The Army as a Tool for Social Uplift: The Experience of the Paraiyans in the Madras Presidency Army, 1770–1895

There has been a rapid increase in the politico-sociological literature on the relationship between the armed forces and society in the emerging nations since the 1960s. A fairly large part of the research deals with the army as a political modernising agent, and only very little deals with the role of the army as a tool of social and economic uplift. One of the studies which examines such problems in detail is the recent work of Morris Janowitz on the role of the army in the socio-political development of new nations. In one place he discusses broadly the role of the army in the economic and social modernisation of new nations.