A Colourful Collage of Courage, Honour & Valour
A Book Review
“The Indian Army: An Illustrated Overview“, Edited by Sqn Ldr (Retd) RTS Chinna (Published in 2007), by The Centre for Armed Forces Historical Research, The United Service Institution of India , Rao Tula Ram Marg New Delhi Pp 255Price Rs 2400 ISBN 978-81-902097-6-2
Maratha Light Infantry’s J J Singh’s brain-child, this coffee-table glossy contains the entire history of the Indian Army (IA), compacted into a paper time-capsule, culminating and coinciding with the peak-culmination of his army career, as the Chief Of Army Staff of the Indian Army. It has several photos of his, out of which the more memorable will surely be; he on patrol ,as a Major, debriefing a naga; he with his aged-dad a pensioner Electrical and Mechanical Engineers officer; and he with the most of the former Army Chiefs, in a posed group, with him sitting center-stage in uniform! The one in his Foreword to this coffee table-book is the most imposing. Retired Lt Gen Satish Nambiar (MLI to Mech Inf) has one of his from his 1971 War, showig him in a Major’s rank. Field Marshal Sam Bahadur ’s, is from his World War II Sittang River days, with the Frontier Force Regiment shoulder titles on his uniform-shirt. This one has not been published any where before! The one of a pipe band performing in the Vijay Chowk, is the most dynamic; it has the animation of a comic-strip; real good. It vies for the best action—one, by the one about Special Forces, on Pg 125. The one from a painting of the ruins of the ramparts of the Saragarhi Fort, in Afghanistan, is the one with the maximum poignancy. The call to “the colours” is depicted in a very memorable photo-plate.
The 1962 war has been high-lighted only with JP Dalvi’s quotes. Wish the editor, retired Sqn Ldr Rana Chhina, had also mentioned the battle of Nuranang, that, the 4 Garhwalis so valiantly fought. This was one of the only two battle-honours of that war. The Commanding Officer was killed in battle; they won two MVCs (both posthumous). The editors could have at least mentioned Rezang La; where in the winter of 1962, all but a few of the ahir defenders out of a total of 109 were killed in action, and the Chinese picked up 1010 corpses of their own! This ahir company of 13 Kumaon collected 1 Param Vir Chakra, 8 Vir Chkaras, & 4 Sena Medals, …a record unbroken to date. Also, Brig Hoshiar’s Singh’s (Indian Order of Merit, Indian Distinguished Service Medal, Croix de Guerre with Silver Star. ) last stand at Se La, in the Kameng Division of erstwhile North East Frontier Agency (NEFA)., now Arunachal Pradesh.
One of the land-mark battles of the 1965 Operations was the epic battle at the hamlet of Dograi. Lt Col ( later Brig) Desmond Hayde’s super human effort in leading his Battalion, the 3 JAT, into attacking a vastly numerically superior Pakistani defenders, in this classic & epic battle, seems to have been glossed over. This is a grave oversight. In the poignant tale of Indian Arms Rezang La & Dograi are never-to-be –forgotten revered clash of arms. What classic text book defence is to Rezang La, Dograi is to pressing home a deliberate frontal attack by do-or-die infantry. Under Lt Col Desmond Hayde, ( decorated with a Maha Vir Chakra for this action); 3 JAT attack on Pakistan army held Dograi, goes down as an abiding anal of the Indian jawan’s stoicness, selfless dedication to duty, bravery under heavy fire and the will to win even against the unbeatable odds of 8:1! Enough material should be available on these two pitched-battles. A great pity that all these have been missed out; because the world and posterity needs to be told that it was only in Kameng, that, an IA brigade faltered, though for no fault of their’s, having being hastily bullied into a highly indefensible defensive position on the southern banks of the Namka Chu by a over-bearing Chief of General Staff, a haughty and nasty Defence Minister and a pacifist Prime Minister in the utopian Fabian mode—–who, surprised by the Chinese audacity, then was all fire and brimstone to ‘throw the Chinese out’, to save face in the Indian Parliament! At Chushul, Walong , Pagong Tso Gap….. ..at all these places the Chinese were given bloody noses. The Indian 114 Brigade remained undefeated right till the very end when hostilities were unilaterally called off by the Chinese.
