A Unique Raising Day

Raising Days are special for all army units, but more importantly for infantry battalions, armoured regiments and those units where one keeps coming back for regimental tenures after staff, instructional or other postings outside the battalion or the regiment.

Other units also celebrate Raising Days as they are good for motivation, morale and camaraderie, three essentials for keeping the units operationally fit. In this article, I shall endeavour to focus on Raisings of units in general and of my battalion, 18 Maratha Light Infantry in particular.

A visit by Chhatrapati of Kolhapur at Belgaum

Raising an infantry battalion is in many ways a very exciting and challenging experience, which does not come in the life of many army stalwarts. I was lucky to be part of the raising of the 18th or the ‘Bachha’ Battalion of our Regiment, The Maratha Light Infantry, which is one of the oldest infantry regiments of our great Army.

Raising of a new infantry battalion is a major exercise at various levels and appointments at Army Headquarters, as well as at Command Headquarters and lower formation levels. Everyone understands the need to give the newly forming battalion a firm start. At the Army Headquarter and formation headquarters levels Standard Operating Procedures (SOP’s) are meticulously followed.

Similarly, parallel actions are afoot at the Regimental level, where the key players are the Colonel of the Regiment; the Commandant of the Regimental Centre; and the Commanding Officer Designate, selected to raise the battalion.

Selection of personnel for the new raising is both at the officers’ levels and at the level of the rank and file. The existing battalions are milked for manpower, keeping in view their current tasking; whether they are committed operationally; their manpower situation and so on.

For officers, numbering about 14 to 17 in a battalion, an elaborate and deliberate exercise is undertaken at the Military Secretary’s (MS) Branch at Army Headquarters, co-opting the Colonel of the Regiment and the Commanding Officer Designate.

It is ensured that ‘High to Above Average’ officers of varied senioritis are selected.

The Raising of our battalion had commenced on March 1 1976 at Belgaum, with an invocation to the Almighty, at the Regimental Centre Mandir. All ranks of the battalion who had reported by then, attended the proceedings.

Others joined in, as and when they received their instructions. I was one of the stragglers as I was attending the Senior Command Course at Mhow and joined after the course was over.

The Commandant of the Regimental Centre has a crucial role too. He is able to assist the battalion being raised with both material, personnel-oriented as well as support in what is known in army parlance regimental support.

Usually, Commandants of Regimental Centres are specially selected, but when the 18th was raised, the commandant, Col. Guru Ratan Singh was possibly the best we had had. He had also been my Commanding Officer in my previous battalion, 1 Maratha L I (Jangi Paltan), where he had steered the First Battalion through the Bicentenary celebrations of the battalion and won laurels.

Our then Colonel of the Regiment, late Maj. General E. D’Souza, needs to be commended for selecting Lt Col. M. A. Zaki, VrC, as the first commanding officer of the 18th Battalion. He was well known in the Regiment as a great human being, a no-nonsense person, besides a soldier par excellence.

He had already commanded the second oldest battalion of the Regiment, 2 Maratha Li (Kali Panchwin). Besides being a thoroughbred professional, he was also a highly competent administrator.

Gen M A Zaki: Founding Father of 18th. Later Colonel of the Regiment

The core team of officers from different battalions bonded quickly, as they were all solid professionals and very soon, bonding spread to the rank and file. This was and continues to be the greatest strength of the Paltan.

It has seeped into every person who has joined the Paltan in the last 58 years (just two short of the Golden Jubilee on the horizon!) of its existence. This bonding continues even in those who are no longer serving, but remain in touch and jump at any opportunity to meet, exchange stories of yore, reminiscence and are ready to assist their comrades.

Within about four months, the ‘Bachha Battalion’ completed its raising, the entire Paltan was taken out for a field exercise. We had also managed to have a tie-up with the Navy. INS Hansa participated in the exercise, providing close air support by the Alizes ex Goa; it was perhaps the earliest Joint experience for both.

Unfortunately, the last sortie of the day had crashed in the somewhat hilly terrain of the area of the exercise.

Having completed our Raising, the battalion moved to its first station of posting: Secunderabad.

General Vijay Oberoi: Second CO OF 18th. Later Colonel of the Regiment

General Zaki relinquished command of the battalion in late 1977 and handed over the reins of the battalion to me. It had been a great pleasure serving under a great commanding officer.

