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(This story was first published on 6 December 2017. It has been reposted from The Quint’s archives to mark the occasion of Vijay Diwas.)
Too caught up to read? Listen to the story:
The War of 1971 broke out a few weeks after my father’s first birthday. There were no pompous birthday celebration, as festivities and war do not go hand-in-hand. Posted in the Pay Accounts Office at Grenadiers Regimental Centre in Nasirabad Cantonment, my grandfather was privy to the preparations that were underway. He knew that a war was around the corner.
In the prelude to the war, my grandfather was in his office at the Pay Accounts Office (ORs) of Grenadiers Regimental Centre when Jawan Ramanand approached him. As the Unit Accountant of 16 Grenadiers, Jawan Ramanand’s unit, it was my grandfather who maintained accounts of its ranks. Jawan Ramanand, a simple man, was worried about his accounts when he approached my grandfather’s desk.
Jawan Ramanand told him that war was just around the corner and his unit, 16 Grenadiers, was moving out to take the field in Jammu and Kashmir. My grandfather was already aware of that. Jawan Ramanand then handed my grandfather his paybook, a document always carried by the soldier with him in those days, having his identification and account details, and inquired if his salary account was to go into negative anytime soon.
He requested my grandfather to take care of his accounts as his family was in the village, and there was no way that his wife could come to Nasirabad with their child to settle any issues that could arise during the course of the war.
My grandfather wished Jawan Ramanand the best and the latter thanked him before leaving the office. Time passed by and my grandfather got caught up in work. The Pakistani premier, Yahya Khan, had already declared a national emergency across Pakistan on 23 November 1971.
Sirens blared across the length and breadth of north-west India and blackouts, for which most of the people had been prepared in advance, were imposed. The Indian Air Force responded the same night, and its air operations soon put the aggressors into a defensive mode.
Planes would fly over their heads with their deafening roars as people would jump into trenches. They would watch planes chasing each other in the otherwise beautiful night sky, like a surreal dream. My grandparents would also jump with their two children and by the end of the war, they would have lost count of their jumps.
My grandfather would tell me that though the war was a serious affair and life was always on the edge, evenings after the initial days of the war were quite jubilant, when all the men would gather at a local paan-shop and listen to the radio – first to the All India Radio and BBC, and then ‘Radio Joothistan’, the Pakistani radio channel, which would broadcast state propaganda.
My grandfather must have met thousands of men and women from the forces in his many years of service, and there were not many he would regularly see or meet and Jawan Ramanand was no exception.
It was on the morning of 7 December 1971 that my grandfather went to his office, only to be presented with a bunch of paybooks minutes after he entered.
The atmosphere was already solemn in the office, and my grandfather did not have to be told anything about those paybooks. Those paybooks had come from the field. While he knew very well that he might have to receive such paybooks, he was not prepared for it. It was not his fault. War often catches you off-guard.
There were seven paybooks in total, and my grandfather would tell me that it was one of the longest days of his life. He was not a soldier and he did not fight the war. He was not on the field, but decades later, today, he knows that he was ‘there’. He was not out on the battlefield, but he also fought the war.
Those who worked at my grandfather’s office would go out of their way to see that families of soldiers received salaries without a hitch.
Women would cook plenty of rotis and distribute them amongst troops leaving for the frontier, and there are so many stories of women risking their lives to deliver food to those fighting or going to fight. While there is no way to confirm these stories today, they are now part of war lore.
They say that you die twice. First, when you actually die, and second, when your story is forgotten. Jawan Ramanand’s story shall never be forgotten. He will never die, for we will keep his story alive till the end of time.
(The author is an undergraduate student of history at the University of Delhi. He tweets @madhur_mrt. This is a personal blog and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
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