Surprisingly, the Haji Pir action of 1965 seems to have also, all but been missed out, apart for finding mention only in a solitary sentence! No photo; not even the much publicised one showing troops raising the Indian Standard on the Pass. It was not there in the first edition of Cardozo’s book either. These battles are the defining moments for the IA. No one can get away by ignoring these.
All the PVC winners find a place in the photo-gallery as also all the chiefs, finishing with JJ, the last on the last page. ‘Blue-Star’ hardly finds a place as also the ensuing trouble in the Sikh Regiment, or the price that Vaidya & the then PM had to pay, but oddly enough, the mutiny of B Squadron of CIH is mentioned in a big paragraph with an accompanying snap of an old sardar ex-serviceman ! Talking of mutinies………. the one in 1857 gets a prominent place. The photo of the bungalow; now an Officers’ Mess of the MNS; of the Commandant of the 3 Bengal Light Cavalry; Lt Col George Monra Carmichael-Smyth, who ordered the fateful parade of the skirmishers of his regiment on 24 April 1857 May 1857 in Merrut. On refusal of the sepoys to accept the new cartridge, he ordered their court-martial. This convicted 85 of the 90 them, of which 48 were Muslims and 37 Hindus. They were then stripped of their uniforms, shackled, and put in irons on a parade and in the presence of the entire garrison on the morning of 9 May 1857, and executed, by the horrible device of being blown up tied to the mouths of guns! The Great Uprising went underway, as the Bengal sepoys broke out in open mutiny and rushed to Delhi’s Red Fort to proclaim The Last Mughal; Bahadur Shah Jafar as their King & Emperor and to place him on the gaddi ! Period lithographs of that period are equally overwhelming….see the one depicting sepoys being blown up to smithereens from the mouths of canons…one even shows some still hanging on to dear life even as the first volley of the firing squad did not properly get them; it is all very heart-rending and soul searing…and disturbing of course.
One is amazed, albeit, proud to notice the pride, poise, dignity personified in the general demenaour of the soldiery shown in period photos of the army’s Raj days (see the one facing the Contents listing), ——the same is sadly missing in the some of the ones included in this collage that try to ape similar groups; see the one of post-independence soldiers posing in Vijay Chowk (Pg 211). It is all wrong. Capt SFJH Manekshaw’s photo in the FF shoulder titles has not any where else, in the media! Chinna has scored very heavily on this count.
This book sort of makes up for some of the short comings of the earlier one in as much as it depicts sports, training in the regimental centres, the marching bands, the ceremonial parades, the ceremonial uniformed regalia, the champion sportsmen ( they ought to have had one of the war-wounded-and-disabled-for-life, Everester, Maj H S Ahluwalia as well) …. what ever this moving collage of the IA from its days as the lal paltan to the modern-day lean & mean fighting machine in the RMA-mode now , is as colourful and exhilarating as its it is moving and full of lasting impact. It has 485 odd photos, and if each one of says a 1000 words each, it is worth a total of around 485000 (!!) words, all loud and clear, that the IA; with its unique ethos of nishkama dharma, is an institution of which we are rightly proud of.
Bouquets are in order for the CFAHR for having risen to the occasion & meeting the dead line set by powers that be, really, and quite candidly and admirably. With an ever-lasting impact, it has been, very delightfully able to bring it in the public domain, the Indian Army through the ages in a very techni-colour patchwork, which is exceptionally tasteful.
(The Writer Lt. Col A.K. ‘Sam’ Sharma is an alumnus of the National Defence Academy, Kharakvasla. Col Sharma was commissioned into the 3rd Gorkha Rifles of the Indian Army in Februray 1964, He retired in 1997 after serving for 33 years. A graduate of the Defence Services Staff College, Wellington, he holds a MSc Degree in Defence Studies from the Madras University. This officer has been on the instructional staff of two of Indian Army’s premiere training institutes: the College of Combat; now known as the War College; (Directing Staff Junior Command Wing-1972-1975) and the Infantry School ( Senior Instructor, Platoon Commander’s Wing—1984-87) both located in Mhow (MP); where he taught tactics at the unit and sub-unit levels to students, some of who were from friendly foreign armies. He has also served at the world- renowned Indian Military Academy, Dehradun. Col Sharma can be contacted at aksh9@airtelbroadband.in)
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