I must not forget the contribution of late Mrs Arshia Zaki, both during the Raising at Belgaum and later at Secunderabad while Gen Zaki was commanding. She was a lady of the old school, always available to all. A mother-figure for all ranks, who never missed participating in all events of the battalion.

18TH Walas Bonding

That brings me to the reason for penning this piece.

All battalions and regiments look forward to getting together on Raising Days. The veterans of the battalions get a chance to interact with the serving officers, JCO’s and Jawans, and break bread with them. They assess how the battalion is taking its flag higher, besides the sense of pride and happiness when comrades who have been through thick and thin ignite and burnish their memories.

The 18th has a tradition of organising such Raising Days thoughtfully, thoroughly and exhaustively. However, on account of exigencies of service and operational commitments, it is not possible to do so every year.

The battalion had organised the last Raising Day in Southern Gujarat in 2023 and a whole lot of us had gathered for the occasion. I had also written about it in The Citizen.

In the interim, the Battalion has moved to an operational area, where it is not feasible to organise Raising Day celebrations of that order. Of course, the battalion will celebrate the big day in a truncated manner, but minus the veterans.

However, the veterans of the 18th always find a way! Brig Ranjit Mishra, who was the first officer to join the battalion at Belgaum, directly from the Academy, rang me up a few months back and suggested that we celebrate the Raising Day at Hyderabad, as General Zaki, the founding-father of the 18th, resides there in his ancestral home.

He does not travel these days on account of age-related and medical issues. I jumped at the suggestion and endorsed it fully.

While General Zaki has not been informed, as we want to give him a surprise, there was overwhelming support for the plan. General Hari Prasad, former Northern Army Commander who is settled at Hyderabad also endorsed the plan.

Logistics and all other details are now in place, with the Lead Coordinators, Brigadier Ranjit Mishra and Lt Col. Sachin Kapoor not missing even the smallest details.

General Zaki’s son, Col. Ali (also commissioned in the 18th ) and his wife Farah will try to keep the surprise intact, hopefully till the last moment, while the 18th-walahs assemble at the twin cities of Hyderabad-Secunderabad from all over the country.

I had all plans made to be there but unfortunately, I was hospitalised a few days back and am not permitted to travel. I shall miss this historic get-together, but shall be there in spirit!

My wife Daulat and older daughter Rashmi, who were there during the Raising at Belgaum, and later at Secunderabad, where I had taken over the reins of the battalion, would be there to felicitate General Zaki and be part of the celebrations. General Hari Prasad and his talented wife Laxmi will no doubt preside over both the formal and informal proceedings.

Before I conclude, let me remember with great pleasure my comrades who were part of the highly successful Raising at Belgaum. They later put their hearts and souls into making the battalion Numero Uno in the Division, under both General Zaki’s and my command of the battalion at Secunderabad.

Commanding Officers interact very closely with their adjutants. We had first class adjutants during our commands.

They kept changing, but all were excellent, from the late Suresh Bhatt to Satish Sharma to Nowzer Mistry, with brief stints by Ravi Padman and Kulwant Grewal. Of course, our first adjutant, the late Ajay Dafle, was in a class by himself. He over-exerted himself while in command of his company and suffered a heart attack, while exercising his company at the firing ranges, but soldiered on!

Our senior company commanders, Hari, Walia, Balli Dhillon, Francis, Mini Sharma, Arun Bajpai, Dilip Thorat, and later Hemant Pawar and late Shiv Dubey were all top class and highly reliable.

When the time came for applications to be submitted for the entrance examination for the DSSC course, I found all four of my rifle company commanders applying. I was not unduly worried, as I had full faith in the residual officers in the Battalion, mostly comparatively young, but full of pep and bounce. All four aspirants got all the leave and furlough they wanted and I ran the Battalion with only a handful of officers.

I was the happiest person when all four were nominated for the course. It was some kind of a record for one battalion and that too a newly-formed battalion to send four officers to the same DSSC course!

They all did well and we in the battalion rejoiced in their achievements. The officers were Balli Dhillon, Francis, Arun Bajpai and Dilip Thorat.

Our Quartermasters, led by the anchor-Harbhajan Singh, with short stints by K. N. Rao, Hemant Pawar and late Shiv Dubey were also highly diligent. Unlike now, during those days, the AIA and CEME inspections of weapons and vehicles were dreaded events and both the QM and the MTO spent sleepless nights preparing for them.

However, Harbhajan and Ravi Padman took them in their stride. In the end, not only did we have good reports, but we also managed to get new weapons and vehicles.

