I am highly obliged by your kind words of encouragement..ramana wrote:jaysimha your join date shows 20 Dec 2017. And post count 110!!!
You have been most productive new member.
Thanks for your efforts in collating DRDO published info.
Keep up your enthusiasm and don't let it go down.
Without alluding to status equivalence, it is safe to state that the age requirements for commanding a company or battalion are best met now, leaving out the actual war periods. Regarding Lt Cols commanding companies in Infantry or other arms they are few and far in between, since they make a Lt Col in 13 years service and Col in 15 years. The average service of a company commander could be put as 10 years corresponding to an age of 32 years which is very good. Similarly, the average service of a battalion commander is 16 years corresponding to an age of 38 years which is also very good, IMHO.Akshay Kapoor wrote:This has been going on for some time but its become really bad now and is having serious consequences on ops. I don't like talking about it too much as one has to be very careful about demoralizing troops and officers further. But in short, this is the problem:nachiket wrote:x-post from LCA thread
Kapoor saab, this is incredible. Could you elaborate on this phenomenon a bit? Is this a direct result of the officer shortage? Also what practical problems does this create?
As you probably know the bureaucracy over the years has become incredibly powerful in defence matters and have basically set themselves up as the definition of 'civilian control' where as in every other democracy it is the political leadership who have this task. Not only this over successive pay commissions they have downgraded the armed forces in terms of equivalence of rank and thus pay and benefits.
So now the situation is that service chief = a secy to govt of India. But there are 150-250 bureaucrats of the rank of secy to Govt of India and there is only one chief of each service. Take the army - there are at any time about 40-45 k officers in the army and one chief. There about 5000 IAS officers. So the ratio of a secy to total officers is is 250/5000 which is 1:20. The ratio of army officers to COAS 1 : 45,000 !
Let that sink in - 1:20 vs 1:45000
Now as you go down the ranks this becomes worse because almost every IAS officer reaches Additional Secy but just about 10-12 army officers reach the equivalent rank - Army Commander. Now because the pay commission (run by bureaucrats) equates pay to rank and banding over the years the pay of army officers could only be increased if they were given higher ranks. So now a Lt Col does a Major's and sometimes even a Capt's job and of course still earns less than his equivalent in the IAS or IPS (because there are many many anomalies). In fact the worse is that MES (Military Engineering Service) civilian officers who do jobs interchangiby with army officers in the MES and are in the chain of command now get higher pay and perks than their army counterparts who have actually served in field areas and been in combat. In fact they have now refused to serve in the chain of command and a separate set of posts equivalent to Major Generals has been created for them. This is shocking.
Another contributing factor as you pointed out is that obviously because of the shortage of officers there is restriction in number of Majors and Capt so Lt Cols have to do the job.
But more of that later.
Coming back to the issue of Lt Cols commanding companies, the problems are :
1. They are older and less physically fit for the job which is a young mans job. Same problem with our COs who are Cols instead of Lt Cols in the Pak army. Sop our COs are much older than Pak. This is only compensated with the fact that Pak COs don't lead but this is a huge operational problem for us.
2. The aukaad of a Col in India is nothing. He is like a leper in the govt. But the aukad of his equiavlent SSP or IAS officer is great. And the aukaad of the Paki Lt Col we all know is great. So what happens - deep demoralization. He does not have the authority to help the troops when they go on leave and find their land stolen by local mafia (often in league with police), or some dispute with family on land etc. In the old days (my dads time CO would write a letter and it was enough for DC or SSP to help). Today (and its been the case for some time) they don't even do that because they know the DC and SSP will laught it away. This reduces the confidence that troops have. After all CO is the father of the batallion/regt and is supposed to solve all problems. But when he can do nothing his aura reduces. This erodes the basic ethos and the magic of the army. Army can fight with INSAS and old weapons but we cannot survive the loss of the ethos. And neither can the nation.
3. At Company Commander level the problem is worse. CO Coy is a young man's job and you can well imagine the problems it creates in an army here officers lead from the front. They have older families, almost all are married and when casualties happen there are more lives that get hurt. That's why subconsciously they tend to be more cautious and take lesser risks.
4. A corollary of that is they also refer everything up to CO. Command is eroded if its not exercised. Its like butter - either use it or it melts away. Command needs to be excercised not refered up all the time. This is creating big problems of initiative. And CO gets overburdened doing jobs a Major should be doing.
