A book of real-life accounts from the Indian Air Force honours those who took part in the 1962 war

Driving toward Tawang, a small town lost in the wilderness in the high Himalayas of Arunachal Pradesh, is a board, a poignant reminder of a time now long past, that commemorates our valiant heroes. It is a 1962 War memorial, one of many in that area and says, “when you go home, tell them of us and say, for your tomorrows, we gave our today.”

And standing there, you realize nothing could be truer.

Across Sela Pass, deep in the Tawang Valley, high up at 10,700 feet, lies Fort Jaswant Garh, one of the Army posts renamed after the ill-fated 1962 war with China, to commemorate the bravest of the brave who fought here, in the Battle of Nuranang, more than six decades ago. Here, we were told the amazing story of nineteen-yearold Rifleman Jaswant Singh Rawat of 4 Garwhal Rifles, who volunteered in the heat of a raging battle with the advancing Chinese Army, on 17 November 1962, to crawl forward under heavy enemy fire with two of his equally gallant mates, Rifleman Gopal Singh Gusain and Lance Naik Trilok Singh Negi, and attack a Chinese machinegun post with grenades. This would provide much-needed respite from the relentless enemy firing and help their unit to regroup and hold that position.

The three young men had volunteered for the task knowing that it meant certain death for them. And by throwing his grenade successfully, even after a grievous head wound, Rifleman Jaswant Singh Rawat, almost single handedly knocked out the Chinese machine-gun post, inflicted many casualties, and held off the enemy.

It was one of the few successful battles for the Indian Army in that war.

The Army decorated him with a MVC, a Maha Vir Chakra (posthumous), our second highest Gallantry Award and his regiment built a shrine at the spot where he fought his heroic last battle and named it Fort Jaswant Garh. A small detachment of men from his unit are now permanently stationed there and with typical army hospitality, serve hot tea and pakoras to everyone who stops there.

And almost every vehicle travelling up that road stops for a while to pay respects to the young hero. The Army likes to believe that he still “lives”, and local legends have grown around his heroic last battle. His bed is neatly made-up every day and his uniform pressed by an orderly. His shoes are shined and kept neatly under the bed. He has been given periodic promotions over the years and held the rank of a Captain in 1998, when we first went up there. He is even sent on Annual Leave every year with a train ticket duly booked for him. There is a firm belief that no harm can befall anyone who has paid his respects to the “Baba” (godman), regardless of whether he is going out toward Bum La on the Indo-China border demarcated by the McMahon Line or returning toward Sela and Bomdila.

But in the dark days of the 1962 War, Nuranang was still just a small field outpost with a couple of huts, and it is hard to believe that this serene, breathtakingly beautiful landscape, was the scene of one of the fiercest battles of that war.

Further ahead, towards Bum La at 16,500 feet, close to the McMahon Line, the area around the “IB Ridge”, so called in 1962 because of an abandoned inspection bungalow built on a small flat ridge in the mountains, has now been renamed Joginder Nagar to mark Subedar Joginder Singh’s equally glorious last battle fought there sixty-one years ago, when he led a platoon of soldiers of 1 Sikh in a ferocious, ‘to the last man, last bullet’ stand, as they fought off three successive waves of Chinese attacks, before finally succumbing to the sheer weight of numbers of the enemy and their superior arms and ammunition.

He was honoured with a Param Vir Chakra, the nation’s highest Gallantry Award.

These were the men who willingly gave up their today for our tomorrow and it’s a shame that so few of us remember or know about them now.

And there were others, equally gallant…and even more unsung…who lie forever in these beautiful valleys and unforgiving mountain passes, in tiny war cemeteries dotting the region, their names etched on small commemorative stones. They are hundreds of miles from home, surrounded by the snowbound mountains of the mighty Himalayas, that are lush green and awash with delightful flowers and waterfalls and unexpected, meandering streams on the mountainsides, six months of the year…and cold and frigid, and forbiddingly white, the other six months.

Quiet birdsong has now replaced the harsh sounds of battle and the final moans of the wounded and the dying in the killing fields of 1962…

This was the setting of one of the darkest chapters of India’s military history – the 1962 War against China – and much of the actual details still remain shrouded in official secrecy, decades after it ended.

Or perhaps, it never really ended, for a lot of people still live with the unresolved questions that continue to haunt them. And some are haunted by an uneasy conscience, though the generation that fought and suffered from the follies of people in high positions, has mostly passed on now…

It was a dark and terrible time and every single word in Lata Mangeshkar’s iconic “Aye Mere Watan ke Logon”, still rings true…and fuels an anger and frustration that refuses to go away, even now.

Which brings us to the greatest myth ever propagated – that the Indian Air Force was NOT used in the 1962 war.

What that statement actually means is that the IAF was not used in an attacking role. But then, that is also the story in a nutshell, of that terrible war itself. We never attacked the Chinese, only defended badly selected, badly equipped positions, often down to the “last man and the last bullet” or retreated and fell back in the face of waves of advancing Chinese soldiers. Isolated, brave little pockets of men, with little or no support in terms of reinforcements, arms and ammunition, communication, high-altitude winter clothing, medical stores and other logistical supplies, held out in places till there was nothing left to fight with, except their undying patriotism and valour, and were overrun by the overwhelming numbers of the enemy troops, that just wouldn’t stop coming at them, in wave after wave of attacks.

Against all odds, the IAF’s transport aircraft fleet and newly formed helicopter units successfully took on the Herculean task of supplying and sustaining the army units at those remote, cut-off locations, in a way that any nation would be proud of. They mounted a stupendous, round-the-clock air maintenance flying effort to sustain the front-line troops and evacuate casualties to much-needed medical care. The pilots flew their pants off in the most challenging conditions, in bad weather and under enemy fire, completely unmindful of their own safety.

These men were the salt of the earth. And their stories bear re-telling, over and over again.

Excerpted with permission from Air Warriors: True Stories of Valour and Courage from the Indian Air Force, Arijit Ghosh, Penguin India.