The India Medal was a campaign medal

Campaign medal

A campaign medal is a military decoration which is awarded to a member of the military who serves in a designated military operation or performs duty in a geographical theater...

 approved in 1896 for issue to officers and men of the British

British Army

The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...

 and Indian

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...

 armies.

The India Medal was awarded for various minor military campaigns in India, chiefly for service on the North-West Frontier

North-West Frontier (military history)

The North-West Frontier was the most difficult area, from a military point of view, of the former British India in the Indian sub-continent. It remains the frontier of present-day Pakistan, extending from the Pamir Knot in the north to the Koh-i-Malik Siah in the west, and separating the...

 during 1895 to 1902. This medal replaced the India General Service Medal (1854)

India General Service Medal (1854)

The India General Service Medal was a campaign medal approved in 1854, for issue to officers and men of the British and Indian armies....

. Each campaign was represented by a clasp on the ribbon; seven were sanctioned.

The ribbon pattern was red, green, red, green, red. Whilst the obverse of the medal itself held the profile of Queen Victoria, or, after January 22, 1901, King Edward VII, the reverse portrayed a British and an Indian soldier carrying a standard together.

Clasps

The following clasps were issued with the medal:

• Defence of Chitral
  Chitral Expedition
  The Chitral Expedition was a military expedition in 1895 sent by the British authorities to relieve the fort at Chitral which was under siege after a local coup.-Background to the conflict:Chitral was at the extreme north west of British India...
  
   1895

3 March - 13 April 1895

• Relief of Chitral 1895

7 March - 15 August 1895

• Punjab Frontier 1897-98

10 June 1897 -- 6 April 1898

• Malakand 1897

26 July - 2 August 1897 (Awarded to troops involved in the Siege of Malakand

Siege of Malakand

The Siege of Malakand was the 26 July – 2 August 1897 siege of the British garrison in the Malakand region of colonial British India's North West Frontier Province...

.)

• Samana 1897

2 August - 2 October 1897

• Tirah
  Tirah Campaign
  The Tirah Campaign, often referred to in contemporary British accounts as the Tirah Expedition, was an Indian frontier war in 1897–98. Tirah is a mountainous tract of country.-Rebellion:...
  
  1897-98

2 October 1897 - 6 April 1898

• Waziristan 1901-02

23 November 1901 - 10 March 1902

External links

• Victorian Medals Indian General Service Medal 1895 - 1908 retrieved June 4, 2007