Four Miles to Freedom

by Faith Johnston

  In November each airman also received a large box sent by the IAF through the International Red Cross. Each box was full of packages of biscuits and tins of food. They realized that their complaints about the poor food in Rawalpindi had been heard—rather late—but heard nevertheless, and now they had not only the better meals in Lyallpur but this bounty to share with their comrades from the army.

  A week or so after receiving their parcels, when they crossed over to the army officers’ compound for volleyball, the airmen noticed a great clean-up in progress. The larger compound had been scrupulously swept and the paths marked out with limestone powder. An inspection coming up, they guessed, or an important visitor, which was about the same thing. Then, the next day they were told to look sharp for an assembly. The day was Friday, 24 November.

  That morning all the IAF prisoners except Bhargava, whose back was troubling him, were taken to a compound near the main gate. All six hundred jawans were already sitting on durries in front of a stage set with a podium and microphone. Flags were flying. Journalists and photographers were gathering near the stage. ‘Bhutto is on his way,’ their army colleagues predicted. Were they guessing or had they been informed by their havaldar of what was afoot? Soon they heard the sound of helicopters, then the approach of jeeps. A few minutes later President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto stepped out of a jeep and mounted the stage. He needed no introduction.

  By this time the POWs expected a momentous announcement. Had the three countries finally agreed to an exchange of prisoners? Was it possible they wouldn’t spend another winter in Pakistan after all? But that was not what Bhutto said. They had all been guests in his country far too long, he said, and he had decided, unilaterally, to release them. What India did was up to that country. He had made his decision and it would stand.

  He said all this with great flourishes. He would stop and look directly at them with his broad face, or toss his head back. It was an impressive performance. With his thick fringe of grey hair, he was like a lion surveying his territory. At the end of it the POWs applauded politely. Bhutto walked off the stage and left immediately without mingling. He was a popular man still, but not as popular at Lyallpur prison as he was on the outside.

  The airmen walked back to their compound eager to tell Bhargava the news. They were going home, and though Bhutto had not said exactly when, they knew a promise is a promise, especially when it is made in public before the TV cameras.

  The Indian government was caught by surprise by Bhutto’s announcement, but the following Monday Swaran Singh, Minister of Foreign Affairs, announced that India would reciprocate by releasing the 540 Pakistani POWs captured on the western front. Meanwhile, in Lyallpur, the IAF prisoners dug into their food boxes with gusto. They might have only a few days left and they didn’t plan to leave anything behind.

  Home

  On 30 November, six days after Bhutto’s announcement, the IAF officers at Lyallpur were given new uniforms. That evening, 617 prisoners of war (including 17 civilians) were taken in buses to the railway station where they boarded a night train to Lahore. Travelling at night meant less chance of civilian interference. Hostility to India was still widely felt in Pakistan and the authorities didn’t want to take any chances. On both the buses and the trains the prisoners travelled without the usual blindfolds and handcuffs, but they were not ready to celebrate yet. Many a slip ‘twixt cup and lip, they were thinking, still not quite sure the whole thing would come off.

  Early in the next morning the IAF officers and their army counterparts detrained somewhere east of Lahore and were taken to an army mess. They were each given a room in the barracks. It was a clean room, the cleanest room each man had seen in a year and a great contrast to the musty cells they had inhabited. There was even a batman to fetch hot water for a bath and shave. After they had bathed they all had breakfast together, a real breakfast of porridge and eggs and toast with jam. Then they boarded a bus for Wagah.

  The village of Wagah, on the Grand Trunk Highway, is the only border crossing between Pakistan and India. The western part of the town is in Pakistan, the eastern part, in India. At the border is a grand arch, with soldiers standing guard on each side. The exchange was to begin at the Wagah border crossing at 10 a.m. In fact, the exchange didn’t start until 11.05 a.m. with the 540 Pakistani prisoners going first. And though that part was finished shortly after noon, there was a delay until 2.30 p.m. before the Indian POWs started across.

  In the meantime, the IAF prisoners waited their turn to walk through the Wagah arch into India. And sure enough there was a last-minute glitch. When they were within sight of the arch, a PAF Group Captain stopped them.

