Monthly Archives: August 2018

Was blown off by troops in 1971 to prevent Ferozepur advance by Pakistan

Anirudh Gupta

Ferozepur, August 12

Fourty-seven years after four spans of the bridge over the Sutlej along the Hussainiwala barrage were “blown off” by Indian troops during the 1971 India-Pakistan war to prevent Pakistani armoured forces from advancing towards Ferozepur, Union Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday dedicated a new bridge at the site.Completed by the Border Roads Organisation (BRO), this strategically important 280-foot-long bridge will benefit residents of 12 border villages in Hussainiwala enclave, besides supporting offensive operations towards Kasur, located south of Lahore in Pakistan.Sitharaman said it was an honour for her to inaugurate the bridge — blown off on the night of December 3-4, 1971 — at this “historic and sacred place” where martyrs Shaheed Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru were unceremoniously cremated by the British. After the 1971 war, the Army built a Bailey bridge to restore communication from the Hussainiwala barrage to Ferozepur. As the temporary bridge developed cracks, the Army decided to replace it. Subsequently, the BRO was entrusted with ‘Project Chetak. Engineers of 49 Border Road Task Force completed the new bridge on existing piers and abutment.“This bridge will promote business, agriculture and better movement of Army vehicles and ammunition,” Sitharaman said, lauding the BRO for completing the project ahead of schedule.“We will never allow the enemy to occupy an inch of space of this land ever,” she told the jawans who raised slogans of “Western Command Zindabad”. At the National Martyrs Memorial, a teary-eyed Sitharaman paid tributes to the martyrs.Meanwhile, Punjab minister Rana Gurmit Singh Sodhi and MP Sher Singh Ghubaya handed over memorandums to her. Sodhi demanded that farmers with land-holdings between the barbed wire fence and Zero Line be paid relief at Rs 20,000 per acre and they be granted proprietary rights. 

April 13, 2019, will mark the centenary of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, which lit the fire of idealism across the subcontinent, shaping a new nation. As The Tribune launches the centenary special initiative, it remembers the Editor, who moulded the national narrative

Birth of a revolution: In the aftermath of the tragedy, people point out bullet marks in one of the walls of Jallianwala Bagh. The killing of 1,000 peaceful protesters was a moment of awakening. From Tagore to Gandhi, it roused all Indians and turned them into freedom fighters, revolutionaries and even avenging assassins photo Courtesy: Partition Museum, Amritsar

