Majid Jahangir

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, June 6

A group of five to six Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) militants are giving sleepless nights to security forces in the Hajin area of Bandipora district.The group was involved in the firing on Army’s 13 Rashtriya Rifles camp and a police installation in the vicinity of the camp in Hajin on Tuesday night.“It is the same group of the Lashkar that is active in the area which carried out the attack on forces on Tuesday night,” Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Bandipora, Sheikh Zulfikar Azad said.Azad said militants fired at the camp from across the Jhelum and at a distance of nearly 200 m. “It did not look like a fidayeen attack. They had to cross the river to reach the camp,” the SSP added. “The militants fired a few gunshots and also lobbed two grenades propelled by under barrel grenade launcher,” he said.The SSP said sentries guarding the police installation and the Army camp retaliated the fire and there was no injury in the attack.A search operation was also launched around the camp. Soon after the attack, the Army had said the militants resorted to standoff firing on security forces.Another security officer said they had “advance inputs that militants may try to do something in the area”.“Last year on June 5, security forces had foiled a fidayeen attack on a CRPF camp at Sumbal in the vicinity of Hajin. So we were expecting that Lashkar will do something around this date,” the officer said.The Lashkar owned the attack on the Army camp. The outfit claimed that a few soldiers were killed in what they termed a “fidayeen attack”.

Seventy-one recordings of Punjabi prisoners of war, held at the Half Moon Camp in Germany, are yearning to reach their loved ones

http://

Sarika Sharma

Ten years ago, voice of Mal Singh, a prisoner of war from the First World War, came to India. Held captive at the Half Moon Camp in Germany, the man was batting for hope, remembering the good times in India — the butter he would eat and the milk he would drink…. He was desperate to return home, but doubted if he ever would.As the voice reached Punjab 100 years after it was recorded at the Camp as an experiment, Mal Singh was traced to Moga after The Tribune highlighted it in a story. We got to know that he had made it back home after all, lived life fully, perhaps had the milk and butter he so longed for too, and died in the 1970s. His voice had been among the thousands of voice recordings at the Humboldt University’s Sound Archive, Lautarchiv, Berlin. Now, 70 more recordings of soldiers from what was the then Punjab have reached home, waiting to tell how they lived as prisoners in a war that they fought to earn a better living for their families. These soldiers were from 15th Ludhiana Sikhs, 47th Sikhs and 4th Gurkha Rifles, among others.The archive has now shared the voices with Col Perminder Singh Randhawa (retd) to understand these recordings from Indian point of view. Jochen Hennig, Central Collection Commissioner at the Humboldt-University, shared these voices as part of the commemoration of 100 years of the war. The ‘access’ has been given to all those who can understand their forefather-soldiers’ languages.The Indian soldiers, fighting the war under the British Army, were taken captive by the Germans at the Western Front. Around this time, Thomas Edison had come out with his latest invention, the wax-cylinder phonograph and the recording experiments were carried out on these soldiers. German scientists, who were awed by their “exotic”, “turban wearing” prisoners, were employing them in various experiments. Royal Prussian Phonographic Commission, founded in 1915, was one of them. The recordings were done under this project.Among the voices is a recording of Bela Singh, a soldier from Amritsar. In almost verse form, he speaks of how they came to the city of Marseille and were ordered to set out for the war, how they fought and how they were captured.There is a recording of Baryam Singh from Ludhiana. He says that when someone decides to do something with all his heart, he does it well. As if reading from a paper where he pauses to decipher the words (which may or may not have been written by him), he says he loves Hindustan because it is his land. He says no lure can buy him. His recording is peppered with the word ji, a word that denotes respect.Sepoy Sunder Singh begins his recording with Ek Onkar, a central tenet of Sikh religious ethos. Apparently referring to a copy of Guru Granth Sahib, which they seem to have been given in confinement, he expresses happiness that the Guru has blessed his ilk. He says that the only one thing that could bring him as much happiness would be a peace treaty. He adds that the Sikhs consider the Guru Granth Sahib a holy book and revere it more than anything else. It appears that the Guru Granth Sahib was not accompanied by Rumala Sahib, which hurt the sentiments of Sikhs in the camp. So while he begins by praising the Germans for providing them Guru Granth Sahib, he later says that if it is disrespected, a true Sikh will take his own life then and there. These are a handful of stories; there are around 70 more that are desperate to reach their loved ones in Punjab.Colonel Randhawa says the Germans kept the voices safe with them for a year, digitised these and have now decided to send these back to where the PoWs came from to understand their context. “Why did Mal Singh say what he said? What did it mean? They don’t have an answer? They want us to find out an answer? We must remember that this could have been their last testimony,” he says. For Colonel Randhawa, who has been translating and analysing these voices, these soldiers are like whistleblowers, who shared what went on in the camps, often in a veiled way. Mal Singh’s recording could well be reflective of the quality of food there.He rues the government has not taken any initiative to bring these voices to India and find out what happened to these soldiers. “Is the government ignoring the First World War story under pressure from Britain and others? Or are they scared of skeletons in the cupboards coming to the fore. These were not British soldiers; these were Indian soldiers. We fought the war, won it, won Victoria Crosses too, but what was happening behind the scenes, let that also be known,” he says. While Mal Singh’s voice was able to reach his family in Moga, Colonel Randhawa feels that voice of the other soldiers should reach their loved ones, some of whom might be in Pakistan today. Also, he says that there is no information on whether these soldiers returned home or not. He feels that while we are still commemorating the FirstWorld War, “Let us at least hear what they had to say. Let us see what lessons we can draw for the youth. These voices have been ‘seized’ for a hundred years. It is time we heard them now.”