  ‘India has not sent our airmen,’ he told them, ‘so we can’t let you go.’

  They argued that Bhutto had made a promise, a unilateral gesture. He had said he would send them all home no matter what India did. But the Group Captain did not give in. He ordered them to stay where they were and disappeared. They waited anxiously until the matter was finally sorted. (They learned later that the two Pakistani airmen in India were returned the following day.)

  Finally they were given the go-ahead to start walking again. Even Bhargava walked across the border though his back was killing him. He didn’t want to cross on a stretcher and have his wife see him that way. As usual the POWs were living in an information vacuum, the last ones to know that their families would be waiting for them in Delhi. Only Grewal’s family had come to Wagah. As soon as he crossed the border he was greeted by his father, who lived in Amritsar, and his eldest brother who had flown in from America, as well as a cousin.

  It was all quite bewildering. P.C. Tandon, a journalist for the Times of India reported ‘the Pakistani prisoners were grim-faced, a bit lost, somewhat dazed’ and ‘the returning Indians, too, looked dumb-founded … but all of them recovered their composure and cheer within seconds of realizing they really were back home and welcome.’

  The government of Punjab gave each man a hero’s welcome, ‘first a warm pat (as they stepped through the monumental Wagah gate), then garlands and hugs, and a 22-kilometre drive to Amritsar through 100 welcome arches, flags, festoons and bunting, throngs of cheering men and women and children, capped by a rousing civic reception at Amritsar.’

  After the reception in Amritsar, the ten IAF officers boarded an Avro 748 for Palam airport near Delhi. Their army colleagues were not pleased at such preferential treatment, but airlifting six hundred POWs was not on the agenda so they had to await an evening train. As soon as the ten airmen stepped off the Avro they were greeted warmly by colleagues, friends and family. Then someone thought of a photo so they mounted the aircraft’s steps again.

  Dilip’s parents and sisters had come, as well as a throng of friends. He had been posted at Palam and Hindon, both near Delhi, so had many friends in the area. Bhargava’s wife Anu had come with their children. They were only two and three years old and had no memory of their father. For several days Anu had to remind them to call Bhargava Daddy, not Uncle! Kamat’s two little daughters, a few years older, clung to their father and didn’t want to let go.

  Hope Coelho, with her three children, was ‘the picture of joy’. ‘My name is Hope,’ she told a reporter, ‘and that’s why I’m always so hopeful.’ Also on hand to receive Coelho were two cousins. One of them had flown all the way from Canada.

  Young Robin Jafa, almost as articulate as his father, told a Times of India reporter, ‘We were badly shaken when we learned that dad was taken prisoner, but as the letters began coming after the first two months, we settled down to a long wait.’

  The youngest airman, Chati, was greeted by the largest contingent of sixteen relatives from Nagpur. Altogether it was a joyous welcome home with smiles and tears of happiness all round.

  The next day, the central government held a reception for all the POWs at the Ram Lila grounds in Old Delhi. It was a hot day for December but no refreshments were served and security was so tight that some relatives were not allowed in. On t
op of that Defense Minister Jagjivan Ram arrived an hour late. In Amritsar they had felt truly welcomed home, but the Delhi reception seemed to be devised ‘for the politicians and not for us’.

  On Monday, 4 December, the debriefing began at the IAF Station, New Delhi. Officially called a court of inquiry into the absence often airmen, the process involved each man writing an individual report and then sitting through questioning by various groups, including Intelligence. To start with, all ten men were sequestered in the same room with paper and pen to write their reports. It was an opportunity to share memories, to get their stories straight, and to make it clear in their reports that none of them had collaborated with the enemy. What they needed to do was emphasize their unity in resistance. They remembered Jafa’s verbal sparring with Wahid-ud-din, the conversations with visiting Pakistani airmen and, most of all, the preparations for the escape. What better evidence of resistance could there be than the escape attempt? And each man had cooperated in that, even if some had been more enthusiastic than others.

  The court of inquiry took fifteen days. On one of those days, Dilip met with IAF Chief P.C. Lal in his office and personally presented him with what looked like a fountain pen but was, in fact, a compass.

