The Brave: Param Vir Chakra Stories

by Rachna Bisht Rawat

  One of the twins would actually hold the medal in his hand one day. The other wouldn’t, but he would be the one responsible for getting it home—this boy was the feistier of the twins. His name was Luv. The same Luv, whose house a writer would come looking for nearly three decades later. By then he would have become Capt. Vikram Batra, the 24-year-old soldier who fought for his country on the rocky mountains of Kashmir and died trying to save another soldier.

  When she was blessed with twins after the birth of two daughters, Kamal Kanta would wonder sometimes why she had been given two sons when she had asked for just one. ‘Now I know. One of them was meant for the country and one for us,’ she would later say. All she has of Vikram are portraits and pictures and medals and memories that she is happy to share.

  She remembers the day a colleague at the school where she used to teach had told her that she had spotted Vikram at the hospital. Panicking, she had rushed there to find him with a few cuts and bruises on his body, smiling broadly. He had jumped out of the moving school bus when the door had opened suddenly at a steep turn and a little girl had lost her balance and fallen off. When his upset mother had asked him why he had been so foolhardy, he had told her he was worried that the girl would come under another bus.

  Right from his childhood, Vikram was bold and fearless and always ready to help a person in need. Another time, he ran from pillar to post trying to get a gas cylinder for a new teacher in the school. The teacher had just moved to Palampur and asked for Vikram’s help when he had just not been able to manage one despite all efforts. Vikram promised him that he would get him a cylinder by evening and had kept his word, carting it all the way to the teacher’s house in an auto- rickshaw from the market.

  In addition to his gregarious nature—he had a vast circle of friends—his inclination to help any and everyone and his happy temperament, Vikram was brilliant at studies and a national-level table tennis player. He was judged the best NCC Air Wing cadet for North Zone. He had even received a call letter from the merchant navy, and got all his uniforms stitched, but at the last moment decided not to join, telling his beleaguered father that his dream was to become an Army officer.

  He took admission in Chandigarh, prepared for the combined defence services exam and got through just as he had promised his parents. The Batras went for his passing- out parade. They were thrilled to see their handsome son in uniform and wondered just how high he would go. They didn’t know then that a few years later, the then Chief of Army Staff, General Ved Prakash Malik would sit in their house and tell them that if Vikram had not been martyred in Kargil, he would have been sitting in his office one day. It would make Mr Batra’s chest fill with pride in spite of the tears threatening to spill over.

  Yeh dil mange more!

  13 Jammu and Kashmir Rifles (JAK Rif. ) had completed its Kashmir tenure and the advance party had reached Shahjahanpur, its new location, when it was recalled because war had broken out. After crossing the Zoji La Pass and halting at Ghumri for acclimatization, it was placed under 56 Brigade and asked to reach Dras to be the reserve of 56 Brigade for the capture of Tololing. 18 Grenadiers had tried to get Tololing in the initial days of the conflict but had suffered heavy casualties. Eventually, 2 Rajputana Rifles had got Tololing back.

  After the capture, the men of 13 JAK Rif. walked for 12 hours from Dras to reach Tololing where Alpha Company took over Tololing and a portion of the Hump Complex from 18 Grenadiers. It was at the Hump Complex that commanding officer (CO) Lieutenant Colonel Yogesh Joshi sat in the cover of massive rocks and briefed the two young officers he had tasked with the capture of Pt. 5140, the most formidable feature in the Dras sub-sector. They could see the peak right in front with enemy bunkers at the top but from that distance they could not make out the enemy strength. To Lt Vikram Batra of Delta Company and Lt Sanjeev Jamwal of Bravo Company, that didn’t matter. They were raring to go.

  Col Joshi had decided that these would be the two assaulting companies that would climb up under cover of darkness from different directions and dislodge the enemy. The two young officers were listening to him quietly as he spoke. Having briefed both, he asked them what the success signals of their companies would be once they had completed their tasks. Jamwal immediately replied that his success signal would be: ‘Oh! Yeah, yeah, yeah!’ He said that when he was in the National Defence Academy, he belonged to the Hunter Squadron, and this used to be their slogan. Lt Col Joshi then turned to Vikram and asked him what his signal would be. Vikram thought for a while and then said it would be: ‘Yeh dil mange more!’ (This heart wants more!)

