Standing: H Kitchen, L Panday, R Panday, J Royeppen, RK Khan, L Gabriel, MK Kotharee, E Peters, D Vinden, V Madanjit.
Middle: W Jonathan, V Lawrence, MH Nazar, Dr LP Booth, M.K. Gandhi, PK Naidoo, M Royeppen.
Front: S Shadrach, "Professor" Dhundee, SD Moddley, A David, AA Gandhi.
Amid all eccentricities, the Indian soldier lives to serve, dies serving
By R. Prasannan
Name the only national leader who had some experience of war. The name would surprise many. Mahatma Gandhi. He was an ambulance assistant in the Boer War.
Gandhi is associated with peace, non-violence, non-aggression and passive resistance.
But few know that days before independent India's first war broke out over Kashmir, Gandhi, fed up by Pakistan's aggressive postures, observed at one of his prayer meetings: "At this rate, I think we would have to go to war with Pakistan."
Indeed, the Father of the Nation was not advocating war. All the same, he was not a woolly-eyed pacifist as often made out to be when compared with his more 'pragmatist' contemporaries. On the other hand, even as he denounced violence, Gandhi acknowledged, rather hailed, soldierly courage, soldierly bondage and soldierly determination. Said Gandhi in another context: "A small body of determined spirits, fired by an unshakeable faith in their mission, can alter the course of history." Was he talking of the Indian soldier?
The first shots for free India were fired by Lieutenant Colonel Ranjit Rai, within days of Gandhi's 'war talk'. The long forgotten commanding officer of 1 Sikh was the first to jump ahead with a firearm into hostile territory after India became independent.
Read more: The Valiant
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