The recording project

Founded in 1915, Royal Prussian Phonographic Commission was set up to record languages spoken by the PoWs. Around 30 scientists were involved in this project. With experts from the field of linguistics, musicology and anthropology, the commission recorded the different languages spoken by these PoWs. Under linguist Wilhelm Doegen, 1,650 recordings were made. In an article in 2011, Prof Britta Lange wrote that these scientists, mainly professors at Berlin University, asked the prisoners about their traditional songs and texts. For this reason, many of the gramophone recordings…. “contain legends, fairytales, fables, religious texts and chants from individual ethnic groups. Texts freely formulated by the prisoners themselves, describing their personal situation in the German prisoner of war camp, revealing details of their biographies or the force of war-time circumstance that brought them to Germany are more rare.”

Not lost

The Germans were meticulous in documentation. Along with each recording is a transcript of the script in Punjabi and in English. There is a page on biodata of the PoW in question in both English and German. It lists out details like name, birthplace, regiment, religion, languages known and date of recording.

Vishal Jasrotia

Samba, April 22

While most retired Army officers look forward to spend time with their families for the rest of their lives, Capt Raj Singh (retd) of Kehli Mandi in Samba had other things on his mind. After serving in the Army for 30 years, he decided to make a difference in others’ lives.Captain Raj Singh (52) has been making efforts to help youth build a career in the armed forces by providing free-of-cost training on a daily basis for the past two years.“I saw tremendous potential and zeal among the local youth who wanted to serve the nation. Unfortunately, they were not aware of the various recruitments conducted in the Army and paramilitary forces. So, I thought of getting them trained for the recruitment process based on my experience in the Army,” Captain Raj Singh said.He said there were academies to train youngsters for civil services, banking sector and other services but there was a lack of such facilities for the armed forces, especially in Samba district. “Keeping this in mind, I started giving training, which includes physical fitness and written test coaching, to aspiring youth with an aim to enable them gain entry in the Army and other security forces,” he said.With sustained hard work, practice and training, of the 150 youth he has trained, around 80 have been selected in the Army, BSF and other paramilitary forces, he said. At present, a group of around 200 to 300 youth, who were preparing to join the Army, were undergoing training, he said.The youth undergoing strenuous training were highly motivated. One of them, Abhimanyu Singh, said, “Gallantry is a cherished value for us and joining the Army to serve the nation is our dream.”“Many of our elderly generations had served in various decorated infantry regiments of the Army. So, we want to take forward the tradition. We are determined to join the armed forces come what may,” said Akshay Singh, an aspirant from Samba.

