Society
The Forgotten Hero of
Siachen
by Aneeta Chakrabarty
He
did not feel the bitter cold. He did not feel any fear. Yet, he was
facing death with every climb on the steep, icy walls of the highest
peak, “The Quaid”, commanding the brooding heights of Siachen.
The year was 1987 and our dauntless soldier made progress inch by inch
climbing at a 90 degree angle. He could not tell if it was day or night,
as the heavy snowfall erased all sense of time. Every pore of his body
strained and yearned to reach that single bunker at the top. Four of his
men followed close behind on that treacherous trek. Slowly but surely
they were moving up the 1500 km icy wall. After several hours, they were
now very close to the top.
Our soldier suddenly stiffened. He felt the need to be cautious. There
were earlier attempts by his fellow soldiers who had almost reached the
top when they were detected. Enemy fire threw them on the hostile
terrain and they fell headlong to their snowy graves. He steeled
himself. His country depended on this do-or-die mission. He remembered
Guru Gobind Singh’s voice from the night before, “I wanted to test you,
Bana.” That voice charged him and his infectious enthusiasm spurred his
followers. His hand slowly closed upon the grenade as he evaluated the
situation.
Meanwhile, on the top of the 21,000 feet high peak, the Pakistanis were
safely ensconced, bragging as usual about their martial prowess. They
felt confident. They were imbued with the usual scathing contempt for
Indian troops. Moreover the “bhangee” troops had no chance as their
weapons jammed due to the biting cold hovering at -35 degrees
centigrade. When they were at the height of their jingoistic banter,
suddenly a door opened, a grenade was dropped and the door closed. And
before they could open their mouth, the grenade exploded and all was
silent in the make shift bunker. Our hero moved fast. He personally led
the assault on the remaining Pakistanis outside the bunker. On the
slippery slopes, there was hand to hand fighting. Some were bayoneted,
and some slipped and fell to their death. It was an arduous battle
fought between men who gave it their all with a do-or-die ferociousness.
Finally, on June 26, 1987, the victorious Indians, Rifleman Chunni Lal,
Laxman Das, Om Raj and Kashmir Chand led by our hero, Naib Subedar Bana
Singh, captured the post. For his daredevil assault, Bana Singh received
the Param Vir Chakra. The “Quaid” now became “Bana Post”. The Tricolor
flew high on the freezing heights and history smiled once again on the
sleeping nation.
Were it not for Bana Singh, the whole of Saltoro range would have become
sitting ducks as the Pakistanis had the “Quaid” post which was higher
than all the peaks occupied by Indians in Saltoro. Eventually, the
scheming Pakistanis would have slowly occupied all of Siachen.
One would think that a man such as Captain Bana Singh whose wondrous
feats of endurance and valor erased the enemy’s script for Siachen,
would be in every Indian’s consciousness. One would also think that a
grateful nation would include him in the pantheon of valiant heroes who
fought against all odds to procure for India a very vital post. But no,
such natural reactions are beyond India’s capacity. Today, he is barely
even recognized in military circles. Reports indicate that the
Government of India turned down his request for a petrol pump and he had
to take up farming in his village to support his family. Moreover, the
state of Jammu and Kashmir of which he is a resident gives him a paltry
amount of 160 rupees per month as an allowance for having won the
highest bravery award. Except for the state of Punjab, which was willing
to provide him with a handsome remuneration which he could not accept
due to his principled stand that he belonged to Jammu and Kashmir, there
is nobody who cared to even find his whereabouts in a map.
The reason for such appalling indifference is not hard to find. Obsessed
with Mammon and her minions, the whole country is busy following the
only game in town, “Get rich, then get richer, then richest and let the
devil take the rest”. The upper classes are busy fawning at moneyed
thugs, self-seeking politicians, decaying Bollywood and flaunting their
wealth in ostentatious weddings and extravagant living. The much wooed
middleclass is busy churning soul-less assembly line products of
engineering schools feeding the pipeline to America’s utopia. As for the
impoverished masses, who do not exist in anybody’s radar, along with
their never ending heroic struggles to survive, are ground down to
muffling the haunting sounds of hunger.
However, when a society ticks only to the jingle of coins, the values
embodied by men like Bana Singh, are ground to dust by blind
indifference, an indifference which would spawn historical amnesiacs,
lawless gold-diggers, educated fools, fifth column writers,
pseudo-secular traitors, clueless peaceniks, shallow intellectuals and
spineless politicians sleeping with the enemy. The alternative is to
value our everyday heroes, our fighters, our spirited people, our
courageous reformers, our workers battling odds in the trenches of
living, and lionize them, treasure them like gold, and let their noble
thoughts, ideas and deeds ripple through our collective consciousness to
launch a moral spine.
It is the least we can do to preserve our hard won freedom obtained by
the sacrifices of several men and women who endured years of unspeakable
tortures, deprivation and death.
For as History has proven
through the eternal eons of time that a nation that cannot honor its
unconquerable heroes will inherit a unthinking, inactive civilization
eventually to “disappear with the wind.”
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He
did not feel the bitter cold. He did not feel any fear. Yet, he was
facing death with every climb on the steep, icy walls of the highest
peak, “The Quaid”, commanding the brooding heights of Siachen. 