Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(Anglo-Ind.) India, thus the Indian Army of the Raj.

1872		Medical Times (London) 23 Aug. 247/1: Should health permit, I shall take careful notes in the ‘shiny East,’ hoping they will e acceptable to the journal.
1888		A. Griffiths Wrong Road 233: ‘You were there, were you?’ ‘At the end of the seige, yes — before we went to the ‘Shiny’.’ ‘Shiny?’ ‘Yes, the ‘Shiny East.’ That’s our soldier’s name for India’.
1892		[E. Cuthell] In Tent & Bungalow 164: Everyone who was in the shiny East at the time will remember that Durbar.
1894		Civil & Milit. Gaz. (Lahore) 27 Sept. 1/4: We're a blooming lot of soldiers, and we're putting in our time, / In the Shiny. / A double-barrelled Turkish Bath, with just a dash of lime, / Is the Shiny.
1896		Regiment 26 Sept. 389/1: [W]hen about to embark for the ‘Shiny,’ the novice regards the old soldier’s stories as anything but amusing.
1896		F.J. Fraser ‘Little Number Three’ in Belgravia (London) Dec. 357: [A] woman is no older than she dresses in the shiny East. And again, there are no old people in British India - none in ‘Society,’ at all events!
1900		I. Savory A Sportswoman in India 32: But India, and India alone, is the land of pig-sticking. In the matter of sport ‘the shiny East’ has stood the test of time better than any of her rivals.
1906		A.I.R. Glasfurd Rifle & Romance 264: The ‘casket’ was becoming an unmitigated nuisance; and that the very moment I had again set foot on the shores of the old ‘Shiny’.
1924		R. Baden-Powell Pig-sticking 47: Pig-sticking shows up a man’s character, and is a better test of it than any sport that I know. It was, therefore, with special interest that many an old qua hai watched His Royal Highness’ doings in the Shiny East in that, to him, new field of sport.