  Despite the seriousness of the task at hand, his CO could not suppress a smile and asked him why. Full of confidence and enthusiasm, Vikram replied that he would not want to stop after that one success and would be on the lookout for more bunkers to capture.

  Capture of Point 5140

  It was a pitch-dark night. Lt Col Yogesh Joshi was sitting at the base of the hump from where preparatory bombardment of Pt. 5140 had commenced. He was trying to make out the movement of his troops he knew would be climbing up under cover of darkness. The Indian artillery had plastered the entire feature with high explosives. For a long time, it appeared as if the mountain was on fire and Joshi hoped that the enemy on top was dead. His hopes were, however, dashed very quickly. The Pakistanis had occupied reverse slope positions when the Indian artillery was pounding them and had now returned to fire at the Indian soldiers climbing up. From time to time, Joshi would see flashes on the dark mountain. From that he would know that the enemy was firing at his men and also just where the two teams had reached.

  The enemy had also started using artillery illumination at regular intervals, which lit up the entire area for about 40 seconds. This was done to spot the climbing Indian soldiers. Joshi hoped that his boys were following the standard drill, which was that everyone freezes and tries to blend into the surroundings when the area lights up like daylight. Movement would make them visible.

  Suddenly, his radio set came alive and he could make out the voice of a Pakistani soldier. He was challenging Batra, whose code name Sher Shah the enemy had intercepted. ‘Sher Shah, go back with your men, or else only your bodies will go down.’ The radio set crackled and then he heard Batra reply, his voice pitched high in excitement: ‘Wait for an hour and then we’ll see who goes back alive.’ At 3. 30 a. m., the CO’s radio set crackled again. ‘Oh! Yeah, yeah, yeah!’ It was Jamwal signalling that his part of the peak had been captured. Batra and his team were taking longer since they were climbing up the steeper incline.

  The next one hour was to be one of the longest for Lt Col Joshi. He could hear gunfire and see the flash of gunpowder, but had no idea what was happening at Pt. 5140. Finally, at 4. 35 a. m., in the cold of the darkness, his radio set beeped again and he heard the now-famous words: ‘Yeh dil mange more!’ It was Batra. He and his men had captured the peak and unfurled the Tricolour there. What was most amazing was that in this attack, the Indian side did not suffer a single casualty.

  After coming down, Batra would call his parents on the satellite phone. For a moment, his father would stop breathing because he would just hear ‘captured’ and feel that he had been captured. But then the laughing soldier would clarify that he had actually captured an enemy post. He would then call his girlfriend Dimple in Chandigarh and tell her not to worry. He was fine and she should take care of herself. That was the last time he would speak to her.

  Vikram’s next assignment would be Pt. 4875, from where he would not come back alive but he would leave Dimple with memories she was willing to spend a lifetime with. The battalion was de-inducted from Dras to Ghumri to rest and recoup. Less than a week later, they moved to Mushkoh. This was where greater glory was in store for Vikram.

  Chandigarh, 2013

  Dimple is a pretty, smiling 40-year-old, who works with a Punjab State Education Board school in Chandigarh. She teaches social studies and English to the students of classes 6-10. Till 3. 30 p. m., she is busy
with the children, taking classes, checking test papers, planning the next day’s lessons. She has no time to even take a phone call. But after she gets back home and sits down with a cup of tea, she confesses that in the past 14 years, not a day has passed when she has not thought of Vikram.