5. Troops also realise that officer has less authority and this hurts their morale too.
Its a big problem and I have been saying this for years.
Akshay Kapoor wrote:This has been going on for some time but its become really bad now and is having serious consequences on ops. I don't like talking about it too much as one has to be very careful about demoralizing troops and officers further. But in short, this is the problem:nachiket wrote:x-post from LCA thread
Kapoor saab, this is incredible. Could you elaborate on this phenomenon a bit? Is this a direct result of the officer shortage? Also what practical problems does this create?
As you probably know the bureaucracy over the years has become incredibly powerful in defence matters and have basically set themselves up as the definition of 'civilian control' where as in every other democracy it is the political leadership who have this task. Not only this over successive pay commissions they have downgraded the armed forces in terms of equivalence of rank and thus pay and benefits.
So now the situation is that service chief = a secy to govt of India. But there are 150-250 bureaucrats of the rank of secy to Govt of India and there is only one chief of each service. Take the army - there are at any time about 40-45 k officers in the army and one chief. There about 5000 IAS officers. So the ratio of a secy to total officers is is 250/5000 which is 1:20. The ratio of army officers to COAS 1 : 45,000 !
Let that sink in - 1:20 vs 1:45000
Now as you go down the ranks this becomes worse because almost every IAS officer reaches Additional Secy but just about 10-12 army officers reach the equivalent rank - Army Commander. Now because the pay commission (run by bureaucrats) equates pay to rank and banding over the years the pay of army officers could only be increased if they were given higher ranks. So now a Lt Col does a Major's and sometimes even a Capt's job and of course still earns less than his equivalent in the IAS or IPS (because there are many many anomalies). In fact the worse is that MES (Military Engineering Service) civilian officers who do jobs interchangiby with army officers in the MES and are in the chain of command now get higher pay and perks than their army counterparts who have actually served in field areas and been in combat. In fact they have now refused to serve in the chain of command and a separate set of posts equivalent to Major Generals has been created for them. This is shocking.
Another contributing factor as you pointed out is that obviously because of the shortage of officers there is restriction in number of Majors and Capt so Lt Cols have to do the job.
But more of that later.
Coming back to the issue of Lt Cols commanding companies, the problems are :
1. They are older and less physically fit for the job which is a young mans job. Same problem with our COs who are Cols instead of Lt Cols in the Pak army. Sop our COs are much older than Pak. This is only compensated with the fact that Pak COs don't lead but this is a huge operational problem for us.
2. The aukaad of a Col in India is nothing. He is like a leper in the govt. But the aukad of his equiavlent SSP or IAS officer is great. And the aukaad of the Paki Lt Col we all know is great. So what happens - deep demoralization. He does not have the authority to help the troops when they go on leave and find their land stolen by local mafia (often in league with police), or some dispute with family on land etc. In the old days (my dads time CO would write a letter and it was enough for DC or SSP to help). Today (and its been the case for some time) they don't even do that because they know the DC and SSP will laught it away. This reduces the confidence that troops have. After all CO is the father of the batallion/regt and is supposed to solve all problems. But when he can do nothing his aura reduces. This erodes the basic ethos and the magic of the army. Army can fight with INSAS and old weapons but we cannot survive the loss of the ethos. And neither can the nation.
3. At Company Commander level the problem is worse. CO Coy is a young man's job and you can well imagine the problems it creates in an army here officers lead from the front. They have older families, almost all are married and when casualties happen there are more lives that get hurt. That's why subconsciously they tend to be more cautious and take lesser risks.
4. A corollary of that is they also refer everything up to CO. Command is eroded if its not exercised. Its like butter - either use it or it melts away. Command needs to be excercised not refered up all the time. This is creating big problems of initiative. And CO gets overburdened doing jobs a Major should be doing.
5. Troops also realise that officer has less authority and this hurts their morale too.
Its a big problem and I have been saying this for years.
The material for the three bailey bridges that the army is constructing in the city has arrived from a war store on the India-China border, very close to Doklam, the site of last year's 73-day standoff between India and China. The material for the foot over-bridges (FOBs)—to come up at Elphinstone Road-Parel, Currey Road and Ambivli stations—arrived by train on January 6 .
