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Brig Prabir Goswami (Retd)
Many of us who were in uniform when he was the Army Chief, and even after his retirement, had the occasion to be touched and influenced by the irrepressible Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw, one of India’s most loved and admired soldiers.
Having just taken over as the Army Chief, General Manekshaw came as the Reviewing Officer for our Passing Out Parade at the Indian Military Academy, Dehradun, on June 15, 1969. It was a huge honour that the Chief himself would take the salute as we got commissioned as Second Lieutenants.
Just two months later, he visited our armoured regiment at Ahmednagar. It was a new unit being raised with soldiers brought in from Artillery, Engineers and the Infantry, and from different castes like Marathas, Ahirs and Gujjars. This mixed bag was a first-time experiment for the Armoured Corps. Sam had just introduced name tabs for officers and we were all wearing these as we lined up for introductions.
The month of April 1971 was when the die for the future of Bangladesh's Liberation War was cast. Both Indian and Bangladesh governments got busy in planning operations for expunging the Pakistani occupation forces at the earliest. Indira Gandhi held numerous meetings with cabinet colleagues, bureaucrats and the army top brass.
Raghu Rai s rediscovered negatives relive the horrors of B desh s liberation
Thu, Apr 22 2021 13:03 IST |
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Raghu Rai s rediscovered negatives relive the horrors of Bangladesh s liberation.. Image Source: IANS News
New Delhi, April 22 : Ace photographer Raghu Rai was only five years into the profession when the Bangladesh liberation struggle erupted in March 1971. He was dispatched post-haste by The Statesman newspaper to record the exodus of refugees, they would eventually number some 10 million, as they streamed into West Bengal and neighbouring states to escape the atrocities being committed by the Pakistani Army.
He could immediately empathise with the refugees being a child of Partition himself when he and his family were uprooted from their Jhang hometown in what is now Pakistan.