Air Commodore (Dr) Anurakshat Gupta speaks with Col Anil Bhat (retd.) on India’s military history | SAM Conversation
Air Commodore (Dr) Anurakshat Gupta speaks with Col Anil Bhat (retd.) on India’s military history | SAM Conversation
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00:00Welcome to SAAM Conversation, a program of South Asia Monitor. Today, we are going to
00:19discuss a series of two books named NAM, NAMAK and NISHAN, NAME, SALT and THE FLAG.
00:39Very interestingly, they have been put together by five doctors, medical doctors of the Armed
00:47Forces Medical College, Pune. Very obviously, they are all five, much more than their own
01:02profession, who is masters in their own right. A Commodore Anurakshit Gupta, he was a group
01:18captain when the book was, these books were penned. He is presently the Administrative
01:24Officer of the Armed Forces Medical College. Then we have Flight Lieutenant Amitabh Singh
01:31Gupta, a medical officer in the Indian Air Force. And a Lieutenant, a Sergeant Lieutenant
01:43Commander Dinesh Mahato, from the Navy. Dr. Anmol Dhawan, currently running, he is in
01:59Radiology. And again, that's not all, he has a fair interest in, you know, putting
02:07in military history also. And the fifth is Sagnik Sarkar, a final year MBBS student in
02:16the Armed Forces Medical College, Pune. These two books cover fascinating and very educative
02:27informative aspects of military history, Indian military history, from the time that the East
02:40India Company made its, you know, advent into India. There are very, lots of interesting,
02:49you know, nuggets of knowledge which I brought out. And the chapters for the first book are,
02:59the colonial era before the beginning. Chapter 2, India at the World Wars and the years in
03:09between. Incidentally, India's contribution to the First World War was 15 lakh Indian soldiers.
03:16And the Second World War was 25 lakh Indian soldiers. Today, we are just about a 12 lakh
03:25army, fighting on two fronts. And the last chapter here is, the third chapter is, War of Independent
03:38India, a phoenix rises from the ashes. Fourth is the operations, warriors, traditions and colors
03:44of men in uniform. And the second book, chapters are, before independence, from 1947 to 1999,
03:59the Kargil War. Incidentally, this book was released on 26 July this year, to mark 25 years
04:11of the Kargil, what we call the Kargil War, which was actually an intensification of the conflict
04:18in Jammu and Kashmir. And the last chapter is a kaleidoscope of anecdotes. Oh, there are delightful
04:27anecdotes in this, not just delightful, but very informative also. The Armed Forces Medical College,
04:34their officers have done very well, not only in service, but even after leaving the service,
04:42I think six of them are deans of various medical universities.
04:49There's one worth mentioning, Dr. Arvind Lal, who runs the
04:56Lal Path Labs, very well-known Lal Path Labs.
05:03I'll not take any more time. I request A.K. Anuraksheth, Gupta, to throw light
05:11on how they were inspired and how they went about and what all they brought about.
05:18Good morning and good afternoon to everyone who's tuned into this interview. I thank
05:27Colonel Anil Bhatt and his team at the South Asia Monitor for giving us this opportunity to
05:33talk about our book. So, the origins of this book actually go back to somewhere in 2005. I was
05:42deployed as a surgeon in Mazar-e-Sharif in northern Afghanistan, as part of the Indian
05:47medical mission. And one day we had a, we were there just to look after the Afghans,
05:54but there were a lot of these NGOs and other such foreigners over there, and we were the only
05:58western-trained doctors over there. So, we got to sort of treat maybe 40-45 different nationalities
06:04as a result of that. And one day, the local British regiment that was based over there
06:13had a peculiar problem. Their doctor developed appendicitis. So, you know, we stepped in,
06:19helped them, and in return they called us over for a meal one of the subsequent evenings.
06:26It was at that place that I saw that the commanding officer had a very unique thing going
06:30on. He had a short quiz for his, all his troops. It was a 30-question quiz, 10 questions for,
06:37which were based on the regimental history, 10 questions on British army history, and 10
06:41questions on the world history. And the prize for, for winning the quiz was two duties of,
06:48guard duties of, which in Afghanistan in 2005 was a very significant prize,
06:52you can imagine. So, but that sort of put a seed of an idea in my mind, saying that,
07:00I wonder, informed about our own forge, the way we should be ideally, are there any interesting
07:08things that are happening in forge? What is our history like? How is it that we can get it
07:14across to a larger set of people? Now, traditionally, the sad part that I have seen is that
07:22the, the, the, the way the armed forces is, is projected in media,
07:29it got a very, you know, we're all standing in one line playing the guitar and having a drink at the
07:34bar, or it is something crowded in massive 5,000 pages, 400 pages of deep, intense military history,
07:46which is not really accessible to the average person. So, that with there in my mind, it took
07:57a while to, and see how I could best sort of, you know, try and fructify this idea. And
08:07from 2010, 2012, a couple of efforts were made in order to
08:14do military based quizzes for some events in, in different hospitals that I was serving in.
