COVER STORY

For whom the bell tolls

The human dimension of the war is represented by the heroes of Kargil.

SUKUMAR MURALIDHARAN

FOR the generation that has grown up since 1971, the conflict in the heights of Kargil is the first direct experience of India at war. The peacekeeping operations in Sri Lanka have tragically receded from public memory since they were conducted in the cause of an alien state. Compromised by unfocussed political guidance, the action in Sri Lanka seemed only remotely connected to India's interests. Kargil is in contrast a grim battle in hostile terrain in defence of the nation's sovereign territory. Few have remained untouched by the spectacle of Indian soldiers battling their way up the Kargil heights, inch by agonising inch, recapturing territory that was snatched away by rootless marauders chasing an incoherent ideal of theological purity. And as the human costs mount, it seems as if every Indian stands diminished in some measure by the lives lost in the ridges and crevices around Kargil.

In the discourse of politics, the armed forces are the ultimate instrumentality of the state - the institution that enjoys the relatively unfettered right to use the power of coercion in the defence of national interests. It stands as a corollary to this definition that the power of the armed forces will be used selectively and with discrimination. The armed forces have fired their guns in anger at several junctures since Independence. But an equally vital role has been in the sustenance of civil order within the country. And there have been few instances when a show of intent by the soldiers of the republic have failed to appease frayed tempers and reassure vulnerable sensibilities, when the raging fires of civil disorder have not been doused by the simple device of a "flag march" by the Indian Army.

It is that vision of an institution that is above fractious politics, untouched by divisions of language, culture and religion, that underlines the massive surge of public empathy for the heroes of Kargil. Young men just entering the best years of their lives, drawn for the most part from social backgrounds where the struggle for survival is the dominant reality, suddenly plunged into a battle situation that few managed to foresee or plan for. And then, cold statistics do not convey the trauma of crated bodies transported to remote corners of the country, of families losing earning members, children their fathers, wives their husbands and parents their sons. The Indian Army has lost over 300 men in the Kargil conflict at the time of writing. As spokesmen for the Indian Army proudly declare, close to 30 of the dead are officers who "led from the front" in the best traditions of the institution they serve. And another 10 are reported "missing in action", hopes of their return shrinking by the day.

In the villages of Kumaon in Uttar Pradesh, the dusty plains of southern Haryana and the hills of Himachal Pradesh, each day brings news of a fresh tragedy affecting the immediate neighbourhood. These are regions where military service is a hoary tradition, where every family has a connection to the armed forces. But Kargil is perhaps unique among all the armed conflicts that India has engaged in. Its reverberations echo through every part of the country, from the northeastern India, through Orissa, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Maharashtra and Gujarat. In decisively debunking the old colonial stereotype of the "martial races", the Kargil conflict has brought to the fore a notion of the armed forces as the final refuge of the national spirit, an institution that every region of the country partakes of, whose achievements every citizen exults in, whose tragedies every Indian despairs at.

R.V. MOORTHY
Anita, wife of Lance Naik Rajbir Singh of 18 Grenadiers from Lakhan Majra village of Rohtak district who was killed in the Drass sector, with her two children.

LANCE NAIK Rajbir Singh of 18 Grenadiers laid down his life on June 13 in the Drass sector. His modest dwelling in the Lakhan Majra village of Rohtak district does not blazon the fact that it once was the home of a war hero. His father Sakhat Singh saw action in the 1965 and 1971 wars. But an element of despair penetrates the stoic calm with which the soldier is taught to face death. His son was only 28 years when he met his end. Rajbir Singh's widow Anita now clings to the forlorn hope that the war will end soon, since she does not want other women to cope with its awesome burdens. Her two children, aged eight and five, cannot in the tenderness of their years come to terms with the reality of their loss. The younger one indeed believes that his father will soon return, just as he has done in the past.

Commissioned into the Bihar Regiment four years ago, Major Mariappan Saravanan led a platoon of 30 men on May 14 to cut the supply lines of the Kargil infiltrators entrenched on the Jubar ridge at 14,000 feet. The approach was treacherous. If they tried climbing up the steep rock-face, they would be easy targets. The ridge had claimed the lives of Major Rohit Gaur and three other men of his company three days earlier. Mindful that danger could crop up from the most unexpected quarters, Saravanan led his platoon up another route, using the rocky outcrops as cover to approach the Pakistani picket at the top. As they were closing in on the enemy picket at Point 4268, Saravanan moved ahead of his company and stumbled upon the infiltrators. Before he went down in a hail of deadly machine-gun fire, the Major took out four of the infiltrators. His platoon had to withdraw on account of the ferocity of enemy gunfire. The ridge was not recaptured till over a month later. On June 26, the personal effects of the 26-year-old Major, son of an army officer who died last year in an automobile accident, were handed over to his grieving family in Tiruchi. His body was recovered only on July 7 after the capture of the Batalik heights.

