The 96th Berar Infantry were an infantry regiment of the

British Indian Army 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 co ...

. They could trace their origins to 1797, when they were raised as the 2nd Battalion of the Aurangabad Division for the

Princely state A princely state (also called native state or Indian state) was a nominally sovereign entity of the British Raj, British Indian Empire that was not directly governed by the British, but rather by an Indian ruler under a form of indirect rule, ...

Hyderabad Hyderabad ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana and the ''de jure'' capital of Andhra Pradesh. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River (India), Musi River, in the northern part ...

. Until 1853, the regiment was part of the Nizam of Hydrabad's Army then after signing of a treaty with the then Governor General of India, The Nizam's Contingent was renamed as the Hyderabad Contingent and became part of the regular Indian Army. The regiment fought in the

Battle of Mahidpur The Battle of Mahidpur was fought during the Third Anglo-Maratha War between the Holkar faction of the Maratha Confederacy and the British East India Company at Mahidpur, a town in the Malwa region, on 21 December 1817. On 21 December 1817, th ...

during the

Third Anglo-Maratha War The Third Anglo-Maratha War (1817–1819) was the final and decisive conflict between the English East India Company and the Maratha Empire in India. The war left the Company in control of most of India. It began with an invasion of Maratha te ...

. They then participated in the Siege of Nowah and the later Capture of Nowah. They next participated in the annexation of Burma during the

Second Burmese War The Second Anglo-Burmese War or the Second Burma War ( my, ဒုတိယ အင်္ဂလိပ် မြန်မာ စစ် ; 5 April 185220 January 1853) was the second of the three wars fought between the Burmese Empire and British Em ...

. They next took part in the Central India Campaign after the

Indian Rebellion of 1857 The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a major uprising in India in 1857–58 against the rule of the British East India Company, which functioned as a sovereign power on behalf of the British Crown. The rebellion began on 10 May 1857 in the fo ...

. After World War I the Indian government reformed the army moving from single battalion regiments to multi battalion regiments. In 1922, the 96th Berar Infantry became the 2nd Battalion,

19th Hyderabad Regiment The 19th Hyderabad Regiment was an infantry regiment of the British Indian Army. It was formed at the time of reforms of the Indian Army after the First World War, when it moved from single-battalion regiments to multi-battalion regiments. The reg ...

. This regiment was allocated to the

Indian Army The Indian Army is the land-based branch and the largest component of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the Supreme Commander of the Indian Army, and its professional head is the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), who is a four- ...

after independence.

Predecessor names

*2nd Battalion, Aurangabad Division - 1797 *2nd Battalion, Berar Infantry *3rd Regiment of Infantry, Nizam's Army - 1826 *3rd Infantry, Hyderabad Contingent - 1854 *96th Berar Infantry - 1903''Quarterly Indian Army List January 1919'', p. 1391

References

* * * * *Moberly, F.J. (1923). ''Official History of the War: Mesopotamia Campaign'', Imperial War Museum. *''Quarterly Indian Army List January 1919''. Army Headquarters, India. Calcutta, 1919. British Indian Army infantry regiments Military units and formations established in 1797 Military units and formations disestablished in 1922 Military history of the Madras Presidency Indian World War I regiments {{India-mil-stub