The Chinese onslaught is relentless with its multi-named infrastructural initiative (One-Belt-One-Road) that is unparalleled in its scale, temerity of ambition and its ability to ensnare the participating countries within its ambit.

Lt Gen Bhopinder Singh (retd)The  self-inflicted retreat of the US footprint from the global stage is matched with the commensurate increase in the Chinese presence, impact and strategic-hold. Armed with what Henry Kissinger calls an ‘subtle sense of the intangible’, the Chinese are making huge investments, from $60 billion committed for the African countries, $140 billion in loan commitments to Latin America, $60 billion for just Pakistan under the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) initiative, to now even a potential toehold in the Pacific ocean country of Vanuatu! The Chinese onslaught is relentless with its multi-named infrastructural initiative (One-Belt-One-Road, Silk Road Economic Belt, The Belt & Road, 21st Century Maritime Silk Road and The Belt and Road Initiative) that is unparalleled in its scale, temerity of ambition and its ability to ensnare the participating countries within its ambit. Chinese President Xi Jingping first introduced the overarching concept in 2013, and since then a complex web of Chinese state-owned banks, private enterprises, sovereign funds and even the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) are intermingling to cast an irresistible promise of infrastructural, economic, social and security transformation, owing to these Chinese investments. Ironically, it is the regime of the Communist Party of China that is fueling the globalisation imperatives, with its intended goal of investing $1 trillion across 60 countries. Making the deal sweeter for the recipient country is the ‘conditionless’ collaterals, that unlike the investments from the Western powers and institutions like the World Bank or IMF, seeks no intervention in domestic policies, human rights, transparency requirements or any democratisation of the regimes concerned. The Chinese investment models entail no immediate changes and they allow for an ‘incremental correction’ that is more palatable to the populist regimes in recipient countries. The Chinese are said to be inking trade deals worth $600 billion with Iran (recently they were even offered the Chabahar port development, much to India’s consternation), sustaining Pakistani economy and seducing countries like the Maldives, Nepal etc.  As Xi Jingping said, “It is time for us to take centre stage in the world” and that China was “standing tall and firm in the east”.However, there is growing disquiet of a sinister “debt-trap diplomacy” at work, wherever and whenever Beijing decides to invest its multi-billions, earned from the trade-surpluses accumulated for the last 25 years. The ‘Pearl Port’ of Hambantota in the southern tip of Sri Lanka is a classic case of a Chinese carrot ($1.3 billion investment) that morphed into a unserviceable debt trap within seven years, only to result into a sovereign surrender leading to a handover of the port to the Chinese on a 99-year lease! China formally opened its first overseas military base in Djibouti — the 90 acre real-estate earns the cash-tight Djiboutian dictator, Ismail Omar Guelleh, $20 million annually — besides having Chinese banks pump in $14.4 billion for infrastructure projects in Djibouti. This seamless transformation of the initial ‘economic investments’ leading to a ‘logistical base’ in the restive Horn of Africa,  to finally a ‘military base’ in Djibouti has Australia, New Zealand and the US in a tizzy with eerie similarities of ‘Chinese Infrastructure funding’ in Vanuatu. The ‘generosity’ and ubiquity of Chinese investments in the island nation of 2,80,000 people already accounts for half of the $440 million foreign debt and that makes it vulnerable to the possibility of a military outpost like Djibouti, that typically follows the original agreement to allow Chinese naval ships to dock for ‘logistical purposes and refueling’.Similarly in Pakistan, the Chairman of the Senate Standing Committee on Planning and Development had forewarned on the CPEC, “Another East India Company is in the offing; national interests are not being protected. We are proud of the friendship between Pakistan and China, but the interests of the state should come first”. Facts like 91 per cent of the Gwadar port revenue accruing to the Chinese, with only 9 per cent residual left for the Gwadar Port Authority for the next 40 years, militate against the supposed ‘all-weather-friendship’ of the two countries. Embarrassingly, the Pakistanis had to turn down a Chinese demand to allow the exclusive use of Yuan as the standard currency in the Gwadar Free Trade Zone. As Pakistan commits 15,000 military troops of a dedicated ‘Special Security Division’ to physically secure CPEC assets, projects and personnel —murmurs are rife of local tensions with the ‘hordes’ of Chinese workers (apparently even Chinese prisoners), contracts going arbitrarily to Chinese companies as opposed to benefitting the local companies, besides a prospective annual payout of approximately $3.5 to $4.5 billion for Pakistan by 2024. A typical debt trap looms that could lead to a complete vassal-state that is encumbered,even more to Beijing’s diktats.  Donald Trump alleges that China is attempting to “challenge American power” by seeking “to pull the region into its orbit through state-led investment and loans”. The Chinese model of investments and ‘bail-outs’ also leads to geopolitical subservience beyond commercial entrapment, eg Venezuela has a staggering Chinese debt of approximately $20 billion that makes it susceptible to dancing to China’s tunes. Already, Brazil, Chile and Peru have China as their top trading partner, as the dragon uses its financial-muscle initially, to fuel its geopolitical and military presence, later. Nearer home, the Chinese investment model has the Maldives enthralled with the millions rolling in, while the parallel matter of a Chinese listening post with radars and SIGNIT (Signals intelligence) that will also have ‘military application with provision for a submarine base’ is typical of the ‘Price’ for Chinese investments.

