The Brave: Param Vir Chakra Stories

by Rachna Bisht Rawat

  Every Republic Day, he comes down to Delhi, puts on his number one uniform, pins his medals on his chest and leads the parade down Rajpath from an open jeep with the other two living PVCs—Capt. Bana Singh and Hav. Sanjay Kumar—by his side.

  How does it feel to see thousands of fellow citizens cheering for him? ‘I feel humbled and grateful,’ he says. ‘I am a soldier, it was my job to fight yet, I have been decorated with the highest gallantry award of my country for completing a task that was given to me. Any soldier would have done the same.’

  Yogender Singh Yadav was born in Aurangabad Ahir village near Bulandshahr in Uttar Pradesh. The village has a population of 5000; its farmers grow wheat and sugar cane. Yogender’s father, Mr Ram Karan Singh, was an ex- serviceman, serving with 11 Kumaon as a soldier and even participating in the 1971 War. After eight years, he took premature retirement and came back to live in his village. He would often tell Yogender Singh and his two brothers stories about the war, inspiring them to join the Army.

  Yogender Singh began his education at the village primary school and, after class 5, joined Sannota Sri Krishna College, which was about 3 km from his home. Halfway through his class 12, when he was just 16 years old, Yogender Singh was recruited into the Army. He was 19 when he went to fight in Kargil. The Param Vir Chakra was announced for Yadav posthumously, but it was soon discovered that he was recuperating in a hospital, and it was his namesake, who had been killed in the mission.

  Based on a narration by Subedar Yogender Singh Yadav, PVC.

  Sanjay Kumar

  In the tidy olive-green Army cantonment in Dehradun where 13 Jammu and Kashmir Rifles (JAK Rif. ) is stationed, soldiers sleep after a long, tiring day of training. The alarm in most barracks goes off at 5 a. m. on weekdays; it rings in the room Havaldar Sanjay Kumar shares with his buddy Lance Naik Sandip.

  After a mug of hot chai, the soldiers are on the PT ground by 6 a. m., ready for their daily 5-km run. A breakfast of puri- sabzi or ande ki bhujia in the langar, when they crack jokes or discuss the latest political developments or a film, and they return to their barracks for a bath and change of clothes.

  Little separates Sanjay Kumar from the other men. But when he buttons up his uniform his eye goes to the small ribbon dangling from his chest with the other service ribbons—a small ceremonial medal that only three living people in the entire Armed Forces wear, the Param Vir Chakra. Sanjay Kumar has been wearing the highest gallantry award of free India for 14 years.

  Area Flat Top, Point 4875

  4 July 1999, 1 p. m.

  The searing heat from the enemy machine gun reaches 23-year- old Sanjay Kumar’s freezingface. For a moment, he relaxes in its warmth. He hasn’t slept for 30 hours; he has been climbing for 18 hours, and tiredness and cold have seeped down to his bones. The temptation to lean back and shut his eyes is tremendous, but he resists. Instead, he reaches into his backpack and pulls out a roll of white gauze bandage from his first-aid kit. He wraps it around his hands, systematically and meticulously—turning his attention to the left first and then the right. There isn’t enough for both and he looks at his comrade—Rifleman Najinder Singh, who is leaning back on the rock by his side, face covered with grime, eyes red from lack of sleep, hands laceratedfrom the sharp rocks he has held to climb through the night. Najinder moves the grenade he is holding to his left hand and reaches into his backpack. Wordlessly, he hands over his own bandage-roll to his mate. Holding one end in his mouth, Sanjay carefully wraps the rest around his right hand. Taking the roll in clockwise circles, he covers his fingers first. Only when he is satisfied that the padding is thick enough will he move on to cover his thumb.

  The Pakistanis, sitting in an open sangar (a small, temporary fortified position) at Area Flat Top, Pt. 4875, with their machineguns firing down the slope, are under the impression that the Indian Army squad is still climbing up the steep 70-degree incline. They are mistaken. One JCO (junior commissioned officer) and 10 other ranks of Charlie Company, 13 JAK Rif, have already reached them and are now sitting behind boulders just a few feet below their sangar. Riflemen Sanjay Kumar and Najinder Singh are the first two men of that attack squad. They are the scouts.

