Michele characters first appeared in the 1988 stage play "Ladies Room", which was written by Robin Schiff. Schiff was in the comedy troupe The Groundlings with Lisa Kudrow, who starred in the play as Michele opposite Christie Mellor as Romy. Schiff said her inspiration for the characters of Romy and Michele “were loosely based, just visually, on these girls I used to see going into a club on Sunset Blvd. You'd see these two friends, and they looked like they got dressed together and were wearing different versions of the same thing."


title: Romy and Michele's High School Reunion

text: "Ladies Room" was then adapted into a sitcom pilot called "Just Temporary," with Kudrow and Mellor reprising their roles, but the pilot was not picked up. Around this time, film executives at the Disney subsidiary Touchstone came across Schiff's play while "looking for a ‘female version of "Wayne's World'."" Schiff was initially reluctant to adapt the play into a film, thinking some scenes would not transfer well to a movie. After Schiff pondered about what it might be like if Romy and Michele were invited to their high school reunion ("…And it wasn't until they fill out the questionnaire when they realize their lives hadn't amounted to anything. That seemed funny to me.") Schiff began work on the script, which she would spend the next five years developing. Schiff based the characters' friendship partly on her relationship with her best friend. “One day we were stuck on a plane on a tarmac, and started reading the "Sky Mall" catalog and laughing our asses off. That was the kind of friend you want to hang out with—that even stuck on a plane on the tarmac you can still have fun."


title: Romy and Michele's High School Reunion

text: Kudrow's rising stardom from the show "Friends" played a part in the film successfully getting through the development stage. Toni Collette was a strong contender for the role of Romy and met with director David Mirkin. The studio offered the role to Mira Sorvino, who at that point was about to win a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for the film "Mighty Aphrodite". Said Mirkin, “It was definitely a long shot, but I heard she wanted to meet so we had lunch, and I instantly knew that she could do it. Romy and Michele were conceived as one tall and one short, but I loved the idea of Lisa and Mira playing this idiot blonde power couple.”


title: Romy and Michele's High School Reunion

text: Filming took place between April and June 1996 in Los Angeles. Exterior shots of Romy and Michele's fictional Sagebrush High School were filmed in Santa Clarita. $240,000 of the film's $20 million budget was spent on securing the licensing rights for the song “Time After Time” by Cyndi Lauper. Mona May, who served as the costume designer for "Clueless", provided the film's outfits.


title: Romy and Michele's High School Reunion

text: Touchstone initially found David Mirkin's final cut of the film to be too quirky and wanted to sweeten the tone, but Mirkin insisted on keeping the edgier tone.


title: Romy and Michele's High School Reunion

text: The film opened at number two in the North American box office, making $7.4 million in its opening weekend, finishing behind "Volcano". It grossed a total of $29 million in North America. In the United States, it was released the same month as "Grosse Pointe Blank", another 1980s-themed high school reunion film that Disney was involved with.


title: Romy and Michele's High School Reunion

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 75% based on 63 reviews, with an average rating of 6.20/10. The site's critics consensus reads: ""Romy and Michele's High School Reunion" has an admittedly slight premise, but it's elevated by ample heart, an infectiously playful spirit, and the buoyant chemistry of Lisa Kudrow and Mira Sorvino." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 59 out of 100, based on 18 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Romy and Michele's High School Reunion

text: Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars, declaring, ""Romy and Michele's High School Reunion", written by Robin Schiff (based on her play) and directed by David Mirkin, is one of the brightest and goofiest comedies in a while, a film that has a share of truth, but isn't afraid to cut loose with the weirdest choreography I have seen outside a 1960s revival.”


title: Romy and Michele's High School Reunion

text: Janet Maslin of "The New York Times" wrote the “candy-colored "'Romy and Michele's High School Reunion"’ [is] cheerful, giddy fun” and praised the two female leads, saying “Ms. Kudrow and Ms. Sorvino make a fine team, elevating bubble-headedness to new levels of comic ingenuity.” Jack Mathews of the "Los Angeles Times" said "beneath the endless silliness of the movie beats a real heart, and its theme of loyal friendship keeps propping it up every time the thin walls of the story seem about to collapse.” Mathews also praised "the dead-pan performances of Sorvino and Kudrow...Romy and Michelle are cartoon characters, but the actresses make them both real and enormously sympathetic."


title: Romy and Michele's High School Reunion

text: "Romy and Michele's High School Reunion" was released on DVD on August 24, 1999. It was also reissued as a special edition Blu-ray for the film's 15th anniversary in 2012.