Rajesh Ramachandran

The British had killed and starved millions of Indians while they ruled us, finally leaving us with a parting gift of a million or two dead and 15 million homeless. Yet, no memory of the Indian national movement is more sacred, noble or revered than that of those 1,000 peaceful protesters who were shot down on the Baisakhi day of 1919. From 1857 to 1947, in the long 90-year-old struggle for Indian independence, the small piece of land that was a dumping ground (historian VN Datta has noted that it was never a Bagh or a garden in contemporary accounts) in the holy city of Amritsar became the focal point of Imperial insolence, colonial cruelty and the invader’s injustice. The sacrifice of those idealistic youngsters turned the massacre at Jallianwala Bagh into the source of the soul force for a defeated people in search of a nation.The Butcher of Amritsar, Reginald Dyer, and his boss, the Lieutenant-Governor of Punjab, Michael O’Dwyer, both rabid rulers, personified British brutality, which turned loyal subjects of the British Empire into freedom fighters, revolutionaries and even avenging assassins. That was the moment of awakening. The Anglophile poet and philosopher Rabindranath Tagore returned his knighthood writing to Viceroy Chelmsford in May 1919, “The accounts of the insults and sufferings by our brothers in Punjab have trickled through the gagged silence, reaching every corner of India and the universal agony of indignation roused in the hearts of our people has been ignored by our rulers — possibly congratulating themselves for imparting what they imagine a salutary lesson.”Gandhi was a volunteer, a loyal sergeant major of the Indian Ambulance Corps, helping the British Army in the Boer War and the Zulu War. In 1915 this steadfast servant of the Empire was awarded the Kaiser-i-Hind gold medal for his services to His Majesty. Despite the Champaran and the Kheda Satyagraha, Gandhi was still actively seeking army recruits for the British in the First World War when Rowlatt Bills were introduced. And it is the massacre that made him the Mahatma. It took him longer than Tagore to return the British honours. But when he returned the Kaiser-i-Hind gold medal in August 1920, he had a definitive mission and plan that finally defeated the greatest Empire in modern history.In the Centenary year of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, as The Tribune remembers that great moment in Indian renaissance, we also remember our Editor, Kalinath Ray, whose writings helped shape the national narrative of the events of 1919. According to a contemporary’s account reproduced in Prakash Ananda’s A History of The Tribune, “Ray was a short man wearing a woollen cap. His coat of Kashmir tweed had shed the greater part of its wool many years ago. It carried many a tell-tale mark of indiscretions resulting from absent-minded handling of fish curry, milk tumbler, rasogullas and dal bhat. His eyes were completely hidden behind thick lenses encased in an iron frame which was being held in position by a cotton thread in at least three places. He was a man of few words.” This shy editor was partially responsible for whipping up the storm that culminated in the mass movement across Punjab and particularly in Amritsar.Ray wrote on March 11, 1919, on the Rowlatt Bills which still had not become law, “There are now two ways open to us. One is that we should, like the dead, put the noose of this law around our necks, bury in oblivion our fair name, as also our great men, and sound the death knell of the so-called liberty of India. The other is that we should afford proof of our life by refusing to accept the law in question.” The Chief Secretary to the Punjab Government was absolutely accurate in identifying The Tribune as “more responsible than any other single agency for the anti-British feeling, and it was on this account that we stopped our advertisements for the paper.” But soon after the massacre, the British government on April 17, arrested Ray for the editorials he wrote, particularly the one titled “Blazing indiscretion”, which exposed ODwyer. Gandhi, the lawyer, was primarily upset over the British abandoning their so-called sense of justice because O’Dwyer had refused to let Ray’s lawyer from Calcutta enter Punjab. Soon Gandhi was writing to all Congress units across the subcontinent to launch a “wide and prompt agitation throughout the country for the release of Babu Kalinath on the grounds of simple justice. I venture to suggest a memorial by local lawyers, a memorial by local editors and resolutions at public meetings for the release of Babu Kalinath Ray to His Excellency, the Viceroy.” He also wrote an article on Ray, The Tribune and the Rowlatt Act in his Young India about the same time. Sure enough, there were protests from Lahore to Erode. Along with Ray, The Tribune trustee Manohar Lal was also arrestedWhile Gandhi was all praise for Ray’s restraint when sowing the wind in Punjab, the greatest youth icon of the Indian national movement, Bhagat Singh, was impatient. He wanted Ray to “put fire into his editorials.” Thus, the story of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, the national movement and The Tribune are the strands that made this nation’s DNA and The Tribune hopes to celebrate the memories of the martyrs, the massacre’s impact and the building of the nation in this centennial year. This is not a good time to talk about nationalism. On one end of the spectrum are the murderous Hindutva mobs, thirsting for the blood of the neighbour, ignorantly and needlessly crying hoarse, Bharat Mata Ki Jai, the slogan that sought the greatest self-sacrifice. And at the other end are the sophisticated, neo-colonial, forces of religious secessionism funded and promoted by alien agents. To be a Gandhian nationalist was always difficult, more so now.

