by Shiv Aroor
‘Main toh kehta hoon ki Navdeep ne apni duty bahut hi acchi tarah nibhayi hai (Navdeep performed his duty very well),’ says the officer’s father. ‘But as parents, we are completely shattered. When you lose your twenty-six-year-old son, your world comes to an end. Nothing can be more painful than the loss of a child. Sab kucch khatam ho jaata hai. Duniya ujjad jaati hai (Everything ends. One’s world becomes barren).’
Subedar Joginder Singh and Jagtinder Kaur have two other children, a son who works in Chandigarh, and a daughter who recently got married to an Army Major. Lt Navdeep’s mother has only recently managed to compose herself. Her last conversation with him was days before his operation.
‘I spoke to Navdeep for the last time three days before we lost him,’ his mother says. ‘He told me that the phone network in that area was bad, and that if he was out of reach, we should not worry. We had plans to get him married. He was supposed to come home on leave in November 2011 and we were hoping to get him engaged then. But he said he wanted to be in the field for at least two or three years before marriage. He said he would marry when his wife could join him where he was posted. All those plans were wiped out in a second.’
Lt Navdeep was commissioned into the Army in March 2011.
‘He completed other courses, but his real dream was always to become an Army officer,’ says Subedar Joginder. ‘Had Navdeep been alive, he would have been a Major now. His course-mates are Majors. They meet us. And we think aaj agar humara beta zinda hota toh woh bhi Major hota (if our son were alive today, he too would have been a Major). Going by what he achieved in just five months in uniform, I feel he had the capability to rise to the rank of General. The Army has thousands of officers, but Navdeep jaise kam hote hain (there are few like Navdeep). I am not saying this because he was my son. Ask anyone in the Army who knew him. Yeh hamara loss toh hai hi par Army ke liye bhi ek bada loss hai (Navdeep’s death is not only our personal loss but also the Army’s).’
Thirteen years his senior at the time of the operation, Col. Girish says he still finds it difficult to think of Lt Navdeep without his heart swelling, both with sorrow and with pride.
‘I used to consider Navdeep a kid brother,’ says Col. Girish, posted to the Integrated Defence Staff in Delhi at the time of writing this. ‘He was a good, solid boy. Losing him is a deep personal loss. I am forty-six now. The kind of josh (enthusiasm) he had is hard to describe. He used to go out for ambush missions and return very late at night. Sometimes, if I wanted to leave the base early, I would wait, thinking, let Navdeep sleep a bit longer. And if I left early without telling him, he would somehow find out and catch up with me as early as possible. He was a tough-as-nails soldier.’
Before their final dinner together, the CO teased Lt Navdeep, asking him of what use his hotel management degree was if he couldn’t cook them a delicious snack. Lt Navdeep had disappeared into the mess kitchen and rustled up a few plates of paneer tikka.
‘He was talking to his girlfriend on the phone when I summoned him for the ambush,’ Col. Girish says. ‘Who knows how many things were left unsaid? This always plays on my mind. And his parents’ too. When I met Navdeep for the first time, I had a hunch that this kid would do something big.’
Col. Girish would know. A two-time recipient of the Sena Medal for gallantry, he would be decorated with a Vishisht Seva Medal for his command and control leadership during the Gurez encounter.
Naib Subedar Ganpati would receive a Shaurya Chakra, while Havildar Bhagoji, who killed the last terrorist, would receive a Sena Medal for gallantry.
Given his youth and astonishing grit and leadership on the ground, the Army had no hesitation in recommending Lt Navdeep for the Ashok Chakra, India’s highest peacetime award for gallantry.
On Republic Day 2012, as tears streamed down Jagtinder Kaur’s face on the pavilion, Lt Navdeep’s father was escorted to the President’s dais to receive his son’s posthumous Ashok Chakra.
‘His father is a brave man, he didn’t break down, and accepted the award like a soldier,’ remembers Col. Girish. ‘It was my life’s proudest moment, but I kept thinking Navdeep should have been there to receive this honour. He would have been amused by all the attention. He had a very strong mind, but he was also a kid.’