I was fortunate in having two highly capable Second’s-in-Command, first Major (later Northern Army Commander) Hari Prasad and then Major (later Colonel) Tribhawanjit Walia. At different times, they were also my company commanders, along with P D George (sadly, he is not at all well today!), Mini Sharma, Shiv Dubey and C. P. Muthanna.

C. P. or Sleepy as we used to call him, albeit wrongly, was our sports captain for all the selected games in which we had planned that the Battalion needed to excel. He was mainly responsible for bringing up the basketball as well as the boxing teams. He still runs in marathons in the hilly Coorg at his advanced age!

We focused on the hockey team too, under the stewardship of Nowzer Mistry, who despite his girth and a bad ankle could dribble a ball from one end of the ground to the other, rarely losing it to his opponents.

Only two young officers, Ranjit Mishra and Sunny Sanyal had joined the battalion at Belgaum and later Nikhil Gajjar, Anil Mishra, K. P. Singh and D. K. Rawal joined the battalion at Secunderabad on commissioning. They quickly adopted the ethos of the Paltan.

I must confess that we were lucky to have such a wonderful set of officers, who really built up the fledgling battalion. They were ably supported by a few highly experienced senior JCO’s, including Vithal Jadhav: our Subedar Major Sahib; Sakharam Gawas; Hanmantrao Patil; Tukaram Tibile; Uttam Nalaode; and others.

My wife, Daulat and the wives of the officers could not be left behind. They started the Family Welfare Centre, literally from scratch, and built it up steadily. We employed a lady doctor and my wife also assumed the duties of the Principal of the children’s kinder garden school of the brigade that was located in our unit lines.

A word about our medical officer (RMO), Capt (later Lt Col) Keerthi Kumar Patangay, who was with the Battalion throughout the commands of Gen Zaki and myself. His contribution to the health of all ranks, as well as the families was exceptional.

Our first Raising Day was celebrated with great enthusiasm and rightly so, for the Battalion had come a long way in the last one year. Besides the ceremonial aspects, a Mela (akin to a pagal gymkhana) was organised wherein everyone, including children joined in. It was good fun for all and a great success.

Our sainik sammelans were held under a big, shady tree, behind our office barrack, with the men sitting on the ground cross-legged and the NCOs on benches. The commanding officer was flanked on either side by the officers and JCO’s respectively.

In the office complex, we had a fairly big conference room, which was used quite often in discussions on both professional and regimental subjects. I recall running classes for our officers when various examinations approached.

The pride of the Paltan was of course the Quarter Guard, located a little beyond the office barrack. It took time (and money) for us to brighten it up, but right from the start it was the show-piece of the Paltan.

We had two religious’ institutions – a Mandir and a Masjid, which were patronised by all officers on all big and important religious days. During our stay at Secunderabad, we added to both, for visual attractiveness as well as for the comfort of the congregations.

We were authorised a Panditji, but no Maulvi Sahib, as the strength of the Muslim personnel was not large enough for one to be authorised. Our Panditji was a jovial person, who understood the requirements of the troops well.

He came to the specifics quickly, without spending too much time on elaborate rituals. He served the Paltan well and if I am not mistaken retired as a Subedar Major.

We had a modern mess building, but it took a lot of time, patience and perseverance to collect funds to furnish it and make it less bare. We had a sincere and smart Mess Havildar in Pratap Kadam, whose contribution to the efficient running of the Mess was highly commendable. He is settled at Pune and doing extremely well in his own enterprise.

Our Mess parties were remembered and talked about extensively as we always had innovations and not just the run of the mill programmes. Hemant Pawar, an artist and an erstwhile engineer transformed the rear lawn of the Mess from a drab wilderness into an ornamental park, complete with a stream and a little bridge over it.

For one party, we had a shehnai player serenading the guests from a ‘machan’ in a tree. It took the guests quite some time to locate the source! On another occasion, we had Kuchipudi dancers in their best silks suddenly appearing on the roof of the Mess Verandah to the accompaniment of traditional music.

It achieved a stunning effect, as was intended. One of our last parties was a Ghazal evening, something not associated with the South, but it turned out to be a roaring success.

We also acquired a Croquet Set for the Mess. Many evenings were spent on the front lawns playing croquet. Maybe we did not follow all the rules, but everyone had a wonderful time! That reminds me of the evening when Hemant Pawar took off on his scooter after a party at such a speed that his wife Poonam did not get a chance to sit on the pillion seat. She was not worried though, because soon a sheepish looking Hemant returned to pick up his wife, but not without a lot of ribbing from us all. Those were the days, as that song goes!