  Then, after a sixty-day leave, they were all posted to their new units. In fact they had a choice of postings but none could be in sensitive areas, not for another two years. Dilip chose Secunderabad, where he had been posted just before the war.

  Jafa, Bhargava, and Kamat would never fly fighters again. Because of their injuries the IAF would not allow them to risk another ejection. The other men remained fighter pilots. ‘Once again,’ remembers Grewal, ‘life revolved around a single engine jet, from where everything had started …’

  After his repatriation, Dilip Parulkar’s parents lost little time in arranging his marriage. His mother believed that her son had suffered enough and needed some comfort in his life. On his wedding day, five months after repatriation, Dilip was pleased to receive the following telegram from his friend and co-conspirator, Squadron Leader Kamat: ‘No escape from this sweet captivity.’

  Grewal, still a bachelor, chose Bareilly for his first posting, and used his 24,000 rupees back pay to buy a Fiat 1200.

  And each man, in his own way and in his own time, tried to catch up on all that he had missed, though in some ways you can never catch up. There will always be that tune everyone knows but you, or the memory of a child’s first steps, or that word she repeated endlessly when she first began to talk. When you have been away from everything familiar for a year, some things are irretrievable.

  But in the wider world, little had changed. Mrs Gandhi was still the prime minister of India, her popularity high because of the war they’d helped win. While they twiddled their thumbs in Lyallpur, Richard Nixon, no friend of India, had been re-elected president of the United States by a landslide. They learned that the Munich Olympics, which Grewal and Parulkar had hoped to see, ended in a massacre of Israeli athletes by a Palestinian group called Black September. No, there wasn’t much new. Even though the Vietnam War was winding down, the world was still an arbitrary place, and a dangerous one, too.

  Epilogue

  When Aditya Vikram Pethia returned to India in May 1972, he was diagnosed as having a pulmonary haematoma caused by his severe beating. He gradually recovered and in 1973 he was back to flying fighters. He was awarded the Vir Chakra for gallantry in operations on 5 December 1971, the day his Mystere was shot down. He retired from the IAF as Air Vice-Marshal in 2001. He lives in Bhopal.

  Dilip Parulkar was awarded the Vayu Sena Medal for landing his crippled aircraft in the 1965 war. In 1983 he was awarded the Vishisht Seva Medal for dedicated and distinguished service. His valour in leading an escape attempt in 1971 was cited. Parulkar retired from the IAF as Group Captain in 1987. He lives in Pune.

  Malvinder Singh Grewal left the IAF in 1984 to manage his family farm. He was awarded the Vir Chakra for gallantry in operations on 5 December 1971, the day his Sukhoi 7 was shot down. He currently lives at Bharaya Co-operative Farms, Bilaspur, Uttar Pradesh.

  Harish Sinhji retired from the IAF as Wing Commander in 1993. His vivid description of the escape from the Rawalpindi POW camp was published as an appendix to P.C. Lal’s My Years in the IAF (1986). Sinhji died in 2004. His children Kaveri and Vikram live in Bangalore.

  Bernard Anthony Coelho became the chief flying instructor at an IAF flying school and subsequently held a staff appointment (operations). He retired from the IAF as Air Vice-Marshal in 1986. He lives in Noida.

  When he returned to India, Dhirendra Singh Jafa was unable to fly on account of spinal injuries. He retired from the IAF in 1974. He was awarded the Vayu Sena Medal before the 1971 war for his dedication in ensuring that his squadron was operational on the Sukhoi 7 in the shortest possible time. After the war he was awarded the Vir Chakra for gallantry and leadership in operations on 4−5 December 1971. In 1999 he published a novel, Three Countries, One People, based largely on his experiences during the wars of 1965 and 1971 and his year as a POW. He lives in Faizabad, Uttar Pradesh.

  Arun Vithal Kamat was unable to fly fighters again because of his injuries. He was awarded the Vayu Sena Medal for gallantry in operations on 9 December 1971, the day his Marut went down and he broke both his legs. He remained in the IAF until his untimely death in 1982.