The bridges will have the capacity to carry eight tonnes' load—they can carry all types of vehicles except the army tank—and will be made up of high-carbon steel that can last for more than 50 years.
Brigadier Dheeraj Mohan, commandant, Bombay Engineering Group and Centre, said, "The bridges will be sturdy. For example, there is bridge built in 1993 in Leh where there is heavy snowfall for six months but it is still strong." Bailey bridge was developed by the British during World War II.
"The cost of the Elphinstone Road-Parel FOB is Rs 8 crore, which is 30-40% higher than what the railways' would have spent had they done it themselves. The cost is more as the work had to be completed on an urgent basis," he added.
Just answer thesenam wrote:Let me ask uncomfortable question, from a person who is not aware of government ways of doing things.
Why do Indian army officers need to compare themselves with a useless bunch of 5000 people? I can understand at a IA chief level, he deals with IAS on a daily basis, so it might effect decision making. But why would, say a major general or a brigadier worry about some joker has a higher grade or pay?
In terms of respect thousands will line up the streets to pay respect to a fallen soldier. They become heroes and legend for future generations.
Not a panwala will come to see a dead IAS.
Yes we want our officers to well paid, however the reality is that a 50k strong organisation will not have the same payscale as 5k organisation. I am for reducing IAS perks and salary to half of what they are paid, however the money saved may not even give 20% increment to defense officer corps, purely because of the size.
Maintaining a 1.3 army is not cheap and like every other nation we have to balance defence with what we can afford. This is the bitter reality.
Regarding power of IAS, agree needs to curtailed. This can only be done by service members joining politics in large numbers. There is no point complaining on the sidelines. Babus respect political power.
You are talking about a bunch of people who treat Indian citizen as piece of garbage. Are you expecting them to treat defence forces differently?chetak wrote:Just answer thesenam wrote:Let me ask uncomfortable question, from a person who is not aware of government ways of doing things.
Why do Indian army officers need to compare themselves with a useless bunch of 5000 people? I can understand at a IA chief level, he deals with IAS on a daily basis, so it might effect decision making. But why would, say a major general or a brigadier worry about some joker has a higher grade or pay?
In terms of respect thousands will line up the streets to pay respect to a fallen soldier. They become heroes and legend for future generations.
Not a panwala will come to see a dead IAS.
Yes we want our officers to well paid, however the reality is that a 50k strong organisation will not have the same payscale as 5k organisation. I am for reducing IAS perks and salary to half of what they are paid, however the money saved may not even give 20% increment to defense officer corps, purely because of the size.
Maintaining a 1.3 army is not cheap and like every other nation we have to balance defence with what we can afford. This is the bitter reality.
Regarding power of IAS, agree needs to curtailed. This can only be done by service members joining politics in large numbers. There is no point complaining on the sidelines. Babus respect political power.
Why do IAS, IPS and other unrelated govt baboo(n)s need to assert their status and authority over the IA??
Don't they have their own effing jobs to do, without poking their noses into the affairs of the IA??
Or have all these morons purposely misunderstood the meaning of "civilian authority" over the IA??
Which part of the constitution defines the IAS/IPS baboo(n) as "civilian authority"??
or like our great philandering bharat ratna PM, are they still petrified of an army coup??
whose father what goes, if the IA has equivalent status??
Are they going to refuse to do their duty in cashmere/elsewhere if their status is restored??
Would assume its a radar listening post?abhik wrote:^^^
Any idea as to exactly what type of "military infrastructure" are we talking of? I have been hearing of foreign military bases since for ever, in Ayani (Tajikistan), Oman and where not - Bi I'm yet to see any evidence of real military power being deployed out of India's borders.
You have missed the point by a country mile. No matter.nam wrote:You are talking about a bunch of people who treat Indian citizen as piece of garbage. Are you expecting them to treat defence forces differently?chetak wrote:
Just answer these
Why do IAS, IPS and other unrelated govt baboo(n)s need to assert their status and authority over the IA??
Don't they have their own effing jobs to do, without poking their noses into the affairs of the IA??
Or have all these morons purposely misunderstood the meaning of "civilian authority" over the IA??
Which part of the constitution defines the IAS/IPS baboo(n) as "civilian authority"??
or like our great philandering bharat ratna PM, are they still petrified of an army coup??
whose father what goes, if the IA has equivalent status??