We had many visitors to the Paltan, including the Southern Army Commander, Lt. General Vir Vohra, Maj. General E. D’Souza, Colonel of the Regiment on his farewell visit, Maj. General A. K. Handoo, GOC Division, Maj. General Hari Kulkarni, the newly appointed Colonel of the Regiment, Major General Samir Sinha (2 PARA) and others.

A memorable occasion was in 1978, when the Battalion was selected to lay on a fire power demonstration for the visiting Chief of the Iranian Army, General Gulam Ali Oveisi. This was a major demonstration conducted at the Shamirpet Ranges.

We had the complete divisional artillery and a squadron of tanks giving fire support to the assault of the battalion, besides our own mortars. What an impressive show it was. I conducted it on behalf of the formation.

It was received well and further enhanced the image of the Battalion in the formation, as the battalion that could meet all challenges. Our assaulting troops had a close shave, as a few artillery shells mistakenly landed amidst the assaulting troops.

Miraculously, there were no casualties. If anything, it added to the realism of the demonstration, but it was an extremely close shave. God always protects the competent and the brave.

Our operational role included crossing water obstacles against enemy opposition.

One of the last exercises we participated in was with the whole division mobilised. The area was really backward, underdeveloped and difficult.

However, it was ideal for training and learning the correct lessons. All ranks of the battalion were highly enthused about the exercise and approached it with great confidence. The area was infested with all types of snakes, who must have resented our intrusion in their habitat! Our Jawans were never perturbed by the snakes though and took them in their strides.

The main operation involved an opposed river crossing and thereafter rapid advance in subsequent phases, into the heart of the enemy for turning his defences. With the reputation the Battalion had built up in the division, it was inevitable that we would get the stellar role in the exercise and that is exactly what happened.

We carried out the bridge-head establishment well in time in pitch darkness and when I found that the other assaulting units were getting delayed, without waiting for them I launched the Battalion to insert in the depth areas of the enemy. We thus, achieved the divisional task single-handedly, surprising not just the enemy but also our higher headquarters and the umpires.

It was perhaps a befitting finale to our extremely active and training-oriented tenure in the Bison Division, but I was wrong, for even during the last days of our tenure, we were selected for yet another important assignment, but this time it was not a training exercise but a proper operation.

Those with a long memory may recall that the police in Tamil Nadu, especially at Chennai, had refused to obey orders and had rebelled. While no one wanted to call it a mutiny, the Army was asked for assistance.

This was less than a month from our moving out to a field area, after finishing our tenure. I remember being called to the formation headquarters in the evening and being entrusted with this sensitive task, somewhat apologetically as we had been left free to prepare for our move, as is the norm.

The battalion rose to the occasion, without batting an eyelid. While air load tables were being worked out in accordance with the type and number of aircraft being made available, the battle procedure continued apace and the move to the airfield started soon after midnight.

We were in Chennai early in the morning, much to the surprise of the local police and the media. We deliberately kept a low profile while we carried out reconnaissance and final preparations.

All this time, the senior police and other officials were negotiating with the rebellious policemen. Eventually, persuasion worked and we were not employed, but it was an excellent experience for the battalion.

Rarely have I seen alacrity of the type displayed by my officers and men for this near operational task. The battalion’s preparation and demeanour from the time the task was assigned, to its culmination was a befitting finale to my tenure of commanding the wonderful Eighteenth Battalion of the Maratha Light Infantry.

I left the battalion in August 1979, after handing over to my successor, Lt Colonel Kartar Singh and moved to my new appointment as instructor at the Senior Command Course at the College of Combat, Mhow.

A few months later, in January 1980, I was pleasantly surprised to see my name in the Republic Day Honours List. I had been awarded a Vishisht Seva Medal (VSM), for excelling in command. It reflected the professionalism and hard work of all ranks of the Paltan, while I was in command. I am always grateful to them.

General Zaki had retired from active service on January 31 1993 at Belgaum, but had continued to serve the nation in various capacities. Our lives too completed a full circle as he handed over the ‘Colonelcy’ of the Regiment to me, while I was commanding 33 Armoured Division.

General Zaki hands over the ‘Colonelcy’ of the regiment to General Oberoi

Lt General Vijay Oberoi is a former Vice Chief of Army Staff and the Former Founder Director of the Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS), and now its Director General Emeritus. Views expressed are the writer’s own.