08:21But it was only around 2020 that I had this group of people. So, me along with my four co authors,
08:29what is common about us is that, like Colonel Bhatt said, we are all from the Armed Forces
08:35Medical College, we were all part of the quizzing teams during our different era, the age gap between
08:42the senior most person that's me and the junior most person that's Sagnik Sarkar is approximately
08:4830 years, 30 years apart. So, and interestingly, I have taught all the other four
08:55sort of co authors, they've all been my students when I was a professor of surgery at AFMC. So,
09:02I'm a surgeon by profession, and these boys happened to be my students. And so I got them
09:07together. We had this brainstorming during the COVID pandemic saying that, let's try and work
09:13on this book. Penguin was a very, very nice and helpful, they helped us to sort of, this was a
09:22leap in the dark for them, they had never published anything like this, no quiz books before,
09:26they had never published first time authors as per their own statements, because we were absolute
09:31novices in this field. And so the only thing that we were very confident about was the content,
09:37and that it this was a niche that we had never seen anywhere else, not just in India, but in
09:43the world. I'm the director of the International Cuisine Association, which is based in London,
09:47and we do the European Cuisine Championships and the World Cuisine Championships each year. And so
09:53I travel a lot every year, once at least to conduct these events. But nowhere else in the world have I
10:00come across anything which is related specifically to the world of military in the form of a quiz.
10:06So that's how the whole thing sort of fructified. We launched our first book in May of 2023.
10:14The feedback was very good. The whole response was good. Sales were far more than what Penguin
10:22anticipated. And so as soon as July 2023, we offered to write the follow up volume and they
10:29readily agreed. Our only request was that we'd release it on the 25th anniversary of the Kargil
10:37conflict, which happened to be 26th of July this year. And fortunately, we were able to make it
10:42happen. So that's how this entire sort of set of books has happened. It's our belief, sir, that we
10:51have enormous amount of information that is not easily available to the average public, even to
10:57the average fogey, because like I said, it is a very densely sort of packed academic form that
11:06mostly carries the information. We try to make information accessible to the average person.
11:13And of course, in the process, we've been able to reach out to the armed forces personnel themselves
11:18that itself has been very gratifying for us. So I'll stop there and let you ask.
11:24Thank you, Anurag Sheth. Tell me, it's not just the army you've covered, I think all three services,
11:36army, navy and air force. Any outstanding things that you brought out just as a teaser
11:52to those who may be attracted by the books?
11:58Sir, you know, we, of course, have pitched it as the Indian Armed Forces quiz book and not the army
12:08quiz book alone. Three of us, four of us are in the air force, one is in the navy. And but essentially,
12:15we are all still army medical course. So that's what connects army, air force and navy for us
12:20together. So we all have an army number, we are unique in having an army number as well as an air
12:24force or a navy number in the army medical corps. And so we have had the opportunity of serving
12:32both in army as well as air force and naval hospitals. So therefore, for us, the color of
12:37the uniform truly is, is moot. It's not something that is that would restrict our sort of reach to
12:46the forces. There are enormous number of interesting anecdotes and interesting things
12:53that one has come across. In fact, it's been such a learning process for us ourselves. So
13:02some of the interesting things that we have come across, for example, right from the time of the
13:1017th century, when you know, we had a French man who became a general for the Marathas. And
13:18before serving as a general for the Marathas, he'd already served three different nations.
13:23He was like this mercenary for hire, if you can call it, but a very, very competent man.
13:31And all for that matter, you know, the fact that so many people who we know in other fields,
13:39like say a person like Everest, George Everest, who gave his name to the Everest mountain. He was
13:47from the armed forces. We know that, I'm sure you all remember from your days of radio and music,
13:54the name of Anand Bakshi. He had served both in the Indian army as well as the Indian navy
14:00before he became a songwriter. Madan Mohan, the music director, his father was the police
14:07commissioner of Baghdad. And Madan Mohan himself joined the Indian army for a few years before
14:13he decided that this was not something that was his cup of tea, and so on and so forth. It is just
14:19stunning the amount of fields that for these and people with armed forces background have
14:25populated. Very recently, I don't know if people have seen those reports we have. One of our
14:32retired Director General of Armed Forces, General Unni, who has just taken part in the world
14:37tango dancing competition in Argentina and done brilliantly at that. So he's a baker, he is a
14:43paratrooper, he's a cardiothoracic surgeon. He was the Director General of the Armed Forces Medical
14:49Services, and now he's tangoing in Argentina. I mean, if this is not inspirational, then I don't
14:54know what is, you know, he's covered all bases. So it's people like this, it's incidents and events
15:00like this that, you know, make us feel that we need to break the stereotype of various, you know,
15:08things that media has brought on to the minds of people saying that, well, forges do just this
15:12thing, they just fight. No, we do that and much, much more. So that was one of the aims of the
15:18book, if you would like to say. If I may bring out, in Bollywood, the world of Bollywood, there are
15:28very many children of armed forces officers. Oh, absolutely, absolutely. Yes, so we've served,
15:37one of our FMCIs was Dr. Arvind Chopra, whose daughter is Priyanka Chopra. We have so many
15:43of these people from our college itself. And of course, from Bollywood, the number is much,
15:49much more. So yes, we had so many interesting things that we discovered, you know, especially
15:57like I said, there are interesting things which go back to 17th century, 16th century. Of course,
16:05we had to have a cut off. So that was one of the things. So where do you make a beginning? And
16:11truly, like, for example, I'll give you a simple thing like, there is a Bikaner camel core,
16:17right, which is now basically part of the BSF.
