The 42nd Deoli Regiment was an infantry regiment of the British Indian Army

British Indian Army

The British Indian Army, officially simply the Indian Army, was the principal army of the British Raj in India before the partition of India in 1947...

. The regiment traced their origins to 1857, when the Meena Battalion was raised during the Indian Mutiny. This battalion was the nucleus for the infantry of the Deoli Irregular Force which in May 1861, numbered eight companies. A cavalry detachment was added to the regiment by 1865 and continued to form part of it until at least 1886. After this date the 42nd became an exclusively infantry regiment.

The regiment later served in the Second Afghan War and World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 in the 5th (Mhow) Division

5th (Mhow) Division

The 5th Division was a regular division of the British Indian Army and part of the Southern Army which was formed in 1903 after Lord Kitchener was appointed Commander-in-Chief, India between 1902 and 1909...

. During the war a second battalion was raised in 1917. After World War I the Indian government reformed the army, moving from single battalion regiments to multi battalion regiments and disbanding nine regiments. The 42nd Deoli Regiment was one of the regiments surplus to the new structure and it was disbanded on 10 December 1921 .