‘His mother and I miss him a great deal,’ says Subedar Joginder. ‘There’s pride and there’s sorrow, both, in equal measure. I can’t say that there’s more pride and less sorrow. Navdeep ka khayal dil mein hamesha rehta hai (We constantly think of Navdeep). One room in our home is dedicated to Navdeep, his Ashok Chakra, the citation, his uniform, his boots, his photographs. We often sit in that room and talk about our boy and his short life.’
In Gurdaspur, a ceremonial gate was constructed in his memory, and a local college stadium renamed in his honour. His birthday, 8 June, is celebrated every year at the gate, where his parents set up a chabeel and a langar, ceremonial stands with food and sweetened water. On his death anniversary, 20 August, his parents organize a memorial function at the college stadium.
‘There’s no better life than life in the Army,’ says Subedar Joginder. ‘If I were to be born again, I would like to join the Army again. And I am sure Navdeep would have said the same had you asked him that question.’
In mid-2011, two months after he was commissioned into the Army, Lt Navdeep and the 15 Maratha Light Infantry moved from Kanpur to Khrew, in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama, for pre-induction training at the 15 Corps Battle School, a curriculum designed to toughen up troops before the demanding nature of high-altitude operations at the LoC. It was the first time Col. Girish saw Lt Navdeep come into his own.
‘We had five or six young officers and Navdeep was the youngest,’ says Col. Girish. ‘Seeing his physical fitness, agility and level of motivation, I put him in charge of a Ghatak platoon. Navdeep was brilliant during the training phase in Khrew. Other battalions were also there for training, and some competitions were held. Navdeep’s Ghatak platoon stood first in many. He demonstrated excellent soldierly and leadership qualities in Khrew. He was gelling very well with the troops. They had also started liking him. He came across as a tough guy who understood the nuances of operations very quickly. He could take crucial decisions swiftly. He would demonstrate these qualities just three months later, in a life-and-death situation. Try and think about that for a moment.’
At Khrew, Lt Navdeep would be restless to be deployed at Gurez, calling his girlfriend and parents frequently to tell them how much he was longing to be at the LoC.
‘Once he was posted in Gurez, Navdeep didn’t waste a single moment; he simply hit the ground running,’ remembers another officer from the 15 Maratha Light Infantry. ‘He quickly dived into a routine of extensive area familiarization. He became obsessed with understanding every inch of the area, every peak, every nallah, every patch of jungle. By August, he had analysed all previous operations in that area, the likeliest infiltration routes, how better to plan the next mission. The CO would take him around to all the places, and it became clear that Navdeep was picking up the basics very quickly. In his final moments, he showed just what could be done with training and dedication.’
A few months after the August operation, the CO of 15 Maratha Light Infantry invited Lt Navdeep’s father to visit the unit in Gurez, to see for himself the place where his son had fallen fighting.
‘When Subedar Joginder arrived, I took him to the sangar from where Navdeep fired his last bullet,’ says Col. Girish. ‘It was a very emotional moment for both me and Navdeep’s father. He bent down, dug his hand into the earth and grabbed a fistful of soil from the place where his son had fallen. I can’t describe how moving that sight was. There are absolutely no words. It can only be experienced. I think he could feel Navdeep’s presence there. I saw that look on his face. Unhone uss mitti ko maathe se lagaya (He touched the soil to his forehead).’
Lt Navdeep’s father had looked up at his son’s CO, a fist filled with the soil stretched out in front of him.
‘Mere bete ka khoon iss mitti par gira tha (My son’s blood fell on this soil),’ he said. ‘Main ek muthi uss mitti ki Gurez se laya. Uss muthi bhar mitti ki koi keemat nahi hai. Woh mitti mere liye Waheguru se kam nahin hai (I brought a fistful of that soil from Gurez. It is priceless for me; It is no less than god for me).’
The soil sits in a bottle now in Lt Navdeep’s room.
4
‘I’ve Been Ready since the Day I Was Born’
Major David Manlun
Greater Noida
January 2009
Nobody had seen David Manlun dance the way he did that night. Channelling his inner Salman Khan, the young Manipuri ripped off his T-shirt to bounce to the blaring beat of Oh Oh Jaane Jaana , mouthing the lyrics almost completely wrong, but with euphoric abandon. Plastic glasses filled with Old Monk rum were passed around the crowd of friends, suffusing one end of the hostel block in Delhi’s outskirts with its unmistakable aroma. They wouldn’t miss this for the world. They had all agreed that if there was one night they needed to be together, this was it.
