Armoured Day: An emotional saga of horses and their knights

Rachna Khaira

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Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, April 30

May 1 is a red letter day not only for the armoured corps but for the entire Doaba region as it has produced some of the finest and most valiant officers of the Indian Armoured Corps.

On the day of its 80th Armoured Corps Day celebration, General (retd) MS Shergill took us back in history and provided a peek-a boo into the emotional separation of the cavalry officers and their horses on this day due to the mechanisation of their units.

“It was a touching moment for the cavalry officers and a beautiful horse parade was held in full uniform on the last day. The officers followed the three-step parade procedure, patted their horse thrice and bid a final adieu to them with tears in their eyes,” said General Shergill.

He said the officers used to take care of the horses like their own children as they used to be their only companion in wars. “The separation was indeed a touching moment for all and it became so unbearable that a majority of them had even bought their horses. Those who could not do so, kept visiting them at their stud farms during their leave,” said General Shergill.

Cavalry during that time was considered the favourite option of a majority of officers who had joined the Army and were from a royal background. Many princes from royal families in Patiala, Kapurthala, Faridkot, Nabha and Jind had joined the Army and had excellent horse-riding skills, amongst others.

“Even though they were from a royal background, after the mechanisation, they proved to be excellent officers and got decorations for fighting valiantly in various wars. The only problem that arose was to provide training to the other ranks who at that time were completely illiterate and used to write their name with just an ‘X’,” said General Shergill. However, he said that with time, they even got proficient with tank wars.

Unfortunately, this was not the end of challenges for the cavalry officers. There were yet to witness the partition in 1947 where they had to leave their ‘children’’ forever in the middle of a horrific tragedy.

“The incident was more devastating than the earlier one as it was time to bid goodbye to our horses forever leaving them alone in the middle of a civil war,” said General Shergil.

He said he was nearly six years old and his father General Rajinder Singh Sparrow was away to Japan with his unit.

“We used to stay in village Shehzada which was around an hour’s drive from Lahore. I still remember the moment when we had to leave his two favourite horses— Çhestnut, a Golden Slipper and Napolean, a gay centurion—- at our home before landing up at a refugee camp in Ferozepur,” said General Shergill.

He informed that it was only after independence, when his father returned from Japan, that he came to know about the fate of his two horses.

While General Shergil is happily spending his life at his sprawling house here in the cantonment area taking care of the two lovely women (his 100-year-old mother and his wife) in his life, the memories of this day, 77 years ago, still seems fresh in his mind!

The present cavalry

The Indian Armoured Corps has come a long way. It had initially inducted the more modern Sherman tanks (M4) of US origin in 1943. Such regiments formed the spearhead of the 14th Army during its pursuit of the withdrawing Japanese during the liberation of Burma.

After independence, the Indian Armoured Corps lost one third of its units and training establishments to Pakistan with only 12 regiments remaining in India. These regiments nurtured the Corps and helped expand it to the force that it is today.

Since then, the armoured corps inducted Centurions Mark VII and AMX-13 light tanks. Also, it has operated the indigenous Vijayanta tanks, the Russian T-54 and T-55, T-72 and T-90 tanks and the Arjun Main Battle Tank (MBT).

Cavalry trivia 

Teen Murti, the memorial of three bronze statues of the Indian cavalry soldiers around a white stone obelisk, is how the palatial building where India’s first Prime Minister resided, got its name of Teen Murti Bhavan at New Delhi. Erected in the centre of the roundabout road junction just outside the entrance to Teen Murti Bhavan, the statues were sculpted by Leonard Jennings and the memorial was constructed to commemorate those killed from the cavalry of the Indian Army during the World War I (1914-19) in battles fought in Sinai, Palestine and Syria. 

The three statues represent sowars (as cavalry and armoured corps soldiers are known) from the three Indian state forces — Hyderabad, Mysore and Jodhpur — together with detachments from Bhavnagar, Kashmir and Kathiawar, which were part of the 15th Imperial Service Cavalry Brigade.

Designed by Robert Tor Russell, who was part of Lutyens’ team, Teen Murti Bhavan was India’s first Prime Minister Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru’s residence after independence. After his death in 1964, it was converted into the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library.

Region’s own cavalry knights in shining armour 

While Maj General (retd) Rajinder Singh Sparrow, of the 7th Light Cavalry regiment, was twice member of the Lok Sabha from the Jalandhar constituency in 1980 and 1985 as a Congress candidate, Brigadier (retd) Sukhjeet Singh, a scion of the Kapurthala royal family, won the Maha Vir Chakra (MVC), the second highest gallantry award in the 1971 Indo-Pak war. The royal scion was from the Scinde Horse itself, the first cavalry unit that was converted from horse to a tank unit on this day. Apart from that, the incumbent General Officer-in-Commanding (GOC-in C) of the Western Command, Lt General KJ Singh too is a decorated soldier of the elite armoured corps. 

General Sparrow also held the appointment of regimental colonel of the 7th Light Cavalry from July 1959 to July 1969. Though he died in May 1994, both his sons, Lt Gen (retd) MS Shergill, VC and Lt Gen (retd) TS Shergill, are settled here in the city since long.