Are they going to refuse to do their duty in cashmere/elsewhere if their status is restored??
So civilians and services are in the same boat with respect to babus. We all are treated as cr**p. As I said there is no point complaining about it. They can only be curbed by political power. This is why services after retirement should actively join politics.
Gen VK Singh is a perfect example. A babu who would have filed the dob case in the court, would probably be the first person to open his car door now, to make he is not in trouble.
Gen vk Singh understood the importance of being in the system to change it. Hope others realise as well.
why was there so much of utter panic at the "news" of an attempted coup by Gen VK Singh, spread by a house nigger like shekar coupta??nam wrote:Unless there is something specific, the answer to all your questions is simple: Power.
They can bypass rules, becoz they make the rules.
Babus are the establishment. Not GOI which gets elected every 5 years.
And I answered what needs to be done to remove them from power. Not sure what else could be the answer.
I am afraid you are wrong. Companies are indeed commanded by Lt Cols - in any battalion/regt atelast 50% of Coy Cdrs will be Lt Colsnelson wrote:Without alluding to status equivalence, it is safe to state that the age requirements for commanding a company or battalion are best met now, leaving out the actual war periods. Regarding Lt Cols commanding companies in Infantry or other arms they are few and far in between, since they make a Lt Col in 13 years service and Col in 15 years. The average service of a company commander could be put as 10 years corresponding to an age of 32 years which is very good. Similarly, the average service of a battalion commander is 16 years corresponding to an age of 38 years which is also very good, IMHO.Akshay Kapoor wrote:
This has been going on for some time but its become really bad now and is having serious consequences on ops. I don't like talking about it too much as one has to be very careful about demoralizing troops and officers further. But in short, this is the problem:
As you probably know the bureaucracy over the years has become incredibly powerful in defence matters and have basically set themselves up as the definition of 'civilian control' where as in every other democracy it is the political leadership who have this task. Not only this over successive pay commissions they have downgraded the armed forces in terms of equivalence of rank and thus pay and benefits.
So now the situation is that service chief = a secy to govt of India. But there are 150-250 bureaucrats of the rank of secy to Govt of India and there is only one chief of each service. Take the army - there are at any time about 40-45 k officers in the army and one chief. There about 5000 IAS officers. So the ratio of a secy to total officers is is 250/5000 which is 1:20. The ratio of army officers to COAS 1 : 45,000 !
Let that sink in - 1:20 vs 1:45000
Now as you go down the ranks this becomes worse because almost every IAS officer reaches Additional Secy but just about 10-12 army officers reach the equivalent rank - Army Commander. Now because the pay commission (run by bureaucrats) equates pay to rank and banding over the years the pay of army officers could only be increased if they were given higher ranks. So now a Lt Col does a Major's and sometimes even a Capt's job and of course still earns less than his equivalent in the IAS or IPS (because there are many many anomalies). In fact the worse is that MES (Military Engineering Service) civilian officers who do jobs interchangiby with army officers in the MES and are in the chain of command now get higher pay and perks than their army counterparts who have actually served in field areas and been in combat. In fact they have now refused to serve in the chain of command and a separate set of posts equivalent to Major Generals has been created for them. This is shocking.
Another contributing factor as you pointed out is that obviously because of the shortage of officers there is restriction in number of Majors and Capt so Lt Cols have to do the job.
But more of that later.
Coming back to the issue of Lt Cols commanding companies, the problems are :
1. They are older and less physically fit for the job which is a young mans job. Same problem with our COs who are Cols instead of Lt Cols in the Pak army. Sop our COs are much older than Pak. This is only compensated with the fact that Pak COs don't lead but this is a huge operational problem for us.
2. The aukaad of a Col in India is nothing. He is like a leper in the govt. But the aukad of his equiavlent SSP or IAS officer is great. And the aukaad of the Paki Lt Col we all know is great. So what happens - deep demoralization. He does not have the authority to help the troops when they go on leave and find their land stolen by local mafia (often in league with police), or some dispute with family on land etc. In the old days (my dads time CO would write a letter and it was enough for DC or SSP to help). Today (and its been the case for some time) they don't even do that because they know the DC and SSP will laught it away. This reduces the confidence that troops have. After all CO is the father of the batallion/regt and is supposed to solve all problems. But when he can do nothing his aura reduces. This erodes the basic ethos and the magic of the army. Army can fight with INSAS and old weapons but we cannot survive the loss of the ethos. And neither can the nation.