Naik Pramod Kumar, affectionately called "Netaji" in his village of Madhopur in Bihar, was another soldier in Saravanan's platoon who went down with him. His older brother Shyamanand, an armyman for 13 years, learnt of the death two days prior to the official notification on June 1. He was forbidden by Army regulations from informing his family. Deepak, the youngest in the family, also serves in the Bihar Regiment and today awaits orders to proceed to the battlefront. Pramod's father Bindeshwar is an agricultural labourer, deprived all his life of the privileges of education and land ownership. But his fierce sense of pride in his martyred son is palpable as he says: "He went to fight for his country, proud and with his head held high. If I had two more sons, I would have them follow in their brother's footsteps and join the Army." The dignity does not subside even as a sense of despair wells up: "I do not think it will now ever be possible to console his mother."

Lance Naik Shankar Rajaram Shinde had seen action in the peacekeeping mission in Sri Lanka. In April this year, he paid his last visit to the village of Pingori in Pune district. From the pastoral peace of a farm, he was soon transported to the rarefied heights of Kargil. Shinde was among the troops of 18 Garhwal Rifles who led the charge on Point 4700, a key objective in the effort to retake the Tiger Hill salient. The mission was accomplished on June 29, but Shinde suffered a fatal injury from shell splinters a few days later. His village, where military service is almost an axiomatic choice for an able-bodied young man, received his body on July 8.

R.V.MOORTHY
The parents of Lance Naik Jasbir Singh of 2 Rajputana Rifles from Sisar Khas village in Rohtak district who was killed in the Tololing area.

Naik Srinivas Patra from Ganjam district in Orissa had received a promotion and was en route to a fresh posting in Bihar when he was recalled by 12 Mahar Regiment for what was termed "an emergency mission". On July 5, he was engaged in mopping up operations along ridges leading away towards the Line of Control from Tiger Hill. Moving forward in a unit of four, Patra succeeded in demolishing two bunkers that the enemy forces had constructed along the ridge line. As he moved towards the next objective, he walked into a withering blast of machine gun fire. All four soldiers were killed in the encounter, though only after offering heroic resistance.

From the geographical fringes, the outlawed insurgent group, the United Liberation Front of Asom, has appealed to Assamese soldiers to return home rather than waste their energies in the defence of India. Gunner Uddhav Das of 197 Field Regiment returned to his residence in Barpeta district on June 27, but in a coffin draped with the national tricolour. He had been killed three days earlier in the Drass sector, a victim of intensive Pakistani shelling. His family in the village of Anchali lost its sole earning member and is in a state of shock. The 24-kilometre route leading to his home was lined with people who had come to pay their respects. And as his body was brought home, the women of the village broke out in a collective wail. Although a village with an established tradition of military service, Anchali was not able to suppress the grief for a young life lost.

The funeral of Captain K. Clifford Nongrum of 12 Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry witnessed, by all accounts, the greatest outpouring of emotion ever seen in Shillong, surpassing in the fervour of public participation even the farewell accorded to Williamson Sangma, the founding father of the State of Meghalaya. Similarly, Lieutenant Neikezhakuo Kengurutse of 2 Rajputana Rifles, who died in the effort to consolidate territorial gains made in the Tololing Ridge, will for long survive in public memory as a symbol of the firmness with which the people of Nagaland have chosen to integrate with a state apparatus that they fought for long.

BUT beyond the symbolism of military honours and the transient surge of national grief, beyond all the packages of monetary compensation announced by the government, the heroes of Kargil pose a moral dilemma. What does it take to restore a sense of purpose to lives rendered desolate by the death of their solitary source of sustenance? "I want my son back, and not the money," says the distraught mother of Lance Naik Jasbir Singh (2 Rajputana Rifles). "What will I do with the heroic image of my son when he is not there to help me through life?"

SANDEEP SAXENA
The parents of Lt. Vijayant Thapar who was killed during the Army's final assault on Knoll on June 28. V.N. Thapar, father of Vijayant Thapar, is a retired Colonel and belongs to the third of four generations of armymen.

Subsistence pressures compelling men to seek a career in the Army is a common predicament in the arid plains of southern Haryana. And though his despairing mother insists that she will not permit her other son to join the forces, the father, Surajmal Singh, is more matter-of-fact. He says that the younger son would seek to enlist in due course since he needs a job and the family needs to secure another source of income.

Solace eludes Hema Aziz, mother of Lieutenant Haneef Uddin, even though the point where her son went down in the Turtok range on June 8 has now been named Haneef Uddin Point by the Indian Army. Trying to be philosophical in her moment of loss, she says: "There is no space for personal feelings in this sort of situation."