title: Romy and Michele's High School Reunion

text: Though a modest success at the box office, the film steadily gained a cult following through home video and repeat cable TV airings since its release.


title: Romy and Michele's High School Reunion

text: In 2005, "", a prequel television film written and directed by Robin Schiff, premiered on ABC Family. Katherine Heigl played Romy and Alexandra Breckenridge starred as Michele.


title: Romy and Michele's High School Reunion

text: A musical adaptation premiered at the 5th Avenue Theatre in Seattle, Washington in June 2017. The musical was directed by Kristin Hanggi, director of Broadway's "Rock of Ages," while actors Cortney Wolfson and Stephanie Renee Wall portrayed Romy and Michele, respectively. "Orange Is the New Black" and "Weeds" composers Gwendolyn Sanford and Brandon Jay wrote the music and lyrics to songs including “Business Woman Special,” “10 Years,” “I Invented Post-Its,” and “Changing Lives One Outfit at a Time.”


title: Romy and Michele's High School Reunion

text: Two soundtrack albums featuring music from "Romy and Michele's High School Reunion" were released in 1997 courtesy of Hollywood Records. The first album, titled "Original Soundtrack", was made available ten days before the official North American film release, while the second album, "More Music From the Motion Picture", was released four months later. Due to copyright issues, several songs which featured in the film, did not appear on either soundtrack album; songs omitted include the film's opening song "Just a Girl" by No Doubt, "Y.M.C.A." by Village People, "Addicted to Love" by Robert Palmer, "Time After Time" by Cyndi Lauper, "Ain't No Love (Ain't No Use)" by Sub Sub, featuring Melanie Williams, "Footloose" by Kenny Loggins, "Hello Trouble" by The Desert Rose Band, "Don't Get Me Wrong" by The Pretenders and "Have a Good Time" by Talawah Crew. Both albums were reissued as a 2-CD set as part of the Double Features series.


title: Ritual

text: A ritual is a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, actions, or objects, performed according to a set sequence. Rituals may be prescribed by the traditions of a community, including a religious community. Rituals are characterized, but not defined, by formalism, traditionalism, invariance, rule-governance, sacral symbolism, and performance.


title: Ritual

text: Rituals are a feature of all known human societies. They include not only the worship rites and sacraments of organized religions and cults, but also rites of passage, atonement and purification rites, oaths of allegiance, dedication ceremonies, coronations and presidential inaugurations, marriages, funerals and more. Even common actions like hand-shaking and saying "hello" may be termed as "rituals".


title: Ritual

text: The field of ritual studies has seen a number of conflicting definitions of the term. One given by Kyriakidis is that a ritual is an outsider's or "etic" category for a set activity (or set of actions) that, to the outsider, seems irrational, non-contiguous, or illogical. The term can be used also by the insider or "emic" performer as an acknowledgement that this activity can be seen as such by the uninitiated onlooker.


title: Ritual

text: In psychology, the term "ritual" is sometimes used in a technical sense for a repetitive behavior systematically used by a person to neutralize or prevent anxiety; it can be a symptom of obsessive–compulsive disorder but obsessive-compulsive ritualistic behaviors are generally isolated activities.


title: Ritual

text: The English word "ritual" derives from the Latin "ritualis," "that which pertains to rite "(ritus")". In Roman juridical and religious usage, "ritus" was the proven way "(mos)" of doing something, or "correct performance, custom". The original concept of "ritus" may be related to the Sanskrit "ṛtá" ("visible order)" in Vedic religion, "the lawful and regular order of the normal, and therefore proper, natural and true structure of cosmic, worldly, human and ritual events". The word "ritual" is first recorded in English in 1570, and came into use in the 1600s to mean "the prescribed order of performing religious services" or more particularly a book of these prescriptions.


title: Ritual

text: There are hardly any limits to the kind of actions that may be incorporated into a ritual. The rites of past and present societies have typically involved special gestures and words, recitation of fixed texts, performance of special music, songs or dances, processions, manipulation of certain objects, use of special dresses, consumption of special food, drink, or drugs, and much more.


title: Ritual

text: Catherine Bell argues that rituals can be characterized by formalism, traditionalism, invariance, rule-governance, sacral symbolism and performance.


