Tributes to the most valorous of the first Indo-Pak war of 1947 Indo-Pak war!

 

The ceremony at Ajote was a great show of patriotism where people had gathered together to pay respects to the men at war in 1947!

-‘People talk of the bold and the beautiful, the phrase was exceptionally coined and whoever got it first in his write up for the first time forgot another one! There are men behind them with the same color scarlet but in blood’!

-‘Today my mother in the evening wanted to tell me a story. She is a lady wife of an officer of Fifth Gurkha Rifles, anyway ladies when they get old are forgotten, why waste even a card on them! I know plenty about the Battle of Mogaung and fighting behind enemy lines! The Chindits! Today she asked me why people forget to even send cards of the ‘Battle Honor’s Days’! I replied that they just put some people in trash bins and we happen to be one of them but today I’m writing about something else and a bigger story because this was a bigger story and history!’

-‘Chindits was an operation by Orde Wingate, part of General Slim’s plan to fight against the Japanese (behind the enemy lines) but this one against Operation Gulmarg launched by Pak Generals was a frontal one and Poonch had to be defended and then subsequently taken over! 1947 war still the biggest in history of Indian military history which we the Indians won because that was straight fight, one against one, 1971 was a clean sweep, Kargil was a downhill slope for the men who infiltrated and got to the mountainous heights and then tumbled down and insurgency in Kashmir, well a story that was tragic where end would be great.! It is already beginning to look like that!’

-‘I presented her one which was sent to her five years back saying that you may get one next year for sure But the story she was going to tell me was from 75 years back!’ My Dad was born but not me! Pakistan was playing the game of circles and many people had got encircled in garrisons’! Sometimes choosing a wrong profession if you are the right man can prove wrong! I wanted to choose both writing with words and firing from the muzzle! Fingers did matter, so did the aim but I lost out, though momentarily but was destined to win later! Truth matters! India was the winner at the war memorial at Ajote! That is why I’m writing and my forefathers were firing 303 Rifles with index fingers mattering!’

-“This story is about the siege of Skardu garrison which my mother told me, it was about one Multan Singh and the local folklore in the village Muhri (near Katra) that was, ‘Mian Multan cannot give up. No one did at Skardu and neither did anyone in Poonch! Everyone wanted to fight, everyone did and everyone was remembered by the people!’

-‘In this day and age, the digital age, you can forget about a resume of a history just remember the glorious days and one of them happens to be 22 November 1947 when Poonch was relieved of the siege as the Indian army linked up with the Poonch garrison and chase away the invaders!’

-‘On the war memorial there are the names of the warriors who gave up their days of their lives for us but I can guarantee we the someone is keeping up with them as they were doing so today, some old who saw it all, some who heard about the tales of valor and survived the subsequent wars after fighting, some who are guardians the frontiers now and many who are aspiring to join the glorious of all, the band of knights in shining armor of olive greens’! Again a massive function at Ajote, Poonch where one of the famous battles of 1947 was fought…. We already told you about it in the first piece of these series of stories I started a week back’!

-‘The Pakistani Major General Akbar Khan threw his hands up in disgust. ‘The Indian army is now officially fighting in the Kashmir-Baramulla sector. Why can’t Pakistan send its army to support our tribal Jihadis?” Khan retorted.’ ‘The Quaid-e-Azam, Khan was told, can’t order the British commander of the Pakistan army to engage and he will have to rely on the tribals to get the job done.’

‘Akbar Khan knew that Pakistan’s political compulsions would cost his men the ongoing war in Kashmir. Without proper military backup, he realized, the untrained lashkars would be decimated by the Indian army. He needed to find a way out.’

-‘They were on both sides of the Pirpanjals. But they could have been decimated fully all the way had the linkup not stopped! But that is what the story is! Pakistan had lost the game and from there onwards lost every militarily! They were destined to!

By: M S Nazki

Poonch:

Poonch Link Up Day Wreath laying ceremony org at AjoteWar Memorial in honor of supreme sacrifice by brave hearts in 1947-48 War. Indian Army officers, veterans and signatories from civil administration paid tributes to. Saviors of Poonch. Ajote War Memorial in honor of supreme sacrifice by brave hearts in 1947-48 War.

I will say that a thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it. But some things are true to die for and the only truth is that we are born in India. A writer once said that a tyrant dies and his rule is over (Akbar Khan the Pakistani Brigadier did eventually after initiating recklessness), the martyr dies and his service for the country begins fast forwarded by generations to come in. The Indian soldiers did exactly that! They will continue doing that!

The pages of history of 1947 are red with the blood of illuminated people who were murdered just for nothing. Girls and women plucked off because they were the most vulnerable, children left screaming or chucked away like pebbles to destinations heading nowhere! But the indecent carnage had to be saved and then the saviors arrived with one aim and one mission at hand! Poonch had to be saved. It was and the people after 22 November 1947 rose with a voice resonating in the only one bazaar and the narrow streets, ‘those of us with the courage to open ourselves to that much love and not fear it – who can give joy to a dying child until the very end without withdrawing to save themselves- those are our martyrs. It is the martyrs. It will always be the martyrs.’ They were the ones who saved our generations coming in’! That is why they had gathered together at this very sanctity and pious war memorial at Ajote. The commanders of 120 BDE and 93 Brigade were there to lay the wreaths as the very auspicious ceremony began! Perhaps history was being retold! The burning flame of the spirit was the signature that this memorial lives in the hearts of the men who served these brigades, are serving and will be serving in the years to come because these two brigades are legendary in the military history of India!

If you want to be a good parent then be a great leader. You should live a life with passion for someone and something! Good parents will forever produce great children and obviously in future great leaders! The parents in Poonch know that by heart now!