  Although unable to fly fighters again because of his injured back, Jawahar Lal Bhargava did fly helicopters. He retired from the IAF as Air Commodore in 1995. His writings about his capture and prisoner of war experience are posted on the marutfans website. He currently lives in Gurgaon.

  In April, 1973, Tejwant Singh managed to land his Mig-21 after its canopy had been shattered in a collision with a vulture. He was awarded the Shaurya Chakra, a peacetime gallantry award, for displaying courage and professionalism of a high order. Although one of his eyes had been seriously hurt in the collision, he recovered and returned once more to flying. He retired from the IAF as Group Captain in 1994. He currently lives in Gurgaon and writes fiction full time.

  Kariyadil Cheriyan Kuruvilla returned to flying fighters. He was awarded the Vir Chakra for displaying gallantry in operations in the western sector during 4−6 December 1971. He retired from the IAF as Air Commodore in 2001. He currently lives in Bangalore.

  Hufrid N.D. Mulla-Feroze, the first POW to be repatriated, recovered from his injuries. He retired from the IAF in 1992 and died in 2011.

  Vidyadhar Shankar Chati returned to flying fighters and then spent many years as a flying instructor in the IAF. He retired from the IAF as Wing Commander in 1990 to take up a career in civil aviation. Altogether he logged over 9000 hours of flying time. He currently lives in Secunderabad.

  The 1971 Indo-Pakistan War, though less than two weeks long, produced the highest casualties of all Indo-Pakistani conflicts (approximately 13,000 killed and 14,000 wounded) and the greatest numbers of POWs since World War II. In light of these statistics, the twelve IAF officers held in No. 3 Provost and Security Flight in Rawalpindi were among the lucky ones.

  The Pakistani soldiers captured on the eastern front were held prisoner for almost two years. Finally in September 1973, after the signing of the Delhi Accord, the 93,000 POWs held in India and some 200,000 Bangladeshis stranded in Pakistan were allowed to return home. In 1974, in return for Pakistani recognition and a settling of accounts, Bangladesh permitted 195 men it had identified as war criminals to return to Pakistan without trial.

  In October 1974, the Hamoodur Rahman Commission appointed by Bhutto to investigate Pakistan’s 1971 surrender made its final report. It found that in Bangladesh some members of the Pakistan Army had been guilty of mass killings of both civilians and Bengali officers, and had used rape as a deliberate act of revenge. However, the commission estimated the number of civilian deaths to be much lower than 2,00,000, the most conservative estimate made by other groups. Still the entire report was so damning that it was classified for years. In 2000, parts of t
he leaked document were published in both India and Pakistan. In December that year the whole document was finally declassified.

  On 9 August 1974, Richard Nixon, who had ignored the killing in East Pakistan in order to facilitate détente with China, resigned as president of the United States before he could be impeached for the Watergate scandal. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, an early inmate of the prison at Lyallpur, served as prime minister of Bangladesh until he was assassinated in a military coup on 24 January 1975. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, whose unilateral initiative resulted in the exchange of prisoners captured on the western front, was deposed in a military coup and executed on 4 April 1979. Indira Gandhi was assassinated on 31 October 1984.

  The peace established between India and Pakistan by the Simla Agreement has held, so far. Though tensions have mounted on a number of occasions, and battles were fought on the Line of Control at Kargil in 1999, the two countries have not gone to war for the last forty years.

  Timeline

  Bangladesh War of Independence and Indo-Pakistan War 1971

  December 1970/January 1971

  In the first general election in Pakistan since 1945, the Awami League of East Pakistan wins a majority of seats in the National Assembly.

  1 March 1971

  President Yahya Khan of Pakistan announces that the National Assembly will not meet as scheduled. Mass demonstrations begin in East Pakistan.

  25 March 1971

  The Pakistan Army, under orders, begins to round up and execute supporters of the Awami League, students at Dacca university, known intellectuals and many others. The Awami league is banned. Its leader, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, is arrested. An estimated 2,00,000 will die at the hands of the military.

  26 March 1971

  The Awami League declares the independence of Bangladesh.