Arun Joshi

A legal challenge to Article 35A, which grants special rights and privileges to the hereditary permanent residents of Jammu and Kashmir, is seen as a political and demographic invasion of the Muslim-majority Kashmir. A variety of scenarios have been woven in which Muslims in this only Muslim-majority state in the country are seen as getting reduced to a minority. This scaremongering is designed to stir an agitation to rattle New Delhi.The Kashmiri Muslim leadership is convinced that New Delhi blesses those who have challenged the Article. This political science is a curious combination of presumed identity crisis and the threat of street agitation to keep India off Kashmir.The challengers, “We, the Citizens”, have pointed out that the discriminatory nature of this constitutional provision bars citizens of India living in the other parts of the country from owning immovable property and competing for jobs and scholarships in this state.The issue quickly gets linked to the “Kashmir dispute”. Ironically, the threat to set afire the streets in a “do or die” battle cry is to safeguard the special status of the state in the Indian union granted by the country’s Constitution.What happens in the Supreme Court is being prejudged and that is being used as a tool to set the streets on fire. Today the situation is that even if New Delhi signs a blank political cheque, it will bounce. The only way out for the Centre is to open talks and starts connecting the dots with Pakistan. It is a must to convert its challenges into opportunities.Pakistan’s Prime Minister-in-waiting Imran Khan has travelled widely in India as a cricketer. His bond with cricketers in India should help in renewing cricketing ties to begin with. Thereafter, there should be a sincere attempt to rediscover the commonalities that can benefit both India and Pakistan.India and Pakistan can have a clear-eyed and closer look at their shared heritage and travel together on the path to search for peace and prosperity in the region. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Imran Khan have promised that. Now is the time to board the psychological bullet train to improve the ties.Many provinces on both sides of the border share linguistic, ethnic and cultural affinities that are much more pronounced than the hostilities that get highlighted by the self-serving western media.For example, Punjabis can make tough negotiations easy by conversing in their native language than top diplomats mindful of their knowledge of Queen’s English can ever do. It did happen in the 1990s when Punjabis from both sides were close to a remarkable breakthrough in removing the irritants. The two countries can surpass the trade benefits that America and Canada enjoy as trade partners. Strengthening the existing trade routes and exploring new ones offer a recipe to solve many crises between the two nations.Some of the prominent institutions, related to art, culture, language and journalism, were born in Lahore and are currently flourishing on the Indian side of Punjab. The celebration of their achievements could be a common affair. It will work wonders for the entire region, including J&K. Is anyone listening?

Srinagar, August 24 
Chief of Army Staff Gen Bipin Rawat visited the Chinar Corps on Friday to review the prevailing overall security situation in the Valley, an Army spokesman said.
On his sthe Army chief interacted with former Governor NN Vohra at Raj Bhawan in Srinagar.

“Later in the day, the Army chief was given an update by the Chinar Corps commander in the Badami Bagh cantonment on the latest security scenario in the Kashmir valley, including the details of counter-infiltration and counter-terrorist operations undertaken in the recent past and the Amarnath yatra,” the spokesman added.
General Rawat was appreciative of the measures initiated, which have significantly contributed towards improving the security situation.
The Army chief also interacted with other senior functionaries of the security forces, the spokesman said.

Soldier killed in mine blast in Kupwara

Tribune News Service
Srinagar, August 25
A soldier was killed in a mine blast in north Kashmir’s frontier Kupwara district on late Friday, officials said.
The mine blast took place at around 10 pm on Friday when army was patrolling an area close to the Line of Control.
“A soldier of 3 JAK RIF got injured due to mine blast and succumbed to his injuries,” a security official said.
The identity of the soldier could not be established immediately.

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, August 21
The Army has extended a helping hand to the ailing parents of a Lashkar-e-Toiba militant commander in Pulwama district.
Ahead of Eid, the Army went to the house of Riyaz Ahmed Dar alias Khalid and interacted with his ailing parents, who are in their sixties. Dar, who had taken up arms in 2015, is the only son of his elderly parents.
“With Eid-ul-Zuha around the corner, soldiers from the Kakapore-based Army camp interacted with the couple and brought some shine on their faces. During the interaction, their problems were discussed and medical aids were ensured to Dar’s father,” an Army spokesman said.

He said Dar’s father was partially paralysed and under medication for one year.
“Facing constant hardships, the couple even had to shift to their relatives’ house. They have been taking shelter there for four months. The family was assured that the Army will continue to stand with them in all circumstances,” the spokesman said.
“The Army also said it would provide full assistance and cooperation to the family in case he wishes to return and wants to join the mainstream,” he added.

