The nineteenth century had seen the extensive militarization of the agricultural and dairy farming communities of the Punjab through the construction of the idea of 'martial races' and the system of rewards of fertile 'canal colonies' for military service. In the post-Mutiny years, the British colonial army had decided that certain ethnic groups – such as Sikhs, Punjabi Mussalmans, Pathans, Gurkhas, Dogras, Jats – were 'naturally' more war-like than others and thereby restricted the recruiting pool of India's vast military to a narrow strip of land along the northern and north-western part of the country, particularly the Punjab. The Indians were among the almost four million colonial troops (French, German and British) who served in the war. Artefacts of the Indian sepoys can be found around the world. Sepoy letters have the distinction of being South Asia's first examples of life-writing from the non-elite.