- News>
- Newspapers
Heart of a lion: The Pioneer
New Delhi, July 07: What`s the stuff the best of warhorses are made of? If Major General Kuldip Singh Bajwa is right, it`s `the great outdoors, the gun and the horse.` Bajwa who recently wrote an account of the first Jammu and Kashmir War of 1947 grew up on a diet of all that. He also fed on novels and classics, raised in a family which has produced many fine soldiers.
New Delhi, July 07: What's the stuff the best of warhorses are made of? If Major General Kuldip Singh Bajwa is right, it's "the great outdoors, the gun and the horse." Bajwa who recently wrote an account of the first Jammu and Kashmir War of 1947 grew up on a diet of all that. He also fed on novels and classics, raised in a family which has produced many fine soldiers.
His great-great grandfather Jivan Singh, was that rare exception in his time. He was made Commandant under the British in the Sherdil Paltan, which was a real honour back then. Only fearless warriors got the rating.
More soldier material turned up in succeeding generations like Jivan Singh's son Jagat who joined the 29 Punjabis at seventeen as Subedar and was Subedar-Major in the same battalion where he stayed for 23 years.
Further down the line came Major-General Bajwa, a military historian and newspaper columnist whose autobiography The Falcon in My Name-A Soldier's Diary traces his family roots to Kalas, a scion of the royal family of Jaisalmer.
Fourteenth in the line of descent Major General Bajwa graduated from the Defence Services Staff College and was a soldier during the 1947-48 war between Indian and Pakistan in the Kashmir Valley. The Major-General also took part in the Indo-Pak war of 1971, commanded an infantry brigade and a division. Jammu and Kashmir War (1947-48) is a detailed account of behind the scenes manouverings in India and Pakistan and crucial decisions which would affect current history.
Bajwa writes, "India had an opportunity to create a situation whereby Pakistan would have been forced to vacate its aggression from Kashmir...The primary handicaps that stood in the way of these more decisive achievements lay within the policy planning and its executive direction at the very top of the politico-military pyramid...Nehru held undisputed authority. Unfortunately he deferred overly to Whitehall, Mountbatten and the British chiefs of the British Chiefs of the armed forces. There was also a great deal of geo-political confusion."
He repeatedly asserts there was a "dichotomy of operating on two planes when dealing with Pakistan." Indian forces he said "were engaged in serious fighting against the Pakistani forces. The ground reality was that Pakistan was engaged in an act of war with India. Unfortunately the Indian leadership chose to turn a blind eye to this basic reality and continued to maintain the fallacy of a 'business as usual mode' when dealing with the Government of Pakistan." Kashmir had legally become a part of India by then, so when India placed a simple case of unprovoked aggression by Pakistan nationals before the UN Security Council on January 1,1948 it was entitled under international law to send troops to Pakistan to deal with invaders. The Indian government emphasised "need for immediate action," asserting its right and freedom in self-defence to take "at any time it might become necessary, such military action as the situation required."
But even then the Government hesitated to label Pakistan as 'enemy of the state'. Bajwa feels this failure to call 'a spade' created serious repercussions on the choice of legitimate military options, India could adopt to force Pakistan to vacate its aggression. Pakistan for its part denied the presence of troops and filed a counter complaint claiming Pakhtun tribals had come to free fellow Muslims from Dogra oppression. It also falsely denied having provided aid to the invaders. UN was brought in to end fighting and vacate the aggression, but the British delegation with Noel-Barker worked to obscure facts of Pakistan aggression, which were finally ignored. So instead of being aggressor, Pakistan, with Britain's machination was made equal party to a territorial dispute that had no legal or moral rationale. Bajwa compares Lord Mountbatten's role in advancing Pakistan's cause as a betrayal parallel to that of Siraj-ud-daula by Mir Jaffer, paving the way for the British Conquest of Indian.
Among his own achievements there's 1964, when Bajwa was given 18 months to raise an artillery regiment. He did it in six months using the command chain and motivating young officers and cadets with promotions. While we were talking Bajwa said he would be attending Raising Day with the 85 Light Regiment. "I'll be addressing the men there. When morale is low, a regiment must be reminded of its glorious history."
His family's relationship with the British before independence, like many other Indians was "in the spirit of accommodation rather than subservience. Each side avoided crossing the line with the other." When he joined IMA, it was "a sea of white skin.
"Bajwa was one of five Indian islands in the middle who soon found themselves looking at their occupiers in a new light. "Many of our British officers were the dregs of society. Cockneys who came over for employment. They had no respect for Indian culture. We also found them beneath us in social mores." The Major General and his friends often secretly played Indian music LPs on a radiogram because it was taboo. Once a cadet named Fox caught them with it and threatened to complain.