Twenty-four years old, bare-chested and playing an air guitar with his eyes scrunched shut, the young man at the centre of the revelry had just achieved something he had failed at twice before and had dreamed about since his days as an NCC cadet. David Manlun had made it to the Indian Army.
He had been biding his time for a year at the Army Institute of Management and Technology in the sprawling Greater Noida suburb of Delhi, filling his days with football, friends and all the heady amusement afforded by student life in India’s capital. But with the weekly partying, few of his friends ever got to see David’s other side. His, always-on cheery manner concealed a simmering frustration, an unremitting yearning to join the military.
His father, Manlun Khamzalam, had been a junior commissioned officer in the Army, a Subedar. In 2008, through phone calls and text messages from Shillong, 2000 km away, he and David’s mother, Mannuamniang Manlun, had kept tabs, with a mixture of pride and parental concern, as David seemed unwilling to let go of the Army dream. They hoped that two failed attempts hadn’t broken their son’s confidence and spirit. They had really only seen the cheerful, mild-mannered boy they had raised, and prayed that he stayed strong. But far from Shillong, fuelled by the turbulent freedom of life away from home, David’s determination had only intensified with each letter of rejection he received.
‘I’ll never forget the party that night he made it to the Army,’ says Rajni Rangra, a classmate and friend of David. ‘Every one of us there was very happy for him. None of us had seen him as full of joy as he was that night. And for a guy like David, that’s saying something.’
Days later, when he packed his bags to leave for the Officers Training Academy (OTA) on the outskirts of Chennai, Rajni knew she would miss him deeply.
‘David knew I loved bike rides in the winter,’ she says. ‘He would borrow someone else’s motorcycle and take me for a ride at 8.45 p.m. at 100 kmph, delivering me back to the hostel in 10 minutes, right before the gates shut. He found joy in taking pains to make his friends happy.’
When they had celebrated his admission to the Army, the alcohol-fuelled Salman-style air guitar had given way to David’s real one—a black acoustic guitar. He had acquired it in Delhi and propped it up in his room. It quickly became one of the many things David was popular on campus for. He made sure the guitar followed him wherever he went thereafter.
Sad to be leaving his friends but ecstatic at the prospect of what lay ahead, David began life at the OTA, which trains officers for the Army’s short-service commission. A year later, in March 2010, his parents travelled to Chennai to watch their son complete his training and get commissioned into the 1st Battalion of the Naga Regiment, a unit that had cut its teeth in the 1971 war just a year after it was raised.
‘All through his training, David was restless,’ a course-mate who was commissioned alongside him at the academy, and is still serving, remembers. ‘David wanted just one thing—to put on fatigues and get out there. He was hungry for that life. And he could not have got a better first posting.’
That first posting, with 1 Naga, was in Naugam in north Kashmir. Receiving orders to move to the location, which is not far from India’s LoC with PoK, David had called his father to give him the news.
‘God bless you, be careful,’ Khamzalam told him. ‘Give it your best and make us all proud, son. But be careful.’
In Naugam, Lt David Manlun threw himself into the daily whirlwind of counter-insurgency and counter-terror operations. Throwing himself into the role that had played out in his mind for years, the young officer would volunteer to lead a non-stop series of operations. He would give up opportunities for leave so he wouldn’t miss the chance to be part of missions. In the words of another officer in the unit at the time, young Lt David was now fully in combat mode. When he phoned home every few days, he was aware his father was intimately familiar with the trails and forests where he now stalked militants—Khamzalam had served in Naugam years ago with 35 RR, 1 a unit affiliated with the Army’s Assam Regiment, of which he was a member.
After nearly five years in Naugam and in regimental training centres in Bakloh in Himachal Pradesh, David received word that he would be heading closer home—a posting to the 164 Infantry Battalion of the Territorial Army 2 in Nagaland.
On his way to the North-east, he stopped at home in Shillong for a quick break. His mother had insisted, since David had postponed leave several times earlier to stay with his unit in north Kashmir. Khamzalam and Mannuamniang Manlun spent those days with a young man who had been transformed by his five years in the Army. More serious and disciplined than before, his grimness lifted only in the company of loved ones.