3. At Company Commander level the problem is worse. CO Coy is a young man's job and you can well imagine the problems it creates in an army here officers lead from the front. They have older families, almost all are married and when casualties happen there are more lives that get hurt. That's why subconsciously they tend to be more cautious and take lesser risks.
4. A corollary of that is they also refer everything up to CO. Command is eroded if its not exercised. Its like butter - either use it or it melts away. Command needs to be excercised not refered up all the time. This is creating big problems of initiative. And CO gets overburdened doing jobs a Major should be doing.
5. Troops also realise that officer has less authority and this hurts their morale too.
Its a big problem and I have been saying this for years.
You don't seem to have much knowledge of how our government is structured and how the country works on ground level. All government works on equivalence of status (by constitution). Class 1 officers across all cadres are equivalent to IAS. IDSE (Indian Defence Service of Engineers) ie MES is also equivalent to IAS, so is IRSE (Indian Railway Service of Engineers) , Indian Defence Service and even Indian Forest Service. And obviously IPS and IPS and Customs and Central Excise. Everything in government is based on rank equivalence and that leads to pay etc. Aukad is crucial in a country where nothing works. Why because if you want to get something done (say your house has been looted) whether you can get the state machinery to work depends on your aukad. Armed forces in India have less aukad than any all India service - they cannot get anything done. Armed forces have been asking for their own pay commission for decades and it was promised last pay commission but it did not come through. In fact there was an attempt by IAS to make armed forces class 2 officers instead of class 1 officers. It has recently been shot down.CalvinH wrote:Comparison with IAS is not right. May be true for bits and pieces but the argument is not valid as whole. Plus the comparison of what is the Aukaad (t) is wrong at many levels.
Yes, the social mileage and prestige that Army officers used to enjoy is coming down. This is part and parcel of a growing economy where comparison metric is financial status, or ability to achieve a particular financial status.
The simplified answer to correct the imbalance is to bring down the hyper inflated powers of Babus. Plus finding ways to generate more respect and admiration about our armed forces in general population. This will compensate for lack of balance that our armed force personnel are feeling vis-a-vis their civilian counterparts. A simple act of people offering the armed forces guy to move up in the queue is an example of this respect.
Plus we need to find ways to provide a fitting post retirement career path for Armed forces officers.
PS: The ratio 1:20 is only correct if Secy level officer manages only IAS officers. Thats not the case. If you count the Gazetted level officers and above under a secretary the ratio will go up substantially. Also The secy level officers would be <100. Not all of them are IAS though majority of them will be from IAS.
Electrical, He took part in the raid on Karachi in 71.Akshay Kapoor wrote:What branch of Navy is your dad from btw
Cant stress this enough. Its not just a job. Its not a heroic movie. Its a task of human butchery against animals who fight back ferociously to the best of their ability. We need to respect the warriors among us, they have taken on a terrible burden.Akshay Kapoor wrote:Navy and Air Force ethos is a little different. Air Force only officers fight and in Navy there is no contact fighting (except Marcos). In the army its close in and contact. You have to motivate someone to go in face of sometimes highly certain death. A very high level of leadership is needed.
Deans wrote:Electrical, He took part in the raid on Karachi in 71.Akshay Kapoor wrote:What branch of Navy is your dad from btw
Killers ! What an offensive action. That was sheer brilliance and sheer aggression. Many moons ago (too many) as a little kid I had the best fish fingers ever on a missile boat. I think it was Vidyut.chetak wrote:Deans wrote:
Electrical, He took part in the raid on Karachi in 71.
Sir,Akshay Kapoor wrote:Deans, JCOs do command platoons ! There are hardly 7/8 officers posted in a infantry battalion (of which max 4-5 are on hand at any time - others are on courses and leave) against an authorized strength of 19.
At what stage does this occur? For IMA graduates, isn't there posting driven by necessity as much as choice based on merit? For example, even if the graduate chooses an other arm like ASC, won't the fact that the Inf is much shorter staffed be used as a criteria for placement?There is an exodus from the infantry..guess to which arm ?
