When Army runs in the DNA

Lt Gen Baljit Singh (Retd)

IT is not uncommon among the fraternity of India’s armed forces to come across the second or even the third generation from a family having also proudly made the profession of arms as their life’s calling. But a few days ago, when I chanced upon a collage photograph of four generations of a family in military uniform in an unbroken chain, my immediate reaction was to reach out to the veteran patriarch, from the Brigade of Guards (Col Mahinder Singh Minhas), and compliment the family on their laudable military heritage.

What followed next was truly a humbling experience. Their family lore had its origins dating back to the 1880s when Achhar Singh, a native of Daroli Khurd village (Jalandhar district), enlisted in the 69th Punjabis (formerly the Madras Native Infantry) of the British Indian Army. By the dint of his hard work and dedication, he rose to be a Havildar when WW-I broke out.

Achhar Singh had four strapping sons, three of whom (young bucks Labh Singh, Gardhara Singh and Hazara Singh) gladly followed in their father’s footsteps. With the earthy wisdom of a Jat Sikh peasant, Achhar Singh had charged the fourth son to stay back, care for their mother and mind the family’s meagre agricultural holding. There is no record whether they fought on the battlefields of France-Flanders or Gallipoli-Palestine, but were downright lucky that Labh Singh alone was KIA (killed in action).

In the Punjab countryside of the 1900s, a small village that Daroli Khurd was, its adult population would have been around 500, but unmindful of privations and the risk of loss of limb, even of life, the pull of service in the Army was obviously held in such high esteem that a tablet embedded in the entrance arch to the village gurdwara memorialises to this day their contribution thus: “From This Village, 91 Men Went to The Great War 1914-1919. Of These, 6 Gave Up Their Lives.”

In the periodic post-war readjustments within the Army, several Infantry battalions were merged to create the Punjab Regiment in 1922. Havildar Achhar Singh had by then retired with his honourably earned war-time pension, but his sons Gardhara Singh and Hazara Singh soldiered on in WW-II, in Field Marshal Slim’s 14th Army, upon the battlefields of Burma.

And as is well documented, the Punjab Regiment acquitted itself extremely well in the battles of Kohima (lately adjudged the best battle of all in WW-II), Imphal and right through to the VJ Day, 1945. Both brothers carried forward the legacy of their father with distinction, Gardhara Singh becoming the Subedar Major of 2 Punjab and even more so, he was invested with the OBI title “awarded by the Viceroy of India for long, faithful, distinguished and honourable service”.

He capped his career in 1945 when the Viceroy, Field Marshal Wavell, made “…Subedar Major Gardhara Singh, Sardar Bahadur, OBI, 2nd Punjab Regiment…….an Honorary Captain”. What a grand roller-coaster career ending in 1949!

Hazara Singh, in the meantime, had been shifted to another battalion from where he too went on pension as a Subedar Major.

While Honorary Captain Gardhara Singh busied himself in creating a modest cenotaph in the memory of their KIA brother Labh Singh on their farm land, his two sons were commissioned from the Indian Military Academy, Dehradun; Manmohan into the Corps of Signals and Mahinder into 5 Guard, in 1971. Mahinder had the family claim to 1 Guard (being the erstwhile 2 Punjab), but unfortunately, they had no vacant slot. Both the brothers became veterans of the 1971 war, Manmohan from the Shakargarh offensive on the western front and Mahinder from the Jessore sector on the eastern front.

Mahinder’s elder son is currently commanding a company in 12 Guard while the younger, a Wing Commander, is posted at the Air Headquarters. Only time will tell whether the DNA will carry forward the family legacy into a legend.

Join Whatsapp Channel of The Tribune for latest updates.