  Chandigarh is full of his memories for her, she says. ‘When I pass the bus stop I remember how I would drop him there so that he could catch a bus to wherever he was going; when I’m in the University I remember how I first noticed him when he came and sat between me and a guy who was trying to get uncomfortably close and subtly told me to move from there. When I’m in the Nada Saheb gurudwara I remember how he tailed me in a parikrama (circumambulation) and then called out: “Congratulations, Mrs Batra, we have completed the fourth phera (circle) and, according to your Sikh religion, we are now man and wife. “ When I’m near Pinjore gardens I remember how before going to Kashmir he took a blade from his wallet, cut his thumb and put a streak of blood in my parting to dispel all my insecurities about whether he would marry me or not... ‘

  Dimple and Vikram were college sweethearts. They had only attended a few months of classes together at Punjab University when Vikram left to join the Indian Military Academy. They kept in touch and decided to get married. Had Vikram come back from the Kargil War that was the plan. Only he didn’t. Instead, Dimple got a phone call from a friend saying Vikram had suffered a terrible injury and she should call his parents. When she rushed to Palampur, she saw a coffin bearing his body, surrounded by a crowd of media and local people. More than 25, 000 had collected for his funeral, not just from Palampur, but also from the nearby towns of Baijnath, Paprola and Nagrota.

  ‘I didn’t go closer because there was too much media there and I didn’t want to break down and create a scene. ‘ She watched quietly from a distance holding her brother’s hand. Vikram’s parents noticed the girl in salwar-kameez standing in the crowd but they were too upset to find out who she was.

  Dimple returned to Chandigarh and decided she would rather live with his memories than get married to someone else. ‘He was a wonderful, fun-loving guy. He was very handsome. He loved to do things for people, but why I miss his so much is because he was my best friend. I could tell him my innermost feelings and he would understand,’ she says.

  Sometimes when she accidentally looks at the clock and it shows 7. 30 p. m. on a Wednesday, or on a Sunday, Dimple’s heart still misses a beat. For nearly four years, till he went to war from where he did not return, that was the scheduled time for Vikram to call her without fail, irrespective of where he was. ‘He could be in Palampur, Dehradun, Sopore or Delhi but the call would come and I would always stay around the phone so that I could pick it up before my father did, ‘ she remembers with a wistful smile.

  The telephone no longer rings for her at that allotted time and, even if it does, that familiar voice is no longer there. He would have called but they don’t have telephone connectivity where he has gone now.

  The Last Victory

  7 July 1999

  The wind was like a knife—cold and sharp—and Capt. Vikram Batra, who had been promoted after his first assault in June, knew it could slice the skin right offhis cheekbones. To an extent, it already had.

  That was why he and his 25 men from Delta Company, 13 JAK Rif., blended in so well with the barren landscape. Their grey, sunburnt faces with unkempt beards and tissue peeling off under the wind’s painful whipping merged perfectly with the massive boulders behind which they were taking cover. Pt. 4875 was still 70 metres away and their task had been to reach that ridge, storm the enemy and occupy the post before daylight. Unfortunately, the evacuation of Capt. Navin, who had a badly injured leg, had taken time and it was already first light. Through the night the men had been climbing the slope with machinegun fire coming almost incessantly from the top of the ridge. Intermittently, their faces would glow in the red light of the Bofors fire that was giving them cover from the base of the Mushkoh valley.

  The morning of 7 July there was a lot of pressure to proceed. Lt Col Joshi spoke to Batra at 5. 30 a. m. and asked him to reconnoitre the area with Subedar Raghunath Singh. Just before the point was a narrow ledge where the enemy soldiers were and it was almost impossible to go ahead. There was no way from the left or right either and, on the spur of the moment, Batra decided that even though it was daylight he and his boys would storm the post in a direct assauLt Setting aside all concerns for personal safety, he assaulted the ledge catching the enemy unawares but they soon opened fire. Though injured, Vikram continued his charge, with supporting fire from the rest of the patrol and reached the mouth of the ledge, giving the Indian Army a foothold on the ledge. This was when he realized that one of his men had been shot.

  Even as he tried to keep his chin down with a shot whistling over his head, his eyes rested on the young soldier who had been hit and was lying in a pool of blood just a few feet away. Till a short while ago he had been crying out in pain. Now he was silent.

  His eyes met those of Sub Raghunath Singh, who was sitting behind a nearby boulder, maintaining an iron grip on his AK-47. ‘Aap aur main usko evacuate karenge,’ (We will evacuate him, you and I) Batra shouted above the din of the flying bullets.

  Raghunath Sahib’s experience told him that the chances of the boy being alive were slim and they shouldn’t be risking their own lives trying to get him from under enemy fire.