"We thrashed him, and then complained he had insulted us before he could say a word, or we would have been kicked out." About soldiering alongside the occupiers he says, "by the time I joined we all knew Independence was only a matter of months. As for loyalties, because the British raised the army, the Congress distrusted it, and feared an army take over after independence. But all that changed overnight when India became independent. It became a true national army."
More soldier material turned up in succeeding generations like Jivan Singh's son Jagat who joined the 29 Punjabis at seventeen as Subedar and was Subedar-Major in the same battalion where he stayed for 23 years.
Further down the line came Major-General Bajwa, a military historian and newspaper columnist whose autobiography The Falcon in My Name-A Soldier's Diary traces his family roots to Kalas, a scion of the royal family of Jaisalmer.
Fourteenth in the line of descent Major General Bajwa graduated from the Defence Services Staff College and was a soldier during the 1947-48 war between Indian and Pakistan in the Kashmir Valley. The Major-General also took part in the Indo-Pak war of 1971, commanded an infantry brigade and a division. Jammu and Kashmir War (1947-48) is a detailed account of behind the scenes manouverings in India and Pakistan and crucial decisions which would affect current history.
Bajwa writes, "India had an opportunity to create a situation whereby Pakistan would have been forced to vacate its aggression from Kashmir...The primary handicaps that stood in the way of these more decisive achievements lay within the policy planning and its executive direction at the very top of the politico-military pyramid...Nehru held undisputed authority. Unfortunately he deferred overly to Whitehall, Mountbatten and the British chiefs of the British Chiefs of the armed forces. There was also a great deal of geo-political confusion."
He repeatedly asserts there was a "dichotomy of operating on two planes when dealing with Pakistan." Indian forces he said "were engaged in serious fighting against the Pakistani forces. The ground reality was that Pakistan was engaged in an act of war with India. Unfortunately the Indian leadership chose to turn a blind eye to this basic reality and continued to maintain the fallacy of a 'business as usual mode' when dealing with the Government of Pakistan." Kashmir had legally become a part of India by then, so when India placed a simple case of unprovoked aggression by Pakistan nationals before the UN Security Council on January 1,1948 it was entitled under international law to send troops to Pakistan to deal with invaders. The Indian government emphasised "need for immediate action," asserting its right and freedom in self-defence to take "at any time it might become necessary, such military action as the situation required."
But even then the Government hesitated to label Pakistan as 'enemy of the state'. Bajwa feels this failure to call 'a spade' created serious repercussions on the choice of legitimate military options, India could adopt to force Pakistan to vacate its aggression. Pakistan for its part denied the presence of troops and filed a counter complaint claiming Pakhtun tribals had come to free fellow Muslims from Dogra oppression. It also falsely denied having provided aid to the invaders. UN was brought in to end fighting and vacate the aggression, but the British delegation with Noel-Barker worked to obscure facts of Pakistan aggression, which were finally ignored. So instead of being aggressor, Pakistan, with Britain's machination was made equal party to a territorial dispute that had no legal or moral rationale. Bajwa compares Lord Mountbatten's role in advancing Pakistan's cause as a betrayal parallel to that of Siraj-ud-daula by Mir Jaffer, paving the way for the British Conquest of Indian.
Among his own achievements there's 1964, when Bajwa was given 18 months to raise an artillery regiment. He did it in six months using the command chain and motivating young officers and cadets with promotions. While we were talking Bajwa said he would be attending Raising Day with the 85 Light Regiment. "I'll be addressing the men there. When morale is low, a regiment must be reminded of its glorious history."
His family's relationship with the British before independence, like many other Indians was "in the spirit of accommodation rather than subservience. Each side avoided crossing the line with the other." When he joined IMA, it was "a sea of white skin.
"Bajwa was one of five Indian islands in the middle who soon found themselves looking at their occupiers in a new light. "Many of our British officers were the dregs of society. Cockneys who came over for employment. They had no respect for Indian culture. We also found them beneath us in social mores." The Major General and his friends often secretly played Indian music LPs on a radiogram because it was taboo. Once a cadet named Fox caught them with it and threatened to complain.
"We thrashed him, and then complained he had insulted us before he could say a word, or we would have been kicked out." About soldiering alongside the occupiers he says, "by the time I joined we all knew Independence was only a matter of months. As for loyalties, because the British raised the army, the Congress distrusted it, and feared an army take over after independence. But all that changed overnight when India became independent. It became a true national army."