A general recounts the tale of how as a young captain, he and five soldiers manned a post on a peak 20,000 feet above sea level for six gruelling months.

It was early 1986 and almost two years after the Indian Army, supported by the IAF and Army Aviation’s fleet of Mi-8s and Cheetahs, had established dominance over many heights on the Saltoro Range. In a daring but completely unsustainable operation, the Ladakh Scouts of the Indian Army attempted to establish posts over 6100 metres on the lower slopes of the Saltoro Kangri Mastiff that was part of what the Indian army calls the Northern Glacier.

As a young captain and paratrooper, Navkiran Singh Ghei, was posted to the Ladakh Scouts after a stint as an instructor at the National Defence Academy. Ghei went on to command the Indian Army’s only Para Brigade, a division in the northeast in counter-insurgency operations and a corps in Punjab, before signing off his illustrious career as a Lieutenant General, after a three-year stint as the Commandant of the National Defence College, India’s premier institution of strategic learning.

A reticent and ‘feet on the ground’ kind of a general, I was fortunate to get him talking one day on his experience of opening and maintaining a small post at 6135 m (20,250 feet) for over six months with hardly any back-up or logistics support, along with five ‘Nunnus’, as the Ladakh Scouts soldiers were affectionately called.

Having gradually occupied the heights at Bilafondla, Sia la and tasted some success in the Southern and Central Glacier, operational ideas about how to dominate the entire glacier flowed fast and thick from both Northern Command and Army HQs. The importance of establishing more posts in the Northern Glacier was important for the visibility it offered over the entire communication lines that extended towards the Pakistani posts in the Central Glacier and on the Saltoro and Baltoro ridges, particularly from the point of view of providing direction for artillery fire. Consequently, a height was identified that overlooked the Indian posts of Ashok and U Cut (so named because the post itself was located on a ridge that resembled a U Cut) and offered visibility over the Pakistani logistics line that ran up the Bilafond Glacier to support posts like Qaid Post.

As the Siachen imbroglio deepened, the value of the Ladakh Scouts was immense and officers from various regiments were posted there to garner expertise in high altitude operations. At the time, the Ladakh Scouts had its headquarters in Leh, and was divided into two forces of approximately 8-10 companies each. These were known as the Karakoram and Indus Forces after the areas given to them to patrol and operate in.

After a period of acclimatisation at Base Camp and a Forward Logistics Camp, Ghei and his platoon, which included Subedar Sonam as platoon commander, and four hardy Ladakhi troops set out on an arduous climb from 15,000 feet to 20,000 feet, reaching their intended summit at around 8 pm on 26 February 1986. Having pitched their three-man Arctic Tents, they burrowed-in for the night, little realising that they would suffer white out conditions in appalling weather for the next three days.

