Remembering Lt Gen Harbakhsh
Singh By Captain Amarinder Singh
Lt Gen Harbakhsh
Singh passed away on November 14. Many don't know who the General was. Being
out of sight for 30 years put him out of mind as well, and a few words is all
that he warranted in sketchy obituaries and those too in local Punjab papers.
Born in 1913 in
Badrukhan in Sangrur and having graduated from Government College at Lahore,
he was commissioned into 5 Sikh in 1935. He was a graduate of the 1st course
at the IMA after a year's attachment with a British battalion, The Argyl and
Sutherland Highlanders, wherein he saw active service on the north-west
frontier. He commanded a company of 5 Sikh in 1942 in Malaya against the
Japanese. Severely wounded in the head, a steel plate, which he carried to
his last day, was a constant reminder. He was in a military hospital when
General A.E Percival, the Allied field commander, surrendered all Allied
forces in Malaya and Singapore to the Japanese in 1942. Then followed three
years of a miserable existence and near starvation as a Japanese prisoner of
war. Released at the end of the war in 1945, he remained in hospital for some
months with beri-beri and other problems brought on by malnutrition and
inhuman conditions in Japanese POW camps. Posted as second-in-command of 4
Sikh on release from hospital, he was perhaps the only deputy ever to ride a
horse on parade in an infantry battalion, as he was too weak to march.
We now come to three
episodes in his brilliant military career which makes him stand out as one of
the outstanding commanders in modern Indian history. India became independent
on August 15, 1947, and Pakistani-backed regulars, irregulars and tribesmen
crossed into the state of Jammu and Kashmir on October 22. In spite of a
determined effort by the J&K state forces and by the initially inducted
Indiantroops, the enemy reached the outskirts of Srinagar on November 20 and
the fall of the capital city was imminent. On November 21, reports came in of
a concentration of around 3,000 enemy troops on the outskirts of Srinagar at
Shalateng, just 4 miles from the city centre, preparing to attack the city.
Colonel Harbakhsh Singh, then second-in-command of the newly inducted 161
Brigade was given the task of conducting the battle. He attacked Shalateng on
the November 22 with two infantry battalions, 1 Sikh and 1 (Para) Kumaon with
a troop of armoured cars of 7 Cavalry and, in a brilliantly planned and
executed operation, routed the enemy leaving 472 enemy dead on the field. The
threat to Srinagar was now over. If the capital city had fallen, it would
have been one of the greatest disasters in Indian history.
Promoted to command
163 Brigade, his was one of the two brigades launched by General Thimmaya,
then in command of Sri Division (later 19 division), on May 17, 1948, to
clear the enemy out of the Jhelum valley, up to Muzaffarabad and Domel. The
first by 161 Brigade under Brigadier L.P Sen on the Jhelum axis, and the
second in a flanking move by his 163 Brigade over the Nasta Chun Pass to
Tithwal and beyond. While 161 Brigade was held up near Uri, Brigadier Harbakhsh
Singh's offensive, as discussed by General Birdwood in his book, A Continent
Decides, was a triumph. "Pakistan s situation was now grim, and had
India only used air supply more aggressively to maintain the impetus of this
outflanking success, her forces would so severely have threatened
Muzaffarabad as to force a Pakistani withdrawal from the whole of the
northern sector. Luckily for Pakistan, they paused". Tithwal fell on May
23. In six days, Brigadier Harbakhsh Singh had in a lightning move secured all
territory starting from Handwara to the Kishanganga over the Nasta Chun Pass
and Tithwal after fighting aggressive battles.
Finally after
commanding 5 Division and 4 Corps for a while, during the Chinese operations
of 1962, where many soldiers believe that had he been allowed to command the
Corps during the second phase of the battle by the Chinese which started on
November 20, the situation would have been quite different in NEFA. Sadly for
the Corps, their old GOC, General B.M Kaul, was sent back to command, from a
sick bed in Delhi, by Krishna Menon, the then Defence Minister. General
Harbakhsh Singh was then given command of 33 Corps at Siliguri and he finally
took over as the Western Army Commander in November 1964.