India is participating in the drill for the first time since becoming a full member of the SCO in June 2017. PTI file

Beijing/Moscow, August 23 

For the first time, the militaries of India and Pakistan are taking part in a mega anti-terror drill of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in Russia aimed at expanding cooperation among the member countries to deal with the growing menace of terrorism and extremism.

India is participating in the drill for the first time since becoming a full member of the SCO in June 2017. As part of the SCO initiatives, the SCO Peace Mission Exercise is conducted biennially for the SCO member states.

The joint exercise is being conducted by the Central Military Commission of Russia from August 22 to August 29 at Chebarkul, Russia.

The exercise will involve tactical level operations in an international counter insurgency or counter terrorism environment under the SCO Charter.

At least 3,000 soldiers from China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, India and Pakistan are participating in the drill, according to the Chinese media reports.

Ten representatives from Uzbekistan will serve as observers, state-run Global Times reported.

The Indian contingent of 200 personnel is primarily composed of troops from infantry and affiliated arms and services along with the Indian Air Force. The Indian contingent has been put through a strenuous training schedule which includes firing, heliborne operations, combat conditioning, tactical operations and house intervention drills, according to curtain raiser of the exercise released by the Ministry of Defence in New Delhi.

The joint exercise will strengthen mutual confidence, interoperability and enable sharing of best practices among armed forces of the SCO nations.

The previous SCO counter-terrorism drills were mainly limited to the Central Asian nations, the Chinese media said.

But due to the entry of India and Pakistan, the SCO’s counter-terrorism mission has expanded to South Asia, Li Wei, a counter-terrorism expert at the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations in Beijing, told the Global Times.

The SCO was established in Shanghai in 2001, with China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan as founding members.

It expanded to include India and Pakistan in 2017.

“The effective counter-terrorism cooperation among SCO countries has greatly undermined terrorist groups in Central Asia in recent years, and it’s expected that this effective cooperation will also boost stability in South Asia, a region facing a more complicated counter-terrorism situation with a variety of active terrorist groups,” Li said.

Sun Zhuangzhi, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said Peace Mission 2018 will also greatly improve military and political mutual trust among SCO countries, especially between India and Pakistan.

“It’s a rare opportunity for Pakistan and India, which have long been involved in military conflict, to enhance military exchanges and trust. This could improve regional stability,” Sun said.

Li said future counter-terrorism drills among SCO countries have to come up with new drills on targeting terrorist groups in South Asia. He suggested that the SCO further expand to include Afghanistan, which is currently an observer country, to strengthen counter-terrorism efforts in South Asia.

The Peace Mission 2018 also created a historic chance for four major military powers in Eurasia – China, Russia, Pakistan and India – to participate in the same military drill, Sun said. PTI

Ajay Banerjee

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 20

In a major change of weaponry for the Army, a tender was issued today seeking supply of some 41,000 new light machine guns (LMGs) to equip its infantry battalions.This is the first change of an LMG—basic weapon of infantry units— in the Army’s armoury in two decades. A request for information (RFI), the first step of a tender, looking for additional vendors was issued today, complete with details of requirements.The RFI was first issued in October last, but the parameters on its numbers, method of sourcing, firing capabilities, etc, were issued today after the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) okayed the need for 40,949 LMGs. Of these, 30,712 will sourced from private Indian industry and another 10,237 from the Ordnance Factory Board. The indent to OFB will be placed after successful completion of trials.The 7.62×51 mm LMGs are to be procured under the ‘Buy and Make Indian’ category.

Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh. File photo

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 18Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Saturday visited the residence of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to pay his respects.The chief minister spent about 30 minutes and wrote in the condolence book some of his feelings for Vajpayee, whom he remembered meeting for the first time back in 1970.The chief minister met Vajpayee’s foster daughter Namita and son-in-law Ranjan Bhattacharyya along with other family members, to pay his personal condolences, according to an official spokesperson.Recalling Vajpayee’s 1970 Punjab visit, the CM said Atal ji had come there to campaign for him and spent three days in Patiala.The chief minister reminisced that he had come out of the Army in 1968 and was contesting his first election — a bypoll from Dakala in 1970 after the sitting MLA, Basant Singh, was killed by Naxalites.The chief minister remembered the former prime minister as a great leader, an excellent statesman, a dignified politician and a fine human being. His death had left a vacuum that would be hard to fill, he said. 