  Sanjay has finished bandaging his hands. They look like the fat white stumps now. He takes a deep breath and his eyes met Najinder’s one last time. The moment is here.

  The night of 3-4 July

  The climb

  The men had eaten a hot meal of dal, chawal and sabzi. Some time earlier they had attended the havan and puja held by the unit pandit and now, with shoes laced on, helmets pulled down over their heads, red tilaks on their foreheads and bits of prasad still between their teeth, they were ready for the assault on Flat top feature of Pt. 4875.

  The sun was setting over the jagged peaks around Mushkoh valley. The temperature had dropped a few more degrees and the chilling wind was screaming in their ears when the 60 men of Charlie Company, under their company commander Major Gurpreet Singh, began their long climb. Around the same time, another team of soldiers from 17 Jat had also started up. Their task was to recapture the peaks—Pimple 1 and Pimple 2 and Area Flat Top on Pt. 4875. Though the two parties could not see each other, they were in radio communication. The plan was that the men would climb through the night and reach the top by 3 a. m. There they would launch simultaneous attacks on all three points while still under cover of darkness, clear the area of enemy soldiers and bring it back under Indian control.

  Artillery guns along the base of Mushkoh valley had already started pounding the three points with near continuous shelling. The guns were deployed to engage the enemy so that the soldiers climbing up would have minimum casualties. Though the guns caused great losses they also warned the Pakistanis of an attack night and the climbing men were not surprised when they ran into a volley of machine gun fire coming from the top.

  Rifleman Kuldeep Singh was the first to be hit. He screamed and fell, bleeding. While he was being evacuated, the rest of the men sat under the cover of rocks. Since the enemy was firing at all paths within its sight, it was decided that the only way to climb unnoticed was via the steep rock face right under Pt. 4875, the only path not visible from the top. But there was a hitch—there was no route, just a steep vertical line up of jagged rocks glinting in the moonlight.

  Getting up quickly and standing on the edge of their toes to heave themselves up, the soldiers started pulling themselves up the incline one by one, using their hands to find a grip on the sharp rocks that had to support their body weight. The better climbers went first with picks and ropes and dropped a line for the ones following in the darkness. One wrong step could send them plunging to their death in the gaping valley.

  It was best that they could not see the sheer drop below because they could have lost their nerve. Blind to the risk, they worked their way up, gasping under the effort of pulling their body weight up those deadly heights, taking short breaks to catch their breath and distracting their minds from the gruesome task ahead by watching the Bofors shots whistling above their heads and smashing on the rocks.

  The next morning

  The darkness was slowly peeling away under the lukewarm rays of the rising sun. The men had climbed through the night but were still 250 m from Area Flat Top and now visible to the Pakistani soldiers on Pimple 1 and Pimple 2, who had started firing at them. The soldiers of 17 Jat were facing the same problem. While they were not visible from Pimple 1 and 2 (the heights they were climbing), the enemy at Pt. 4875 could see them and had opened crossfire on them.

  The 13 JAK Rif. took shelter behind South Spur, a small hump where they were protected from the fire. But they were still 150 m from the first enemy position and under continuous machinegun fire. The enemy’s guns would stop firing only for about a minute—each time a rocket launcher hit their sangar and the soldiers went down to shelter from the deadly rock splintering around them. It was decided that the Indian team would take advantage of that one-minute lull; a leading section of one JCO and 10 other
ranks would cover the 150 m running to reach the enemy position. Rifleman Sanjay Kumar and Rifleman Najinder volunteered to lead.

  The next time a shell hit Pt. 4875 and the enemy machine guns stopped firing for a minute, the two soldiers ran across the jagged rock-face, guns in hand. When the enemy soldiers re-emerged from their bunker, they had no idea that the Indians were already sitting a few feet away, waiting for an opportune moment to attack. Crouched right under the enemy bunker, Sanjay Kumar and Najinder Singh could feel their own hearts beat. Over their heads, there were two enemy machine guns shooting almost continuously. If Sanjay wanted he could stretch an arm and touch either, he thought. And that was how the fantastic idea came to him.

