The National Identity XVI: The Forgotten Soldiers of India’s Only Foreign War
The unsung soldiers of an ill-fated occupation
A few years ago, I wrote an article on the 65' war, and a line there caught the imagination of many readers. It stated how the Indian Army, acutely aware of the danger, psychological and physical, that pitched urban battles represent avoided entering Lahore. Pakistan celebrates this very “(non)act” of India as the “defence of Pakistan day”, apparently because they “defended” Lahore from Indian aggression. The Indian Army, simply put, wanted to avoid its’ own Stalingrad — a low intensity, never-ending and morale sapping conflict in an urban setting, with no definition of “success” and no hope of achieving it. 23 years later, however, the Indian Army could no longer avoid its’ Stalingrad, Black Hawk Down and Vietnam all rolled into one, and went into an urban battle, on foreign soil, against the very rebels it trained and armed till a few months ago, and returned with much more than a bloodied nose —almost three years later.
The Tamil rebels, in Northern and Eastern Sri Lanka, were known as “our boys” (humare ladke) in the South Block — they were trained and armed by the Indian establishment for years before the armed conflict came to head in late 1987. New Delhi’s overt confidence in handling “the boys” of LTTE…