War clouds gathered
once again in 1965. Pakistan took the offensive in April in Kutch and was
successfully repulsed. In August, Kashmir became the target and on September
6 India went to war. The western Army offensive across the Punjab border
which started at 4.30 a.m. on September 6 went well till Pakistan counter
attacked 4 Division on the 11 Corps left flank at Khemkaran.The 4 Division
comprising 62 and 7 Brigades, a strength of six infantry battalions, had not
quite recovered from the drubbing it received in 1962 at the hands of the Chinese,
lost two-and-a- half battalions in a matter of hours, less through enemy
action more by desertion, and was virtually overrun. The situation on the 7th
afternoon was grim, while the Division fell back to the village of Asal Uttar
and hurriedly prepared a defended sector based on the surviving
three-and-a-half battalions and the 2nd (Indp) Armoured Brigade. On the 9th,
Pakistan s 1st Armoured Division, whose existence was not known to us,
attacked the Division. Their operational order was captured by us. The plan
was to attack and overrun the weak 4 Division while a strong combat group was
to cut the lines of communication of both 4 Division, 7 Division on the Barki
Axis and finally to cut the GT Road at the Beas Bridge, effectively sealing
off 11 Corps HQs and Corps troops at Raya, and the LOFC of 15 Division in one
sweep. The situation was extremely grim and as a consequence Delhi panicked.
Having returned to
HQ Western Army at Ambala from 4 Division at midnight on the 9th and after a
visit to the operations room, the Army Commander retired for three hours rest
before leaving at four' clock the next morning. The instructions to me, his
ADC, was not to awaken him unless it was urgent. At 2.30 a.m. the Army Chief,
General J.N. Chaudhary, called and spoke to the General and after a heated
discussion centered around the major threat that had developed, the Chief
ordered the Army Commander to withdraw 11 Corps to hold a line on the Beas
river. General Harbakhsh Singh refused to carry out this order. The next
morning, 4 Division stabilised the position and when the Chief visited
command headquarters at Ambala that afternoon, the 10th, the crisis was over
and the subject was not discussed. Had the General carried out these orders,
not only would have half of Punjab been under Pakistani occupation but the
morale of the Indian Army would have been rock bottom, affecting operations
in other theatres as well.
His funeral was on
November 15. Very few knew about it, therefore apart from his friends and
contemporaries, former officers of the Sikh Regiment of which he had been
colonel for over a decade, and others such as I, who had been on his staff,
gathered at the Delhi cantonment to say our final farewell. The Army did him
proud by giving him a send off befitting a great soldier. And while the
ceremonies were on, and six Lieutenant Generals removed the National Flag
from the body which was to be cremated, I couldn't help wondering how
fortunate it was for the country to have had the right man at the right place
at the right time. The words once used to describe Field Marshal Lord Wavell,
seen apt for describing General Harbakhsh Singh: "He was essentially a
soldier's soldier, and takes an assured place as one of the great commanders
in military history".
The Last Post was
sounded and the pyre lit, and as the smoke curled its way into the heavens
and the bugle sounded reveille, transporting the General to Valhalla, to join
the ranks of the many great soldiers who once trod this earth, there were
moist eyes all around. As the mourners said their silent farewells, the words
of Sir Walter-Scott from The Lady of the Lake came to mind:
Soldier, rest thy
warfare is o'er,
Dream of fighting
fields no more;
Sleep the sleep that
knows no breaking,
Morn of toil, nor night
of waking.
I said my final
farewell, "Goodbye my General, till we meet again."
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I love my India and want it to be the best in the world. It has the talent and capability. The state has constantly deteriorated in last six decades. The downfall is due to low quality, incompetent and corrupt leadership, unaccountable, equally corrupt bureaucracy and ineffective judiciary unable to fulfil people's aspirations resulting in unparalleled corruption and lawlessness. Drastic changes are necessary to make systems vibrant and responsive to make it an India of every Indian's dreams.
Sunday, May 24, 2015
Lt General Harbaksh Singh
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It is only the Indian army that praises senior officers who blatantly disobey operational command orders. Here, the ADC is himself confirming that the Gen refused to obey operational orders issued by Army Chief. In 1971 too, we have an episode where Maj Gen JFR Jacob himself recounts how he refused to obey orders passed by Manekshaw and played his own game. In bot these cases, the outcome was positive for India, so no one likes to talk about it. However that is NOT an criterion for judging disobedience of lawful command, that too in war.
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