title: Ritual

text: Ritual uses a limited and rigidly organized set of expressions which anthropologists call a "restricted code" (in opposition to a more open "elaborated code"). Maurice Bloch argues that ritual obliges participants to use this formal oratorical style, which is limited in intonation, syntax, vocabulary, loudness, and fixity of order. In adopting this style, ritual leaders' speech becomes more style than content. Because this formal speech limits what can be said, it induces "acceptance, compliance, or at least forbearance with regard to any overt challenge". Bloch argues that this form of ritual communication makes rebellion impossible and revolution the only feasible alternative. Ritual tends to support traditional forms of social hierarchy and authority, and maintains the assumptions on which the authority is based from challenge.


title: Ritual

text: Rituals appeal to tradition and are generally continued to repeat historical precedent, religious rite, mores, or ceremony accurately. Traditionalism varies from formalism in that the ritual may not be formal yet still makes an appeal to the historical trend. An example is the American Thanksgiving dinner, which may not be formal, yet is ostensibly based on an event from the early Puritan settlement of America. Historians Eric Hobsbawm and Terrence Ranger have argued that many of these are "invented traditions", such as the rituals of the British monarchy, which invoke "thousand year-old tradition" but whose actual form originate in the late nineteenth century, to some extent reviving earlier forms, in this case medieval, that had been discontinued in the meantime. Thus, the appeal to history is important rather than accurate historical transmission.


title: Ritual

text: Catherine Bell states that ritual is also invariant, implying careful choreography. This is less an appeal to traditionalism than a striving for timeless repetition. The key to invariance is bodily discipline, as in monastic prayer and meditation meant to mold dispositions and moods. This bodily discipline is frequently performed in unison, by groups.


title: Ritual

text: Rituals tend to be governed by rules, a feature somewhat like formalism. Rules impose norms on the chaos of behavior, either defining the outer limits of what is acceptable or choreographing each move. Individuals are held to communally approved customs that evoke a legitimate communal authority that can constrain the possible outcomes. Historically, war in most societies has been bound by highly ritualized constraints that limit the legitimate means by which war was waged.


title: Ritual

text: Activities appealing to supernatural beings are easily considered rituals, although the appeal may be quite indirect, expressing only a generalized belief in the existence of the sacred demanding a human response. National flags, for example, may be considered more than signs representing a country. The flag stands for larger symbols such as freedom, democracy, free enterprise or national superiority. Anthropologist Sherry Ortner writes that the flag


title: Ritual

text: Particular objects become sacral symbols through a process of consecration which effectively creates the sacred by setting it apart from the profane. Boy Scouts and the armed forces in any country teach the official ways of folding, saluting and raising the flag, thus emphasizing that the flag should never be treated as just a piece of cloth.


title: Ritual

text: The performance of ritual creates a theatrical-like frame around the activities, symbols and events that shape participant's experience and cognitive ordering of the world, simplifying the chaos of life and imposing a more or less coherent system of categories of meaning onto it. As Barbara Myerhoff put it, "not only is seeing believing, doing is believing."


title: Ritual

text: For simplicity's sake, the range of diverse rituals can be divided into categories with common characteristics, generally falling into one three major categories:


title: Ritual

text: However, rituals can fall in more than one category or genre, and may be grouped in a variety of other ways. For example, the anthropologist Victor Turner writes:


title: Ritual

text: A rite of passage is a ritual event that marks a person's transition from one status to another, including adoption, baptism, coming of age, graduation, inauguration, engagement, and marriage. Rites of passage may also include initiation into groups not tied to a formal stage of life such as a fraternity. Arnold van Gennep stated that rites of passage are marked by three stages:


title: Ritual

text: Anthropologist Victor Turner defines rites of affliction actions that seek to mitigate spirits or supernatural forces that inflict humans with bad luck, illness, gynecological troubles, physical injuries, and other such misfortunes. These rites may include forms of spirit divination (consulting oracles) to establish causes—and rituals that heal, purify, exorcise, and protect. The misfortune experienced may include individual health, but also broader climate-related issues such as drought or plagues of insects. Healing rites performed by shamans frequently identify social disorder as the cause, and make the restoration of social relationships the cure.


title: Ritual

text: Turner uses the example of the Isoma ritual among the Ndembu of northwestern Zambia to illustrate. The Isoma rite of affliction is used to cure a childless woman of infertility. Infertility is the result of a "structural tension between matrilineal descent and virilocal marriage" (i.e., the tension a woman feels between her mother's family, to whom she owes allegiance, and her husband's family among whom she must live). "It is because the woman has come too closely in touch with the 'man's side' in her marriage that her dead matrikin have impaired her fertility." To correct the balance of matrilinial descent and marriage, the Isoma ritual dramatically placates the deceased spirits by requiring the woman to reside with her mother's kin.