Colonel (retd.) V.N. Thapar, the third of four generations of armymen, takes a less detached view. His son Lieutenant Vijayant Thapar was in the leading platoon which went for the final assault on Knoll, a feature ahead of the Tololing Ridge. As they moved up on the night of June 28, they were pinned down by relentless enemy firing. Platoon leader Major Padmapani Acharya was killed while clearing a bunker. Being second in the chain of command, Thapar took over along with Naik Anand, standing upright to take on the enemy positions. A few grenades were tossed and another bunker was cleared, but Thapar was hit on the chest and head and died instantly. His company consolidated on the gains he had made by moving ahead.

Col. Thapar accepts the death of his son as part of the soldier's destiny. But he still thinks that the current situation was avoidable: "There has been some lapse somewhere and someone should be held accountable." In his opinion, the current crop of politicians has a shallow understanding of military affairs. And this renders it additionally difficult to arrive at a decision in the proper perspective.

SANDEEP SAXENA
The mother and brother of Lt. Haneef Uddin who was killed in the Turkok range on June 8.

Lieutenant-Colonel R. Viswanathan of 18 Grenadiers is the highest ranking officer to have fallen in the Kargil operations. His action in leading a partly successful charge along the Tololing Ridge on June 2, lends a new depth and resonance to the otherwise hackneyed phrase: "leading from the front". Hardened through exposure in the Sri Lanka operations and the U.N. peacekeeping missions in Rwanda and Angola, Viswanathan's heroism was commemmorated in the largest-ever funeral witnessed in his home district of Ernakulam in Kerala.

For Kerala, the moment was especially poignant in that the northern city of Kozhikode said its farewell almost concurrently to 25-year-old Captain P.V. Vikram of 141 Field Regiment. It was a unit that Vikram's father had served for long years. And as Lt.-Col. P.K.P.V. Panicker recounts, in the course of his last radio exchange with his commanding officer, his son seemed literally to be charged with the spirit of battle. "He must have been killed ten minutes later," says Panicker, a trace of moisture in the eyes his only concession to grief.

Naik R. Kamaraj from Thanjavur district in Tamil Nadu left home in March with the promise that he would return for his wedding anniversary. He was killed on June 10, a day before the promised reunion. Elsewhere, Chennai mourned the death of Lt.-Col. N. Vijayaraghavan on June 24 in counter-insurgency operations in Kupwara district. The 38-year-old officer of the 15 Kumaon Regiment had seen action during Operation Bluestar and logged extensive service in counter-insurgency operations in northeastern India. He was a recipient of the Sena Medal and had been recommended for the Kirti Chakra.

K. BHAGYA PRAKASH
Lt.-Col. P.K.P.V. Panicker, father of Capt. P.V. Vikram who was killed in Kaskar on June 2. Vikram belonged to 141 Field Regiment which his father had served for long years.

EARLY in 1971, as the eastern wing of Pakistan plunged into anarchy and chaos, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi summoned the Chief of Staff of the Indian Army, General S.H.F.J. Manekshaw, for a briefing on the level of preparedness of his forces. The General, ever the good professional, was guarded in his response. The troops could be pressed into service, but they would most likely enter into battle prey to deep anxieties. Service conditions had not improved significantly over the years and compensation packages for death or disability were still stuck in an archaic mould. A gesture of faith was called for from the political leadership, one which would restore the soldiers' sense of honour, his belief in the value the country placed upon his services.

Shortly afterwards, the Third Pay Commission recommendations were brought into effect. In December 1971, the Indian armed forces waged their most successful war ever.

RAJEEV BHATT
At the funeral procession of Lt. Vijayant Thapar at NOIDA in Uttar Pradesh.

Monetary compensation of course is not all. But it is surely germane that after the recommendations of the last Central Pay Commission were implemented, there was a spurt in requests for premature retirement from the services. Today, as the Indian Army continues its valiant struggle on the killing heights of Kargil, there is yet again fevered debate over the terms of the political compact with the services. Are the ex gratia amounts granted adequate for the dependents of soldiers killed in action? Are the schemes of compensatory employment working as they should? Is there a case for equalising compensation packages across ranks, so that every soldier is aware that his life is as valuable to the nation as anyone else's? The example set by the heroes of Kargil are a standing reproach to a political establishment that is yet to devise satisfactory answers. Perhaps the only honour the nation can now do to its dead heroes is to respect their survivors and provide a secure mooring for their shattered lives.

With inputs from T.K. Rajalakshmi, Suhrid Sankar Chattopadhyay, Parvathi Menon, R. Krishnakumar, Asha Krishnakumar and Kalyan Chaudhuri.