14th Battalion , Maratha Light Infantry The 14th battalion of the Maratha Light Infantry regiment ( ) of the Indian Army was initially raised as the 14th / 5th Mahratta Light Infantry on 1 February 1941 , at Ambala by Lieutenant Colonel ES Storey - Cooper , OBE , MC , – a British Officer who joined the regiment as a Staff Captain with 2nd / 5th Mahratta Light Infantry on 1 April 1933 . The battalion proceeded to Dacca , in Eastern Bengal , for a term of internal security duty in the autumn of the same year . In February 1942 the 14th Battalion moved across India to undergo a period of training at Campbellpore ( now known as Attock , Pakistan ) . In October 1942 the 14th Battalion embarked for service in the Indian Ocean as the defence garrison of the tiny Attu Atoll , which was a base vital to the air patrol of the sea routes and a possible object of Japanese attack . At the end of 1943 the Battalion returned to India for a period of special training , in the Ahmednagar and Bombay areas , in amphibious operations with the role of Beach Group to the 33rd Indian Corps . It was during this period , and following the disastrous explosion of April 1944 , that the Battalion performed notable service in clearing away the debris from the wrecked Bombay Docks . In the last weeks of the war in Europe , during February 1945 , the 14th Battalion proceeded overseas for service in Iraq ( Mesopotamian campaign ) . Soon after the completion of its tour of duty there , the battalion was diembodied following the end of the Second World War . Thereafter , the battalion was re - raised as a regular Infantry Battalion , designated the 14th Battalion The Maratha Light Infantry at Belgaum on 1 June 1971 , a few months prior to its induction into the Indo - Pakistani War of 1971 . Lieutenant Colonel RK Dutt was the first Commanding Officer of the battalion . Since its re - raising , 14 MARATHA LI has served in almost every conceivable type of terrain and operation . The unit has been deployed in the icy heights of North Sikkim , as also the arid Thar desert . The soldiers have earned a name for themselves and their regiment in every exercise or operation they have been a part of . Soldiers of the battalion . Small of stature and casual of appearance , the wiry Mahratta comes of hard stock , is capable of enduring great hardships and privations which they have repeatedly proved in the hardships of the Abyssinian War , in the privations of Mesopotamia , or on the long marches of Allenby ’ s advance through Palestine , and more recently , on the bullet - swept heights of Keren , the mountains of Italy and the jungles of Assam and Burma . The Marathas have an enviable reputation for gallantry and loyal service . They tie the military turban with one fold which falls about the head and down the neck of the soldier in the most capricious convolutions . The Marathas trace their descent to the great 17th - century warrior Shivaji . The Marathas later formed a confederacy and campaigned across vast swathes of India , watered their horses in the Indus , harried the borders of Mysore , and set the scared citizens of Calcutta to digging the Mahratta Ditch . In recognition of their unsullied reputation for loyalty the Mahratta Light Infantry was , in 1930 , formed into a completely class Regiment , one of only three in the British Indian Army of that time , a matter of justifiable pride throughout the Regiment . Uniform . The 14th Battalion of the Maratha Light Infantry conforms to all dress regulations that are applicable to other sister battalions of the regiment ( less 5 MARATHA LI , which wears a blue lanyard on the right shoulder ) . The officers and men of the unit also wear a green and red hackle atop their headgear ( when in working dress ( berets ) only ) .