Have you seen Border, the Sunny Deol film on the 1971 Indo-Pak War? Or the 2003 release LOC Kargil? Or Shershaah, the 2021 film on Kargil War martyr Captain Vikram Batra? Do you know the difference between such war movies and real wars?
“In real wars, there are no retakes,” said Subedar Major Sanjay Kumar, recipient of the Param Vir Chakra (PVC), India’s highest military award. Kumar fought in the Kargil War, took four bullets, and is one of the few PVC awardees alive to tell his tale.
Kumar and many other Kargil War heroes were in BL Block recently. The patriotic group, Desh, had organised a tribute to our soldiers in memory of the war that had begun on May 3 – today – 25 years ago.
Four bullets and walking
“Whenever filmmakers plan war films like LOC Kargil and Shershaah they come and talk to us about it. They want to know what went through our minds at the time,” said Kumar, who was then a rifleman with 13 Jammu & Kashmir Rifles. “At war, you think only, and only, of the enemy. Concentration waivers for a moment and you could end up dead. Unlike in films, we get no retakes.”
The native of Himachal Pradesh said the battlefield was a chakravyuh that soldiers enter at will but come out of alive only with sound training, teamwork, and presence of mind. “And there is no victory without sacrifice. That is why Netaji said ‘Give me blood, and I shall give you freedom’,” he said.
During a critical battle at Point 4875 in the Mushkoh Valley, Kumar had volunteered to lead an attack. He scaled cliffs and crawled up ledges to charge towards the enemy bunker. He engaged in hand-to-hand combats, at one point picking up the enemy’s universal machine gun and shooting at them. There were grenades blowing up and bullets raining.
Kumar took four bullets but continued to fight. “There was a time when I was shot and lying on the ground. The pain was excruciating but I dared not scream lest the Pakistanis realise I was still alive. Once they started retreating, my buddy (partner) Nitender Singh and I picked up our guns and killed them,” he recalled.
Kumar spoke fondly of Captain Vikram Batra, who was also part of 13 Jammu and Kashmir Rifles like him. “Batra sahab led the Delta Company to capture Point 5140 without suffering a single casualty. No one can fill his void. And the tragedy is that cease-fire was declared five minutes after Captain Batra was killed,” said Kumar.
“I may have been honoured with this award but I’m sure there are many who contributed much more,” said the soldier who was taken to visit General Shankar Roychowdhury (retired) in his FE Block home by the organisers. Roychowdhury was unable to attend the event due to ill health.
Wedding called off
When the war broke out, Colonel Joy Dasgupta’s marriage was already on the cards. He got a four-day leave to go to Hyderabad for the engagement ceremony, only to hear that the bride’s family had called it off. They didn’t want her to marry a living coffin. Dasgupta returned to the front.
When news of the incident spread, the soldier received several proposals from women wanting to marry him. But he eventually went for an arranged marriage, and his scientist-wife Madhumita was at the BL Block event with him.
After the war, the officer won the Sena Medal for this role in 18 Grenadiers.
“Everyone is scared out there but one needs cunning and battlefield common sense to cheat death. A few of us are blessed to be alive today, a few of us got decorated but many contributed in the shadows,” he said adding, however, that patriotism wasn’t the sole right of the uniformed person. “Serve the nation in whichever way you can.”
Shot but not scared
Subedar Surinder Thakur fought for 18 Grenadiers under Dasgupta. “I was only 19 then. My only experience of being fired at was during training and suddenly we were thrown into a tough terrain, harsh climate, low oxygen, and where it was raining bullets round the clock,” Thakur said.
“But by the third day, I told myself that if a bullet had my name on it, it would hit me. Till then, let me surge ahead. My motivation was to stop Pakistan from claiming even an inch from us,” he said.
Thakur got shot thrice but with the adrenaline rush, couldn’t feel it initially. It was later when he saw blood oozing out of his body that he realised it.
“I remember when I was lying in the medical unit later, and my parents came to see me, my mother searched around the hall but could not recognise her son. My skin had got burnt and was peeling off in the cold,” he says.
Lessons for air force
Also present was Bivas Roy Choudhury, who was in the Indian air during the war. “Initially, no details were shared with us. We knew we had to prepare but didn’t know what for. The first aircraft sent to the region was an old Canbera aircraft, meant to click photos of the area. The pilots unassumingly went too low and got shot at,” he recalled.
“No air force in the world was prepared for combat at such high altitudes and the war taught us a lot,” said Roy Choudhury, who penned his experience in his book Kargil er Akashey.
Empty nest
The group had invited more soldiers from 18 Grenadiers and 2 Rajputana Rifles, and the family members of some martyrs. Shukla Bandyopadhyay, mother of the martyred Captain Anirban Bandyopadhyay said her son was in the Indian Military Academy when the Kargil War broke out. “I had heaved a sigh of relief, thinking my son was safe. Little did I know that his first posting would be in Kashmir, where he would lose his life pursuing the Mujahadeen,” she told the audience.
Today Shukla lives alone. Her husband (also an army officer) died of Covid. “I can’t ring up my son and ask him to come if I have an emergency,” she said. “They give gallantry awards to war heroes but they should also award their wives and mothers who have to endure no less pain. So when you count the perks army officers get, spare a thought for their sacrifices.”
Visit Kargil
Anasuya Mitra, co-founder of Desh and a resident of BL Block, asked the audience to visit Kargil once in their lives to know the challenges of such high-altitude warfare.
“Desh has been spreading stories of war heroes for the last 10 years. We provide an emotional support system for martyrs’ families by sending flowers on the birthdays and martyrdom days, diyas on Diwali, and at least 5,000 rakhis to soldiers posted on the fronts,” said co-founder Adrija Sen.
Along with BloodConnect, a group that helps find blood donors, they had also organised a blood donation camp in memory of the fallen soldiers.
Is society at large adequately
aware of the heroisms of
individuals in the armed forces?
Write to saltlake@abp.in