Sir I dont get this. How are MES guys given higher status. Who gave it to them? Has their own grade equivalency moved upwards vis-a-vis IAS and armed forces ranks.Akshay Kapoor wrote:
Even the MES who are responsible for maintenance of cantonments , house construction etc and work with army officers in the same job and same role, have been given a higher status for doing exactly the same job. How is that fair.
I'll give you a shameful example from my own family. A relative is in the MES (civil employee) and lives in the same colony as army officers. He has a army officer who lives opposite him in the govt accommodation (which incidently is the best quality as MES constructed it for their own staff. Poof infantry officers coming after tenures in Siachen get worse accommodation). Anyway, he (the army officer neighbor) has been sent to Kashmir and his wife and young children are behind in the peace area. They have some boxes lying under the stairs and my relative wants these removed. They lady said 'my husband is in the valley, I don't have any manpower, how can I do it'. My relative threatened to have it thrown out. Sheer arrogance within the 'service' to own colleagues. A few years ago atleast an MES officer would never do it because they work with the army, their bosses are the army and their colleagues are the army. Now they are the bosses without spending a day in a tough posting and compare themselves to IAS/IPS.
When I told my relative he shouldn't have done this and he said 'I dont care, I am equivalent to a xxx rank IPS/IAS officer (he is a civil engineer and his job is build houses) and I don't have time for these xyz people'.
I suggest you go and take a census of all widows of of army officers who have died in the last decade and ask them how they are treated. Then do a census of serving officers's wives and ask them and lastly ask the children of army officers why they dont want to join the army.
If I may hazard a guess, the MES officers issue is due to NFU or Non-functional Financial Upgradation, wherein all All India Service and Group A service officers get higher pay and perks of a grade, two years from the date the first IAS officer of the batch gets promoted to this grade. An IDSE (Group A service) officer in MES, draws pay and perks of a Major General when he reaches about twenty years of service while functionally being a Superintendent Engineer reporting to a Brigadier, raising equivalence issues.CalvinH wrote:Sir I dont get this. How are MES guys given higher status. Who gave it to them? Has their own grade equivalency moved upwards vis-a-vis IAS and armed forces ranks.Akshay Kapoor wrote:
Even the MES who are responsible for maintenance of cantonments , house construction etc and work with army officers in the same job and same role, have been given a higher status for doing exactly the same job. How is that fair.
I'll give you a shameful example from my own family. A relative is in the MES (civil employee) and lives in the same colony as army officers. He has a army officer who lives opposite him in the govt accommodation (which incidently is the best quality as MES constructed it for their own staff. Poof infantry officers coming after tenures in Siachen get worse accommodation). Anyway, he (the army officer neighbor) has been sent to Kashmir and his wife and young children are behind in the peace area. They have some boxes lying under the stairs and my relative wants these removed. They lady said 'my husband is in the valley, I don't have any manpower, how can I do it'. My relative threatened to have it thrown out. Sheer arrogance within the 'service' to own colleagues. A few years ago atleast an MES officer would never do it because they work with the army, their bosses are the army and their colleagues are the army. Now they are the bosses without spending a day in a tough posting and compare themselves to IAS/IPS.
When I told my relative he shouldn't have done this and he said 'I dont care, I am equivalent to a xxx rank IPS/IAS officer (he is a civil engineer and his job is build houses) and I don't have time for these xyz people'.
I suggest you go and take a census of all widows of of army officers who have died in the last decade and ask them how they are treated. Then do a census of serving officers's wives and ask them and lastly ask the children of army officers why they dont want to join the army.
From your point of view its about the real power in the society to influence things in one favor. I dont think that should be the comparison or aspirational yardstick for Armed forces or any other services in general.