‘He was very satisfied with Army life,’ says Khamzalam. ‘After Kashmir, he was headed to Nagaland, which is another extremely challenging place to operate against outfits like ULFA (United Liberation Front of Assam) and NSCN(K). 3 I advised David again, stay strong, but please be careful.’
The ULFA, a separatist terror outfit founded in 1979, has been banned by the Indian government since 1990, and has mounted attacks, big and small, nearly non-stop, since the eighties. With training camps in the border forests of Myanmar and with proven support from China, the terror group has managed to remain a violent presence in the North-east’s turbulent narrative since its inception. A common cause had led the ULFA to forge ties with the NSCN(K), with intelligence pointing to a long list of coordinated logistics that help both organizations. The ULFA has recently re-energized itself, riding on an exploding controversy over India’s Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, which it sees as a threat to the indigenous people of Assam. The place that David was headed to was the backyard of both terror groups.
Mokokchung district has a long border with Assam to the east and north. On 5 December 2014, bags and guitar in hand, David reported to the headquarters at Zakhama. With a glowing record of leading counter-insurgency operations in Naugam, the unit’s CO, Col. K.V.K. Prakash, immediately dispatched David out into the field to command a company of infantry soldiers at Mokokchung.
‘This man had two distinct sides to him,’ remembers the young officer quoted above, who served with him in Naugam and was also posted to Nagaland. ‘In leisure, he was all about fun and frolic with his music and guitar. But during the lead-up to operations, you could not meet a more serious and focused guy than David.’
A common refrain directed at David by his comrades was to ‘grow up’, an affirmation of his boundless energy. But fuelled by it, over the next two years, during which he was promoted to the rank of Major, David would lead a series of crucial operations against terrorists in the troubled area that was now his responsibility.
These included two frenetic chases in the River Belt Colony and Dhobinala areas of Nagaland’s Dimapur, where three NSCN(K) and two NSCN(R) terrorists were captured alive with a large quantity of arms and ammunition. Another NSCN(K) terrorist was intercepted with bomb-making equipment in Zunheboto,
while a foreign terrorist was arrested with a bunch of extortion notes in Namsa village in Tizit, David’s backyard.
‘He was a Manipuri from Meghalaya operating in Nagaland,’ says the officer who served with him. ‘And in the North-east, where state and tribe affiliations are sometimes drawn in blood, David was operating at the intersection of all these fault lines. It was infinitely more challenging than his stint in Naugam. Here, terrorists believe in hit-and-run tactics, and operate large-scale extortion rackets to terrorize local communities. So David’s own identity was very much in the mix.’
In June 2015, David, like the rest of the Army, had been emotionally shaken by the NSCN(K) ambush of an Army convoy in his native Manipur’s Chandel district, in which eighteen soldiers were massacred. Those serving with him remember David wishing that he could participate in the cross-border strike that a unit of the Para Special Forces mounted deep inside Myanmar as an act of revenge on 4 June. Except, David and his unit had their hands full in their own area—they knew there would be an escalation in NSCN(K) and ULFA activity following the raid inside Myanmar.
After ten months spent in operations, David took a few days off to see his parents in Shillong. During that visit, he would take one of his happiest photographs, one that would be splashed across the media less than two years later. Standing on the terrace of a house, the photograph showed David and his two brothers, Jimmy and Siampu, captured while jumping in the air in total glee. ‘Three paagal brothers,’ a friend would comment when David made the photograph his profile picture on Facebook—one that remains till today.
But David knew that visits home were going to increasingly become a luxury on the path he had chosen. Back from leave, he wasted no time in jumping right back into work. There was never a shortage of intelligence inputs about the movement of militants and terrorists—the real work was to judge which of those alerts would actually lead to results. Separatist groups had learnt the fine art of jamming intelligence networks with false alarms in an effort to fatigue the alertness and energy of units like David’s. But he knew that even a single show of weakness would embolden groups like NSCN(K) and ULFA to step up the audacity of their operations. And that meant a direct threat to the youth in the area, the fodder needed by these groups to fuel their activities.