title: Ritual

text: Shamanic and other ritual may effect a psychotherapeutic cure, leading anthropologists such as Jane Atkinson to theorize how. Atkinson argues that the effectiveness of a shamanic ritual for an individual may depend upon a wider audiences acknowledging the shaman's power, which may lead to the shaman placing greater emphasis on engaging the audience than in the healing of the patient.


title: Ritual

text: Many cultures have rites associated with death and mourning, such as the last rites and wake in Christianity, "shemira" in Judaism, the "antyesti" in Hinduism, and the "antam sanskar" in Sikhism.


title: Ritual

text: Calendrical and commemorative rites are ritual events marking particular times of year, or a fixed period since an important event. Calendrical rituals give social meaning to the passage of time, creating repetitive weekly, monthly or yearly cycles. Some rites are oriented towards a culturally defined moment of change in the climatic cycle, such as solar terms or the changing of seasons, or they may mark the inauguration of an activity such as planting, harvesting, or moving from winter to summer pasture during the agricultural cycle. They may be fixed by the solar or lunar calendar; those fixed by the solar calendar fall on the same day (of the Gregorian, Solar calendar) each year (such as New Year's Day on the first of January) while those calculated by the lunar calendar fall on different dates (of the Gregorian, Solar calendar) each year (such as Chinese lunar New Year). Calendrical rites impose a cultural order on nature. Mircea Eliade states that the calendrical rituals of many religious traditions recall and commemorate the basic beliefs of a community, and their yearly celebration establishes a link between past and present, as if the original events are happening over again: "Thus the gods did; thus men do."


title: Ritual

text: This genre of ritual encompasses forms of sacrifice and offering meant to praise, please or placate divine powers. According to early anthropologist Edward Tylor, such sacrifices are gifts given in hope of a return. Catherine Bell, however, points out that sacrifice covers a range of practices from those that are manipulative and "magical" to those of pure devotion. Hindu puja, for example, appear to have no other purpose than to please the deity.


title: Ritual

text: According to Marcel Mauss, sacrifice is distinguished from other forms of offering by being consecrated, and hence sanctified. As a consequence, the offering is usually destroyed in the ritual to transfer it to the deities.


title: Ritual

text: Rites of feasting and fasting are those through which a community publicly expresses an adherence to basic, shared religious values, rather than to the overt presence of deities as is found in rites of affliction where feasting or fasting may also take place. It encompasses a range of performances such as communal fasting during Ramadan by Muslims; the slaughter of pigs in New Guinea; Carnival festivities; or penitential processions in Catholicism. Victor Turner described this "cultural performance" of basic values a "social drama". Such dramas allow the social stresses that are inherent in a particular culture to be expressed and worked out symbolically in a ritual catharsis; as the social tensions continue to persist outside the ritual, pressure mounts for the ritual's cyclical performance. In Carnival, for example, the practice of masking allows people to be what they are not, and acts as a general social leveller, erasing otherwise tense social hierarchies in a festival that emphasizes play outside the bounds of normal social limits. Yet outside carnival, social tensions of race, class and gender persist, hence requiring the repeated periodic release found in the festival.


title: Ritual

text: A water rite is a rite or ceremonial custom that uses water as its central feature. Typically, a person is immersed or bathed as a symbol of religious indoctrination or ritual purification. Examples include the Mikveh in Judaism, a custom of purification; misogi in Shinto, a custom of spiritual and bodily purification involving bathing in a sacred waterfall, river, or lake; baptism in Christianity, a custom and sacrament that represents both purification and initiation into the religious community (the Christian Church); and Amrit Sanskar in Sikhism, a rite of passage (sanskar) that similarly represents purification and initiation into the religious community (the khalsa). Rites that use water, but not as their central feature, for example, that include drinking water, are not considered water rites.


title: Ritual

text: According to anthropologist Clifford Geertz, political rituals actually construct power; that is, in his analysis of the , he argued that rituals are not an ornament of political power, but that the power of political actors depends upon their ability to create rituals and the cosmic framework within which the social hierarchy headed by the king is perceived as natural and sacred. As a "dramaturgy of power" comprehensive ritual systems may create a cosmological order that sets a ruler apart as a divine being, as in "the divine right" of European kings, or the divine Japanese Emperor. Political rituals also emerge in the form of uncodified or codified conventions practiced by political officials that cement respect for the arrangements of an institution or role against the individual temporarily assuming it, as can be seen in the many rituals still observed within the procedure of parliamentary bodies.


