CHENNAI: Captain Vikram Batra’s war cry ‘Yeh Dil Maange More’ reverberated on radio, TV and hearts of patriots during the Kargil War in 1999. They didn’t want to lose the momentum they had gained even after they were wounded and lost their friends. Vikram Batra had said, “Either, I will come back after hosting the tri colour, or I will come back, wrapped in it.
But I will come back for sure.” Captain Manoj Kumar Pandey, in one of his letters to his family, wrote, “If death strikes before I prove my blood, I swear, I will kill death.” Such was the spirit of the Indian Army — to not give up midway, to fight with conviction and to not rest. Commemorating Kargil Vijay Diwas, Chettinad Academy of Research and Education (CARE), honoured the Indian Army and hosted Col Gaurav Sethi, director, Army Recruitment Office, Chennai, to share his insights about the war.
Painting the picture of war
The war began when the Pakistani forces disguised themselves as Kashmiri infiltrators on the Indian side of the Line of Control and took over the winter post (vacated). The aim was to cut off the National Highway 1 that connects Jammu and Kashmir to the rest of Leh and Ladakh. The Pakistani forces would have achieved isolated troops in the Siachen glacier and then brought it to a negotiation table where they would have sought the settlement of the longstanding Kashmir dispute.
Though he didn’t fight in the Kargil war, with an experience of 22 years in the Indian Army, Col Sethi endeavoured to transpose everyone to the areas of the Kargil War. “The war was fought in high altitude regions ranging from 15,000 feet to 18,000 feet. The areas of Batalik, Drass and Mushkoh Valley happened to be closer to Kargil and hence they named it the Kargil War with the operation name ‘Vijay’,” he shared.
This war was the first one that reached the drawing rooms of the citizens while it was being fought, through the media. When the reporters interviewed the soldiers who were fighting the war from the ground, people’s patriotic spirit rose. The common people were able to offer prayers and support as they were witnessing the war, he shared. “For the first time, the sacrifices, hardships, nobility of the spirit and the war planes were displayed intensely to raise national consciousness through electronic and print media,” he added.
Message to the youth
Col Sethi attributed the win to the young Indian soldiers. “Keeping aside the war tactics and the synergy of fighting the war, I want to focus on the human resource component of the war. The leadership, especially the junior leadership, the efficacy of the training they had undergone and the teamwork gave them the victory. Most of the soldiers were barely in their early twenties, yet they displayed raw courage, great resolve and daredevilry of the highest order in the face of the enemy,” he shared.
Walking us through the roughness of the war, the spirit of the army, the final victory, and the lost lives, Col Sethi stated that the lessons from this war will add more value and meaning to our lives. Advising today’s youth, he said, “The Army requires discipline, loyalty, passion and the ability to push your limits. These are important in life as well.
The ability to push yourself when faced with a hurdle is something you should train yourself to do. To give up is very easy. You can have a comma in your sentence at any time and a full stop in the end. But what matters is to complete the story, to have mental robustness through all the battles of life. No amount of training can give you that, but you alone can cultivate it.”