  But Batra was unwilling to leave his man. ‘Darte hain, Sahib?’ (Are you afraid, sir?) he taunted the JCO.

  ‘Darta nahin hun, Sahib,’ (I am not afraid, Sir) Raghunath replied and got up.

  Just as he was about to step into the open, Batra caught him by the collar: ‘You have a family and children to go back to, I’m not even married. Main sar ki taraf rahunga aur aap paanv uthayenge,’ (I will take the head and you take his feet) he said pushing the JCO back and taking his place instead. The moment Batra bent to pick up the injured soldier’s head, a sniper shot him in the chest.

  The man who had survived so many bullets, killed men in hand-to-hand combat and cleared bunkers of Pakistani intruders, fearlessly putting his own life at stake so many times, was destined to die from this freak shot.

  When he was in Sopore some time earlier, Batra had had a miraculous escape when a militant’s bullet had grazed his shoulder and hit the man behind him killing him on the spot. He was surprised then. As he lay dying, destiny surprised him yet again. He had plans to follow, he had tasks to achieve, an enemy to vanquish. He was surprised that the bullet had found its mark despite all those unfulfilled duties. Batra gasped in disbelief and collapsed next to the young soldier he had wanted to give a dignified death to. The blood drained out of his body even as his stunned men watched in horror.

  Spurred by Batra’s extreme courage and sacrifice, a squad of10 of his men (each carrying one AK-47 rifle, six magazines and two No. 36 hand grenades) attacked through the ledge, found the Pakistanis making halwa and killed each of the enemy soldiers on top, with zero casualties of their own in that assauLt The fierceness of their attack frightened the Pakistani soldiers so much that many of them ran to the edge and jumped off the cliff, meeting a painful end in the craggy valley.

  Even in his death, Vikram Batra had kept the promise he had made to a friend casually over a cup of tea at Neugal Café in Palampur, on his last visit home. When his friend had cautioned him to be careful in the war, Batra had replied: ‘Either, I will hoist the Tricolour in victory or I’ll come back wrapped in it.’

  A tribute by Vishal Batra

  If I begin with our journey, it started in a small town, Palampur, in the Dhauladhar ranges in district Kangra.

  Luv, as we called Capt Vikram Batra, PVC (Posthumous), and I, Kush, his identical twin (just 14 minutes younger) had a life full of laughter and pranks till we grew up and decided that we wanted to be part of the Indian armed forces.

  How fast time flies. And how all of us don’t get what we want. Luv made it into the Indian Military Academy in March 1996 and I,
rejected thrice by the Service Selection Board, had to settle for a career in management.

  When Vikram visited us during his annual leave, looking tall and handsome in his uniform, I realized how much passion I still had for the forces. With great pride in my eyes I watched my brother marching ahead in life so much faster than we had thought.

  Having got commissioned into 13 JAK Rifles with his first posting in Sopore, Vikram already had some daring face-to-face combat with the enemy in insurgency operations. We knew he was born to fight against the odds.

  It was around the same time that the Kargil War happened and he was asked to move there to help fellow soldiers flush out Pakistani intruders who had entered Indian terrain. The last call Vikram made to Mom and Dad on his movement had given us some jitters, but we always knew that he was a daring officer for whom facing any challenge was a cakewalk. His last statement to one of our friends before proceeding to Kargil that either he would hoist the Tricolour or come back wrapped in it still echoes in our hearts. It showed what iron he was made of.

  It’s been 15 years. A lot has changed and a lot has remained the same. I have many more grey strands in my hair. Vikram remains as youthful as ever. Time cannot touch him. In these 15 years, there has hardly been any day when Vikram has not been spoken about.

  The greatest memory etched in my heart so deep is from way back in 1985 when the Doordarshan-telecast serial Param Vir Chakra. We didn’t have a TV then and would watch at our neighbours’ house. I could never have imagined even in my wildest dreams that the stories we saw in this popular serial would one day become so real for us. Or that Vikram would be the hero. The famous radioed message, from a height of 18, 000 feet, ‘Yeh Dil maange more’, by Vikram caught the fancy of millions of Indians, and they still haven’t forgotten it. Or him.