16:21It was 13th century, Ganga Jaisalmer Risala. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. And so it traces its history to
16:28even before Indian army, much before, because it was part of the Ganga Risala, like you said,
16:33you know. So it's very interesting. I mean, we've all heard of things like Teen Murti Bhavan or Teen
16:40Murti Maat. Not many Indians know that Teen Murti is the three regiments that were caught in the
16:47sort of cavalry charge, one of the last cavalry charges. Absolutely, sir. In Israel, in their
16:54history books, there's mention, there's mention of, you know, all the Indian personnel, including
17:04four or five officers, Thakur Vijay Dalpat Singh and all. We haven't, in India, we haven't done
17:12that, but in Israel. Absolutely, sir. I mean, if you look at some of these Commonwealth war graves
17:19that are there dotted across the country, the two most significant ones that I can think of
17:24are in Kohima and one in Kharki in Pune. So these are places that are maintained by the Commonwealth
17:31War Graves Commission. They are absolutely exactly similar to what you can find throughout
17:38Belgium, France and all the other parts where the First and the Second World War took place.
17:42In fact, those in Belgium and France and Italy and maybe some parts of Central Europe,
17:51they are filled with Indian names. Like you said, sir, one and a half million Indians
17:55took part in the wars over there in the first and two and a half million in the second, sir.
18:00And in foreign countries of the Commonwealth, the allies, many allied countries have memorials
18:07to the Indian Army, whereas India itself made a national war memorial only as late as 2019.
18:18Absolutely, sir. Very, very, very, I would say, despicable, but, you know, we apologize. So,
18:24we would find it despicable. I don't know if the rest of the country finds it sad or tragic or not.
18:28But, for example, I've got friends and batchmates who are now in Australia and they
18:37take part in the Anzac Parade very proudly, because at Gallipoli, we had Gurkha soldiers
18:42taking part in the defense of Gallipoli in the Dardanelles War, in the Second World War. And
18:47we are there in so many places. There were Indian Expeditionary Forces to the entire Africa, you
18:52know, Expeditionary Force A, B, C, D, E, F, G. There are so many of them in the First World War,
18:57fighting in Kenya, fighting in Uganda, Tanzania, Mesopotamia, the entire defense of Iraq,
19:05all the defense of the oil fields over there. So, our contribution has been phenomenal. In fact,
19:11many state forces have contributed immensely. So, we had all these rich maharajas who funded
19:18hospital ships, who funded food, artillery, ammunition for various regiments that they
19:25were affiliated to, who helped the allied cause by funding purchase of aircrafts, you know.
19:33I don't know how many people are aware that when the number one squadron of Indian Air Force was
19:39founded, there was no money to buy those aircrafts. And so, the population of Bombay
19:46contributed money, they donated money to buy those aircrafts. And that's why number one squadron for
19:52many years was called Bombay Squadron. So, you know, it is incredible. I mean, if you look at
19:59the Air Force station at Jodhpur, which used to be at one point of time, the
20:03Southwestern Air Command headquarter, the entire land has been provided by the Maharaja of Jodhpur
20:08free of cost. I think it's like one rupee a year lease, just for the Air Force to use it because
20:13he was an aviation enthusiast. The Jodhpur club, aviation club came up in 1930s. We had the Maharaja
20:19of Kapurthala buying biplanes, you know, we had the world's first postal air mail took place in
20:27India from Allahabad to Naini. The first time that mail was carried by air was in India by an
20:34aviation enthusiast. These are the same people who went on to become a part of the armed forces. Yes,
20:40sir. No, I must stop you because you will carry on with some fantastic, fascinating, you know,
20:52facts and I hope this book is widely, these books are widely bought and read and by those in the,
21:03particularly those in the government, those who in the government who are in the, you know,
21:09decision-making positions. Thank you very much, Air Commander Anurag Chitgupta and to your team
21:19for these delightful two terms. All the best. Thank you so much, sir. Thank you so much for
21:28helping us reach out, sir. I really appreciate all your help and support. Thank you so much.