title: Ritual

text: Ritual can be used as a form of resistance, as for example, in the various Cargo Cults that developed against colonial powers in the South Pacific. In such religio-political movements, Islanders would use ritual imitations of western practices (such as the building of landing strips) as a means of summoning cargo (manufactured goods) from the ancestors. Leaders of these groups characterized the present state (often imposed by colonial capitalist regimes) as a dismantling of the old social order, which they sought to restore.


title: Ritual

text: Nineteenth century "armchair anthropologists" were concerned with the basic question of how religion originated in human history. In the twentieth century their conjectural histories were replaced with new concerns around the question of what these beliefs and practices did for societies, regardless of their origin. In this view, religion was a universal, and while its content might vary enormously, it served certain basic functions such as the provision of prescribed solutions to basic human psychological and social problems, as well as expressing the central values of a society. Bronislaw Malinowski used the concept of function to address questions of individual psychological needs; A.R. Radcliffe-Brown, in contrast, looked for the function (purpose) of the institution or custom in preserving or maintaining society as a whole. They thus disagreed about the relationship of anxiety to ritual.


title: Ritual

text: Malinowski argued that ritual was a non-technical means of addressing anxiety about activities where dangerous elements were beyond technical control: "magic is to be expected and generally to be found whenever man comes to an unbridgeable gap, a hiatus in his knowledge or in his powers of practical control, and yet has to continue in his pursuit.". Radcliffe-Brown in contrast, saw ritual as an expression of common interest symbolically representing a community, and that anxiety was felt only if the ritual was not performed. George C. Homans sought to resolve these opposing theories by differentiating between "primary anxieties" felt by people who lack the techniques to secure results, and "secondary (or displaced) anxiety" felt by those who have not performed the rites meant to allay primary anxiety correctly. Homans argued that purification rituals may then be conducted to dispel secondary anxiety.


title: Ritual

text: A.R. Radcliffe-Brown argued that ritual should be distinguished from technical action, viewing it as a structured event: "ritual acts differ from technical acts in having in all instances some expressive or symbolic element in them." Edmund Leach, in contrast, saw ritual and technical action less as separate structural types of activity and more as a spectrum: "Actions fall into place on a continuous scale. At one extreme we have actions which are entirely profane, entirely functional, technique pure and simple; at the other we have actions which are entirely sacred, strictly aesthetic, technically non-functional. Between these two extremes we have the great majority of social actions which partake partly of the one sphere and partly of the other. From this point of view technique and ritual, profane and sacred, do not denote "types" of action but "aspects" of almost any kind of action."


title: Ritual

text: The functionalist model viewed ritual as a homeostatic mechanism to regulate and stabilize social institutions by adjusting social interactions, maintaining a group ethos, and restoring harmony after disputes.


title: Ritual

text: Although the functionalist model was soon superseded, later "neofunctional" theorists adopted its approach by examining the ways that ritual regulated larger ecological systems. Roy Rappaport, for example, examined the way gift exchanges of pigs between tribal groups in Papua New Guinea maintained environmental balance between humans, available food (with pigs sharing the same foodstuffs as humans) and resource base. Rappaport concluded that ritual, "...helps to maintain an undegraded environment, limits fighting to frequencies which do not endanger the existence of regional population, adjusts man-land ratios, facilitates trade, distributes local surpluses of pig throughout the regional population in the form of pork, and assures people of high quality protein when they are most in need of it". Similarly, J. Stephen Lansing traced how the intricate calendar of Hindu Balinese rituals served to regulate the vast irrigation systems of Bali, ensuring the optimum distribution of water over the system while limiting disputes.


title: Ritual

text: While most Functionalists sought to link ritual to the maintenance of social order, South African functionalist anthropologist Max Gluckman coined the phrase "rituals of rebellion" to describe a type of ritual in which the accepted social order was symbolically turned on its head. Gluckman argued that the ritual was an expression of underlying social tensions (an idea taken up by Victor Turner), and that it functioned as an institutional pressure valve, relieving those tensions through these cyclical performances. The rites ultimately functioned to reinforce social order, insofar as they allowed those tensions to be expressed without leading to actual rebellion. Carnival is viewed in the same light. He observed, for example, how the first-fruits festival ("incwala") of the South African Bantu kingdom of Swaziland symbolically inverted the normal social order, so that the king was publicly insulted, women asserted their domination over men, and the established authority of elders over the young was turned upside down.


