Vijay Mohan

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 18

Army units from which soldiers were awarded the Victoria Cross during the Burma campaign in the Second World War are being invited for the forthcoming Military Literary Festival (MLF) here, where they would be felicitated.

“The commanding officers and subedar majors of such units in India are being extended an invitation for participating in the festival,” a Punjab Government source said. “A political decision is awaited on sending invitations to those units or the descendants of the recipients that are in Britain or moved to Pakistan after the Partition,” he said.

Victoria Cross (VC) is the highest award for gallantry in face of the enemy in the Commonwealth of Nations. Though instituted in Great Britain in 1856, Indian soldiers became eligible for the award only in 1911. A total of 153 members of the erstwhile British Indian Army, including those from Britain, Nepal and undivided India, were awarded the VC from 1857 to 1947, out of whom 19 were from the Burma Campaign.

Undertaken from January 1942 to July 1945, the Burma campaign was a series of battles fought in Burma and adjoining South-East Asia between the western allies and invading Japanese forces, which were finally defeated. The troops for the campaign were primarily drawn from the sub-continent.

The Military Literature Festival, an annual affair conducted by the Punjab Government and the Western Command, is being held here from December 13-15, which will see deliberations of contemporary strategic, military, diplomatic and security issues.

While many units of the erstwhile British Indian Army continue in service with the present day Indian Army with different designations, many other have over the years been disbanded. The Fifth Gorkha Rifles that had won three VCs in Burma is now the Second Battalion of the Fifth Gorkha Rifles. Similarly the 11th Sikh Regiment is now the First Battalion of the Sikh Regiment.