Ghei recalls that they could not see beyond a couple of feet and had to make do ‘without a pee or a crap for days’. It was a surreal experience for the six men as they huddled in their small tents thinking of how they would survive a week, leave alone for a couple of months as they were tasked to accomplish. Realising that they had bitten off more than they could chew, Ghei radioed for assistance. He sought a larger tent, some supplies and reinforcements.

As the weather cleared, the team established camp for the long haul. It was envisaged that the teams would be rotated every few weeks, but when Ghei’s replacement came a few weeks later, he was all but gone. He barely reached the camp suffering from acute mountain sickness, and had to be evacuated down to the base camp and onwards to the military hospital before he sank further. This meant that Ghei remained on station.

On a clear day, the team had a vantage view of Pakistani supply lines along the Bilafond La glacier and directed artillery shoots on these lines. The rarefied atmosphere posed great challenges for Indian gunners as the lower density meant that the shells encountered lower drag and thus overshot the target by miles as there were no charts for those altitudes. ‘Drop 300m, drop 500m’ were common radio calls that Ghei made to the artillery gun posts to aim much shorter.

They invariably transmitted back to him that the firing picture they were getting pointed at an impact point that was in friendly territory; sometimes even coinciding with his own location. It was a period of uncertainty and virgin territory for India’s gunners, and it was only gradually that ballistics were worked out to ensure acceptable levels of accuracy. One month turned to two, and then almost six. Ghei and his team survived on the post like zombies.

When I asked him how they survived, he said that the Ladakhis were amazing survivors and seeing them gave him the courage to lead from the front. Deprived of sleep, suffering from periodic hallucinations, surviving on milk powder and an odd paratha that the ‘Nunnus’ made him, Ghei lost 10 kg and suffered partial memory loss by the end of his extended six-month vigil on Pt 6135.

When they went down and reported the conditions, the post was abandoned and never manned again. This is a story like the stuff one only reads in the memoirs of mountaineers and their struggle against the odds of nature. The only difference is that it is only one of many that come out of Siachen.

Arjun Subramaniam is a retired Air Vice Marshal from the IAF and currently a Visiting Fellow at Oxford.

Chennai, April 12

Boeing India, Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd and Mahindra Defence Systems on Thursday entered into an agreement to manufacture fighter aircraft F/A-18 Super Hornet in the country.Boeing India president Pratyush Kumar, HAL Chairman and Managing Director T Suvarna Raju and Mahindra Defence Systems chairman S P Shukla exchanged a ‘Memorandum of Agreement’ for ‘Make in India fighter’ at the on-going ‘DefExpo’ near here.Stating that the discussions on the tie-up have been going on for the last 18 months, Kumar said, “The intent of the government and the MoD (Ministry of Defence) for a strategic partnership is to produce ‘Make in India’ aircraft.” “We scanned across length and breadth of the country. We discussed with over 400 suppliers.” Kumar told reporters.”Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd is the only company that manufactures combat fighters, while Mahindra Defence is the only company that manufactures small commercial planes. It is exciting for us,” he said.To a query, Kumar said a joint venture company would be floated over the next few months and added that investments under the agreement will be “huge.”He, however, declined to share any figures on the investments to be made.On the agreement, Mahindra Defence Systems chairman S P Shukla said, “This is a combination.. We have three companies that will bring their expertise, domain knowledge and flavour to the alliance.”Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd, Chairman and Managing Director, T Suvarna Raju said under the agreement the existing facilities may be used for manufacturing the fighter aircraft or if required may set up a facility.The Super Hornet fighter aircraft does not only have a low acquisition cost, but it costs less per flight hour to operate than a tactical aicraft, a company statement said. The F/A-18 Super Hornet will outpace threats, bolster defence capabilities and make India stronger for decades to come, it said.The partnership would also bring Boeing, HAL and Mahindra Defence System global scale and supply chain, best-in-industry precision manufacturing processes as well as unrivaled experience in designing and optimising aerospace production, the release added.The ‘DefExpo’ was formally inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Thiruvidanthai, about 40 km from here, today. – PTI