In a post-war India struggling with disenchantment and rising prices, Gandhi used the incident to unite the people

Sardari Lal was injured in the airplane bombing at Gujranwala on April 15

Hall Gate, Amritsar

Prof JS Grewal & Prof Indu Banga The First World War had just ended. There was a lot of disillusionment, a lot of disenchantment. The prices were rising. Disbanded soldiers were acutely unhappy and felt cheated. People were protesting all over. They had wanted concessions, but what the British gave them was the Rowlatt Act. Mahatma Gandhi had already started acting against it and was mobilising people. Massive protests were being organised across Punjab too. Amid all this happened the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.It was Baisakhi day and Sikhs from nearby villages were visiting the Golden Temple. Some of them with families were resting in the Bagh. Col Reginald Dyer, a British officer, arrived with the troops and ordered them to open fire at the people in Jallianwala Bagh. Hundreds died on the spot, several hundreds were injured, making it a watershed moment in the history of the national movement. However, what make the incident important were the events that led to it.The early 20th century saw the mobilisation of masses through various causes. The Swadeshi movement and Ghadar movement had taken place, along with the revolutionary activity in Bengal and Maharashtra. There was a lot of discontent among Michael O’Dwyer’s forced recruitment for the war. He was actually an arch imperialist, who played an active role in various imperialist organisations in the UK after his retirement. All this had already angered people. The Indians who had fought in the war had returned with the idea of political concessions. They had thought there would be equality. There was considerable discontent in Punjab. Prof Ravinder Kumar, a historian of modern India, has written on this in detail in Urban Society and Urban Politics: Lahore in 1919.The people’s restlessness made the British worried and they were afraid of a repeat of 1857. The Ghadar leaders had openly talked about 1857 as the First War of Independence and they tried to bring about an uprising of the British Indian army. There was an exaggerated fear among the British that there could be a possibility of this kind of situation. They were paranoid and had been actually expecting something in 1907, the 50th anniversary year of 1857, when Ajit Singh and Lala Lajpat Rai were deported to Burma. This is what Dyer had also claimed and O’Dwyer was his biggest defender.In the aftermath of the tragedy, Rabindranath Tagore relinquished his knighthood in May 1919 and Gandhi gave up his medal of Kaiser-e-Hind in August 1920. The SGPC had resolved to support non-cooperation in 1921.That was the least they could have done to protest. What made the Jallianwala Bagh massacre more important was the context in which it happened, the times that were. It fitted into the scenario. In 1919, people were protesting against the Rowlatt Act; in 1920, the Khilafat Movement and the Non-Cooperation Movement had started and continued for another year until it was dropped in 1922. These three years are very important in the history of modern India. The Jallianwala Bagh incident is important in the sense that it created a possibility for Gandhi and some other leaders to come together and use this and the other movements against the British. This, like the return of titles and awards, became a feature of the non-cooperation movement. The effort was to bring together all anti-British forces together. And he succeeded in it to a large extent and emerged as the most important Indian leader after these three years.To say that the Jallianwala Bagh tragedy made him big would be too simplistic a statement. He made his own inquiry into the incident. He seized upon the opportunity, which was in continuation of the agitation against the Rowlatt Act and used it for unprecedented political mobilisation under non-cooperation.It may be added that Udham Singh avenged the incident by murdering O’Dwyer in March 1940. The event is said to have left a deep mark on Bhagat Singh, who is believed to have carried home soil from the Bagh. It turned Akali leader Kartar Singh Jhabbar, a pacifist interested in social and educational reforms, into an extremist political activist.This period remains a watershed in the Indian freedom movement, and the Jallianwala Bagh tragedy was an important one in a chain of events.— As told to Sarika Sharma