India it's first military victory in the last 1000 years
A fitting tribute to the man who gave India it's first military victory in the last 1000 years
Finally, a fitting tribute to the man who gave India it's first
military victory in the last 1000 years----Article from The Pioneer.
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Author: Ashok K Mehta
Today at a special ceremony at the Zoroastrian Parsi Cemetary at
Ootacamund, Nilgiris, India’s first Field Marshal and one who bestowed
on the country its first military victory in a thousand years, Sam
Hormusji Framji Jamshedji Manekshaw, will be commemorated by laying
his gravestone next to that of his wife, Siloo.
Rectifying the grave error of not according appropriate protocol on
June 27, 2008, when Field Marshal Manekshaw died at Wellington
Military Hospital, this time Defence Minister AK Antony will be
present. Also attending the wreath-laying ceremony are Chief of Army
Staff General VK Singh; Army chief designate Lt-Gen Bikram Singh;
VCOAS Lt-Gen SK Singh; president of the Gorkha Brigade and from Sam’s
own 8 Gorkha Rifles, and officers of the other two services.
“This is a very private occasion but the Army has been kind to help us
with the military ceremonial which my father always relished,” said
Maja Daruwalla, younger daughter of Sam and Siloo. Sam’s gravestone
bears the inscription: “It is a Life Well Lived” with Siloo’s reading
“Good Thoughts, Good Words, Good Deeds”. The combined inscriptions
encapsulate their lives — well lived and spreading goodwill.
The Government was very niggardly in recognising Sam’s unprecedented
achievements: Stemming the rot in 4 Corps after the catastrophic
debacle in the high Himalayas, Sam saying: “Gentlemen, there will be
no more withdrawals”; deterring the Chinese in Eastern Command during
the 1965 war; and comprehensively defeating the Pakistan Army in East
Pakistan in 1971.
But for Mrs Indira Gandhi, Sam would not have been made a Field
Marshal in 1973 as Defence Minister Jagjivan Ram and the bureaucracy
had opposed it. At the time, the Army had suggested that the Field
Marshal’s appointment should be equated with Bharat Ratna. But this
was turned down. Mrs Gandhi promised to make him the Chief of Defence
Staff, but the offer evaporated mysteriously. He was sent home unsung,
officers being forbidden to see him off in the special train from
Delhi to Coimbatore.
The Government’s loss was the corporate world’s gain. He was on the
board of a dozen private companies like Britannia, Bombay Burma,
Harrison Malyalam, Nagarjuna Fertilisers and the Oberoi Group. A
charismatic personality and gift of the gab made the Field Marshal Sam
Bahadur to his Gorkhas who were with him all the time that he lived
and died in Coonoor.
He won his Military Cross in the Battle of Sittang in 1942 — so
spectacular was his action that GoC 17 Infantry Division Maj Gen Punch
Cowan, thinking his wounds were fatal, pinned his own MC on Sam’s
chest. He was awarded Padma Bhushan in 1968 and after 1971, Padma
Vibhushan. The Padma series of awards for the military was soon
stopped on the advice of the bureaucracy.
His lectures on leadership are stuff of legend and laced with
illustrations from his career and peppered with humour. My favourites
are: “My trouble is, I have too much energy and I don’t know what to
do with it. I keep thanking the almighty for making a man out of me
and not a woman. If I’d been a woman, since I cannot say no, I would
have always been in trouble. I’d either be in the maternity home or on
the pill.” The other: “Whoever says he knows no fear is either lying
or a Gorkha.”
Two years from now, Sam would have turned 100. The Government must
make him a Bharat Ratna as no one deserves it more than he — with a
life well lived!!!
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