Good night, & good luck

NEW DELHI: For a nation born out of non-violence, military heroes cannot be commonplace. However, Sam Hormusji Framji Jamshedji Manekshaw, who died in the wee hours of Friday, was a rare exception.

He broke through the anonymity of military uniform, became a legend of his times, and found a prominent place in modern India’s pantheon.

The 94-year-old Field Marshal died at the Military Hospital in Wellington, close to his Connoor residence in the Nilgiris, Tamil Nadu. He was given a state funeral with full military honours in Ooty on Friday evening. “Without doubt one of India’s greatest soldiers and a truly inspiring leader,” is how prime minister Manmohan Singh described him.

Leader Sam was, ever since he joined the British Army in 1934 as commissioned officer number IC-0014, after his training in the first batch of the Indian Military Academy. He was initially attached to the Royal Scouts and later to the 4/12 Frontier Force Regiment. After independence he moved to the Gurkha regiment. For the rest of his life, he was “Sam Bahadur” to friends, peers and millions of others.

During World War II, as a young Captain, Manekshaw was at the forefront of the British Empire’s desperate efforts to check the Japanese military surge into India. Near Sittang river in Burma, the young captain was fatally wounded as he led a charge. A senior British officer, who was aware of the courageous counter-charge led by Manekshaw, saw him struggling for life. Legend has it the officer pulled off his own Military Cross and pinned  it on Manekshaw, saying a “dead person cannot be awarded a Military Cross”.

As India became independent, Manekshaw moved to the military operations headquarters of the Army in New Delhi and was involved in the Kashmir operations and several other sensitive operations of his day. His straight-talk landed him in trouble. He had a serious fallout with then defence minister VK Krishna Menon. But such distractions didn’t stop Manekshaw’s meteoric climb.

Manekshaw would actually be remembered for a long time to come for his sterling role in India’s 1971 war against Pakistan, which resulted in the creation of Bangladesh and a humiliating defeat of Pakistan. “Sam Bahadur was the architect and the inspiring leader of the operation and the consequent military victory in what is now Bangladesh,” Singh said.

Manekshaw also symbolised some of the greatest attributes of Indian democracy. In 1969, then Army chief, General PP Kumaramangalam was retiring and the government had to pick between two brilliant military minds: Manekshaw and Lt General Harbaksh Singh. The latter had powerful connections, was from a royal family and had an equally brilliant career. But the government decided on Manekshaw. By 1971, he proved why he enjoyed such respect, as he headed the Army’s brilliant campaign, backed by a strong political leadership, and created Bangladesh.

“In his demise, the nation has lost a great soldier, a true patriot and a noble son,” defence minister AK Antony said on Friday. The country honoured him with Padma Vibhushan in 1972, and conferred upon him the rank of Field Marshal. The only other Field Marshal of the country was the late KM Cariappa.

Manekshaw was Independent India’s true military hero, mesmerising generations into the glamour and valour of military life, helping India emancipate itself from the humiliations of 1962 with a thunderous victory in 1971. And taking forward age-old traditions of humour-in-uniform with panache. There are many who believe that Field Marshal KM Cariappa and General KS Thimayya were far better military leaders, but it isn’t a matter of dispute who of the three would live longer in democratic India’s memories.

As a child Sam almost went to England to be a doctor like his father. He would have “liked me to be a gynaecologist”, Sam would say. As a General, destiny made him the
mid-wife in the birth of Bangladesh, and several folklores.

j_josy@dnaindia.net