HISTORY | Re-examining the 1915 Singapore mutiny

HISTORY | On Feb 15, 1915, at about 3pm, a short-lived rebellion broke out in Singapore involving about 300–400 Rajput Muslims of the British Indian Army’s 5th Light Infantry regiment.

This leaderless and poorly coordinated rebellion was brought under control within two days, but it took about a month to round up the mutineers.

Despite being a well-documented event, several leading local and foreign historians have given an erroneous account of the 1915 Singapore Mutiny, including the major error of stating that the men of the Mountain Battery of the Malay States Guides (MSG) took an active part in the mutiny.

Hence, this article seeks to re-examine the incident, focusing on rectifying the factual errors prevalent in several historical works and shedding light on its actual causes based on Colonial Office records and other authoritative sources.

The following table summarises some of the factual errors and corrections...