title: Ritual

text: Claude Lévi-Strauss, the French anthropologist, regarded all social and cultural organization as symbolic systems of communication shaped by the inherent structure of the human brain. He therefore argued that the symbol systems are not reflections of social structure as the Functionalists believed, but are imposed on social relations to organize them. Lévi-Strauss thus viewed myth and ritual as complementary symbol systems, one verbal, one non-verbal. Lévi-Strauss was not concerned to develop a theory of ritual (although he did produce a four-volume analysis of myth) but was influential to later scholars of ritual such as Mary Douglas and Edmund Leach.


title: Ritual

text: Victor Turner combined Arnold van Gennep's model of the structure of initiation rites, and Gluckman's functionalist emphasis on the ritualization of social conflict to maintain social equilibrium, with a more structural model of symbols in ritual. Running counter to this emphasis on structured symbolic oppositions within a ritual was his exploration of the liminal phase of rites of passage, a phase in which "anti-structure" appears. In this phase, opposed states such as birth and death may be encompassed by a single act, object or phrase. The dynamic nature of symbols experienced in ritual provides a compelling personal experience; ritual is a "mechanism that periodically converts the obligatory into the desirable".


title: Ritual

text: Mary Douglas, a British Functionalist, extended Turner's theory of ritual structure and anti-structure with her own contrasting set of terms "grid" and "group" in the book "Natural Symbols". Drawing on Levi-Strauss' Structuralist approach, she saw ritual as symbolic communication that constrained social behaviour. Grid is a scale referring to the degree to which a symbolic system is a shared frame of reference. Group refers to the degree people are tied into a tightly knit community. When graphed on two intersecting axes, four quadrants are possible: strong group/strong grid, strong group/weak grid, weak group/weak grid, weak group/strong grid. Douglas argued that societies with strong group or strong grid were marked by more ritual activity than those weak in either group or grid. (see also, section below)


title: Ritual

text: In his analysis of rites of passage, Victor Turner argued that the liminal phase - that period 'betwixt and between' - was marked by "two models of human interrelatedness, juxtaposed and alternating": structure and anti-structure (or "communitas"). While the ritual clearly articulated the cultural ideals of a society through ritual symbolism, the unrestrained festivities of the liminal period served to break down social barriers and to join the group into an undifferentiated unity with "no status, property, insignia, secular clothing, rank, kinship position, nothing to demarcate themselves from their fellows". These periods of symbolic inversion have been studied in a diverse range of rituals such as pilgrimages and Yom Kippur.


title: Ritual

text: Beginning with Max Gluckman's concept of "rituals of rebellion", Victor Turner argued that many types of ritual also served as "social dramas" through which structural social tensions could be expressed, and temporarily resolved. Drawing on Van Gennep's model of initiation rites, Turner viewed these social dramas as a dynamic process through which the community renewed itself through the ritual creation of communitas during the "liminal phase". Turner analyzed the ritual events in 4 stages: breach in relations, crisis, redressive actions, and acts of reintegration. Like Gluckman, he argued these rituals maintain social order while facilitating disordered inversions, thereby moving people to a new status, just as in an initiation rite.


title: Ritual

text: Clifford Geertz also expanded on the symbolic approach to ritual that began with Victor Turner. Geertz argued that religious symbol systems provided both a "model of" reality (showing how to interpret the world as is) as well as a "model for" reality (clarifying its ideal state). The role of ritual, according to Geertz, is to bring these two aspects – the "model of" and the "model for" – together: "it is in ritual – that is consecrated behaviour – that this conviction that religious conceptions are veridical and that religious directives are sound is somehow generated."


title: Ritual

text: Symbolic anthropologists like Geertz analyzed rituals as language-like codes to be interpreted independently as cultural systems. Geertz rejected Functionalist arguments that ritual describes social order, arguing instead that ritual actively shapes that social order and imposes meaning on disordered experience. He also differed from Gluckman and Turner's emphasis on ritual action as a means of resolving social passion, arguing instead that it simply displayed them.


title: Ritual

text: Whereas Victor Turner saw in ritual the potential to release people from the binding structures of their lives into a liberating anti-structure or communitas, Maurice Bloch argued that ritual produced conformity.