  Sanjay makes eye contact with Najinder and nods. Najinder pulls the pin from the grenade in his hand and, with his arm arching in a slow semi-circle, lobs it inside the enemy bunker. There is an evil hiss, a blast, the familiar smell of cordite and then cries of pain as the bunker erupts in the grey foggy afternoon.

  Sanjay keeps his head down until the sharp rocks around him have stopped splintering. His face an emotionless mask, he reaches out for the enemy machinegun closest to him and with his bandaged hands protecting him from the burning metal, he pulls it down and flings it on the rocks below. He then turns to the second gun. Najinder Singh notices that the bandages around Sanjay’s hands have started smoking and are coiling around his fingers like twisted black snakes but Sanjay is oblivious. He reaches for his AK-47, whips it off his shoulder and turns it into the gap from where he has pulled out the guns. Three Pakistani soldiers are standing in the smoke-filled sangar, paralysed by fear and shock. Around them lie guns, grenades and a large stock of ammunition. From the corner of his eye, he spots half-a-dozen bodies piled up at the other end. One of the men is trying to reach for a gun. Sanjay presses the trigger. A volley of gunfire dances across, splattering the rocks with a spray of warm blood, and the three men who had manned the first sangar of Pt. 4875 drop down one after the other.

  The soldier with the soot-covered fingers keeps firing and only after he is convinced that the men are all dead does he look at his grubby hands and wipes them on his dirty, threadbare trouser front. Fourteen years later, he will very humbly tell a writer that there was no special bravery involved. He was just doing what any other soldier in his place would have done under the circumstances. He would wear the PVC ribbon proudly on his uniform, but be embarrassed by the attention it brought him, insisting that every single soldier in his attack team was as brave as he was. Yet he would wear a medal that very few people have worn live so far. A medal that even the Chief of Army Staff gets up to salute. Even if it hangs on the shirtfront of a 23-year-old foot soldier.

  After the Indian soldiers have taken over the first sangar, they move to the second. They are unaware that, anticipating an attack, the enemy soldiers have climbed out of their bunker and have taken up positions further up the mountain from where they will target the Indians at point-blank range. All of the Indians are shot at. Two of them will never rise again. Naib Subedar Ramesh Singh survives but he is not destined to live long. He will come back alive but meet his end in Kashmir soon after. Sanjay Kumar is the one who embraces life despite three bullets in his leg and two in his hip. He and his surviving comrades lie back on the rocks and pretend to be dead.

  The enemy soldiers aim 15 minutes ofcontinuous fire at them and then, presuming them dead, start climbing down to the third sangar, which is further down the slope. This is when Sanjay Kumar and his mates make a superhuman effort. Despite their injuries, they storm the next sangar. They find it deserted except for dead bodies and unused ammunition. They turn the enemy’s machinegun at the fleeing soldiers and shoot them in cold blood before they can reach the safety of the third bunker.

  When they take final stock of the captured area, they find 15 bodies of Pakistani soldiers, a large cache of arms and ammunition, snow huts and tents. They sit down, bleeding from their injuries, using their first-aid kits, waiting for help to reach them. By 5. 30 pm, the unit doctor reaches the bunkers. He gives the men painkillers and first aid. The rest of the team helps the injured to climb down to the base since the heights are too dangerous for stretchers to be used.

  It takes Sanjay Kumar the entire night to hobble down. It is 9. 30 a. m. when he reaches the Mushkoh valley from where an ambulance takes him to the field hospital at Ghumri. There are still five bullets lodged in his body; miraculously, none of them has touched his bones or vital organs. What amazes the doctors even more is that he is conscious and walking despite the unbearable pain and blood loss. After the bullets are taken out and his wounds stitched up, a helicopter shifts him to the military hospital at Srinagar. The nurse on duty is surprised that despite being bone tired he will not close his eyes. He doesn’t tell her that he has seen his friends shot and dying in front of his eyes. He has killed men he never knew. He has pulled out burning guns with his hands. He has walked with bullets lodged in his body. He has suffered a degree of pain that will haunt him for life. He has scars that will remind him of a war fought on a cold, craggy ridge where mere mortals went beyond the natural instinct for self-preservation to fulfil their duty towards their country.

