Postby Baikul » 29 Jan 2020 01:08
Lots of stuff online. Read about the death ride of a team of the 13th Sikh and 10th Para Commandos into Jaffna University. Who were para dropped, ambushed and slaughtered almost to a man. When their ammo ran out, the remaining 3 survivors went on a bayonet charge into a storm of machine gun fire. Only one man survived to tell the tale. Their courage would have made proud their valorous ancestors at Saragarhi.
Read about the youngest ever MVC winner, 2 LT Rajeev Sandhu who fought back even though both his legs were almost blown off. Whose parents never even saw his mortal remains. I never met the man, but can never forget him.
Read the PVC citation of Major Ramaswamy Parameswaran. Apparently his batch mates claimed he did not receive the honoured posthumous treatment as other PVC winners because it wasn't a 'popular war', especially in the south.
I can also never forget one particular cover in 1987 by India Today that showed an Indian platoon ambushed and wiped out in some Lankan street, with the bodies of our soldiers lying about. Unforgettable, traumatic even. You may find it in the archives.
There are many books on the subject though no 'great' novel or non fiction work that I came across. But there was a lot of fine reporting by the news magazines- India Today in particular. Shekhar Gupta made his bones covering it.
The politicos were reluctant to acknowledge the sacrifice of the forces, and so it became a dirty little war condemned to obscurity.
It was the Indian Army at its finest. Unsupported, sent on a mission with half assed political objectives, derided by local parties, fighting a war with one or both arms tied behind their back, they did a job. Stoically.
At the end, then PM VP Singh did not have the grace, dignity or balls to welcome the IPKF back personally. Hack thoo.