*Finance Minister places on record the government’s appreciation of the service provided by the Armed Forces
*Our government’s focus has been on modernization of the armed forces, says FM Jaitley
*The government will set up two industrial defence industrial development corridors in 2018-19
*The government will bring out an industry-friendly defence production policy
*The FM did not give details of the budget allocations for the armed forces
Power to you Sir for the article.. Many people don't get what Izzat means and what feelings it evokes.. And it is not just in battle the bond between a good leader extends way beyond. If the CO is the father figure then the CO's wife becomes a elder sister to the men's wives.Akshay Kapoor wrote:This is how boys become men
When Subedar Major Taught NDA Cadets a Good Lesson About Nishan
By
Raghav Gakhar -
November 21, 2017
0
18305
NDA Cadets from the early to mid eighties will remember the imposing frame of SM Darbara Singh. During the rehearsal for the Passing out Parade in 1985, the cadets were in a particularly rebellious mood. The noise did not die down even when the Nishan (Presidential Colours awarded to NDA) was brought into the QM fort, and this was a serious matter indeed, for the Nishan is held in high esteem by the cadet community.
The insult to the Nishan did not go down well with Subedar Major Darbara Singh. With his measured steps he stepped up to the podium and with a voice heavy with anger and gruff with emotions, he asked the cadets to lend him their ears.
Mules carrying ammunition over a mountain pass during 1962 War.
Subedar Major Darbara Singh “Cadets, I have served in the Indian Army for 23 years. I have seen the 1962 operations, the 1965 and 1971 wars as a combatant. The Nishan that you have not acknowledged today, stands for me and countless others who have taken up the profession of arms and given their youth and lives for the honour of being given an opportunity to salute the Nishan, as the symbol of the supreme sacrifice made by our martyrs.
I will tell you a story that might indicate to you the feelings that we soldiers have for the Nishan. The SM drew a deep breath and continued, In this very academy we have a hut of remembrance,where the names of all the former alumni of this institution who have fallen in action are inscribed on the wall, I have been in this academy for the past three years and I have been able to enter that hut only once.
Because written on the wall is one name, Lt Palta of the 4th Battalion the Sikh regiment.
During the 1962 China War, my Paltan was posted in the Tawang sector. I was deployed right on the border, and my section commander was the same Lt Palta whose name is there on the wall in the hut of remembrance.
On the fateful day of 15 Nov 1962, the Chinese attacked our post and we were told to fight back to the last man, last bullet. Lt Palta was personally leading the fight back. It was a harrowing time, we were outnumbered, out gunned and desperately short of ammunition.
Yet we soldiered on , because Lt Palta did not know any other way.
Sometime during the night. Lt Palta was hit in the face by a mortar, the explosion severed his head from his body and the headless body was thrown on me. The enemy overran the post as soon as the officer was dead and I, 17 years old with 11 months of service, fighting a bloody skirmish with the enemy and out of ammunition, was hiding under the dead body of my section commander.
The blood from Lt Palta’s body soaked my beard and chest and the enemy, thinking that I was dead, did not bother to even take me as a POW. Through the night I lay there, in the tattered remains of my post, freezing in the Himalayan cold.
All my comrades dead, and the dead body of that heroic officer shielding me. It took me three days to wash off the blood from my face, but in my mind, the blood of Lt Palta is still there, warm and caking slowly.
I will carry this blood to my funeral pyre.” The SM’s voice became gruffer with verbalized emotion, “When I entered the hut of remembrance the first time, I saw Lt Palta’s name and picture on the wall.
In an instance I was transported back in time to 1962 and felt his cold stiff body on top of mine and his blood congealing on my face. Till date I haven’t been able to enter the hut again.
” Cadets, its for officers like these that the academy has been given the Nishan. It has been won by the blood of ex NDAofficers and it stands for all that is good and pure in these horrible times; I will not permit you to insult the Nishan and Lt Palta as long as I have breath.”
So saying the SM stepped off the dais and strode out of the QM fort in fragile silence. The silence of the QM fort was shattered only by the echoing word of of command of the parade commander some eight minutes later, ordering the passing out parade to coil its sinuous way out of the QM fort in to the drill square.
The Nishan is nothing but a piece of cloth for those who see it as such, but for Subedar Major Darbara Singh of the Ninth Battalion of the Sikh Regiment of the Indian Army, and countless others like him, it stood for Lt Palta and a cold winter night when a young Lieutenant died trying to protect and lead his men in to battle and to supreme honour.
It stood for a quintessential Indian army officer, who, even when dead, continued to shield a young frightened soldier who was out of ammunition and at the end of his wits.
A breed of officers who gave these grizzled old men the self-esteem and sense of honour, of belonging to a family, of mattering, of esprit-de-corps, and in the end, a way of life. And that, in my opinion is true leadership.