  It takes him some time to accept that after more than a month ofdodging death on a freezing mountain, his life is not at risk, he has no enemy to vanquish, his mind is without fear. He lets his mind take him to his old parents who live in the small Bhakhra- water encircled village of Bakain in Himachal Pradesh, where he ran across the green fields as a little boy. Under the influence of a heavy sedative and painkillers, he finally closes his eyes to the horrors of war and drifts offto sleep.

  Sanjay Kumar was born on 3 March 1976 in Bakaingaon near Bilaspur, Himachal Pradesh, a small village with a population of 650, where the forces are a popular career choice. He was the youngest in his family, born after three sisters and two brothers. His father was a farmer who managed to make just enough to feed and clothe his family and send his children to school.

  Sanjay started going to the Kalol High School, about a kilometre from his village, when he was in class one and continued to go there till he had completed his tenth standard. Since his elder brother was in the ITBP and his father’s brother in the Army, Sanjay also wanted to join the armed forces. In 1994, after completing class 10, he went to Delhi to learn to drive a taxi. For some time, he earned money driving taxis but he also kept checking for Army recruitment drives. In January 1996, he got selected at a recruitment rally in Jabalpur and was enrolled in the Army as a soldier and sent to 13 JAK Rif. Sanjay Kumar’s regiment had completed its CI Ops (counter-insurgency operations) tenure in Sopore, Kashmir, and was on its way to Shahjahanpur when the war broke out with Kargil. He was amongst those sent to fight in Dras and the Mushkoh valley.

  ‘Sometimes, the afternoon when we attacked the enemy sangar flashes before my eyes and my skin breaks out into goosebumps. But most days, I don’t think about it. There was nothing special about me. I was like any other boy who grew up in a village. I was never brave till I joined the Army. It was my training that gave me the courage to do what I did. Any other soldier in my place would have done the same, ‘ says Sanjay, closing the last in a series of interviews with polite finality.

  I have already made him late for lunch and he will have to hurry since he cannot reach his afternoon duties late. ‘Ab mujhe jana hoga, jawan mera intezaar kar rahe honge,’ (I will have to leave, the soldiers must be waiting for me) he says apologetically. He doesn’t wait to hear my ‘thank you’.

  Based on conversations with Hav Sanjay Kumar, PVC.

  Vikram Batra

  It takes a one-and-half-hour flight out of Delhi and then as much time by road to drive from Kangra airport to Bandla Gaon in Palampur, Himachal Pradesh. The snow-covered Dhauladhar ranges appear and disappear at bends in the winding road and dazzle you with their magnificence. And the fragrant white roses that dot the airport and make the tourists gasp in pleasure follow you all the way to Vikram Batra Bhawan,
where the late Captain Vikram Batra’s old parents stay in a bright-yellow-walled bungalow. There, they stop and bloom outside the room where an oil portrait of Capt. Batra hangs on a wall. His father sits before it, draped in a pashmina shawl, asking his wife to get you a hot cup of tea, or lay the table for lunch or just corroborate what he is saying from the confines of her bedroom where she is reading the local newspaper.

  On the narrow, meandering path that crosses lush green tea gardens on one side and lazy market-places on the other it is not difficult to get directions to the Param Vir Chakra (PVC) awardee’s house. All you have to do is mention his name and young boys with wispy moustaches, old men with doddering gait, spectacled tailors with scissors in their hands and schoolgirls with red-ribboned plaits happily guide you with words and gestures of the hand. You don’t really need the address that the gravelly voice of Mr Girdhari Lal Batra,

  Vikram’s father, has painstakingly spelled out for you a day ago.

  Not very many years back, a little boy with a puff in his hair and a twinkle in his eye roamed these very walkways, often alongside his identical twin. Luv and Kush. That was what their mother called them. They didn’t have a television set at home and would slip their feet into their rubber slippers so they could sneak out of their house to Nisha Didi’s next door so they could watch the TV serial Param Vir Chakra which aired on Sunday mornings at 10 a. m. The twins would be shiny- eyed and open-mouthed marvelling at the bravery of the men who had been awarded free India’s highest gallantry medal. Afterwards, lost in conversation about just how brave the heroes in uniform had been and just how awesome the PVC was, they would walk back home.