Epic Battle of Saragarhi

Regarding Saragarthi, a day that needs to be recalled with intense pride, not only by the Indian Army regiment concerned, but for the whole nation, is September 12, 1897 - 102 years ago. But, sadly, one discovers that whilst this battle of epic dimensions is taught to children in France and is one of the eight stories of collective bravery published by UNESCO, it at best finds peripheral mention in our history volumes for our children and future generations to draw sustenance from.

The battle of Saragarhi is one of the five most significant events of its kind in the world, beginning from the saga of Thermopylae, associated with the heroic stand by a small Greek force against the mighty Persian Army led by Xerxes in 480 BC. The name of Thermopylae has passed into the history of mankind and has inspired heroism of every kind, and a name which will indeed ever be associated with self-sacrifice. Saragarhi epitomises self-sacrifice by a very small band of our own soldiers a century ago.

A former President of India, Dr. Zakir Hussain (then governor of Bihar) said on September 12, 1961 whilst delivering the Saragarhi speech - and I quote some extracts from this, "The mind travels back to the day, sixty four years ago, the 12th September 1897. On this fateful day, on a rugged, inhospitable ridge of a forbidding terrain, a brave little band of twentyone Sikhs stood its ground steadfastly to the utter last in the midst of a swarming sea of hostile assailants and bore unmistakable witness to the gallantry and honour of the Indian Army.

"It is a sad episode that we remember today - but it is nonetheless an historic event in the annals of our Army, rich with lessons of unsurpassed gallantry, self effacing loyalty and unconditioned allegiance to the call of duty.

"On the Samana Range, in what was then our North West Frontier Province at a distance of less than two miles each from Fort Lockhart and Fort Gulistan, perched at a height of some 6000 feet, was a piquet post at Saragarhi, which maintained signalling communication between the two Forts and along the Samana Range.

"It was at dawn this day that the Orakazai and Afridi tribesmen, over 20,000 in number, who had been repulsed a few days earlier from Fort Gulistan, surrounded the little piquet post at Saragarhi, thus severing Fort Gulistan from Fort Lockhart. No aid could be sent to the isolated piquet. The brave band of Sikhs in the piquet post put up a heroic fight.

"Very small in number, and with but limited ammunition, they kept the ever swelling hordes at bay most of the day, inflicting heavy losses on them. Their small number could ill afford any causalities, but their thin ranks too were getting thinner and their ammunition was running out. But they never faltered and continued to punish the enemy relentlessly.

"Then some of the enemy’s men, crouching in a dead angle in the broken rocks around, safe from their fire, succeeded in making a large breach in the surrounding wall. The swarm rushed like a torrent with untamed fury. The brave little band of Sikhs, under Havildar Ishar Singh, to the last man but one, fell or were mortally wounded. Only that brave son of India, Gurmukh Singh the signaller was still alive.

"Cool and collected in this moment of imminent danger, face to face with certain death, this gallant soldier, with utter dedication to his Duty, which was his worship, signalled to Fort Lockhart. The enemy are in. Shall I go on signalling or shall I take a rifle ?" He did take his rifle, and after all had gone never to return, he alone continued to defend the guardroom and shot some twenty of the enemy.

"The enemy set the place on fire, and the bodies of the twenty one gallant Sikhs dead or dying were consumed in the flames. Yes, their bodies but not their souls. For are these heroes really dead ? No, they live on, more alive than any of us, they live on in our hearts and urge us on to heroism and gallantry in the defence of our free country, to prize duty before life and thus to establish the worth and dignity of true human existence. For, after all, what is the specific worth and dignity of human life? It is the glorious privilege of mankind to triumph over the gravitational pulls of material life in the service of eternal absolute values. This is the pride and privilege of humanity and an indication of man’s place on the borderline between the Animal and the Divine.

"Placed under conflicting urges, it is given to man to choose the difficult higher in preference to the easy lower; to opt for self effacing sacrifice in the face of an almost irresistible appeal of the material; to opt for duty at the cost of ease and comfort, to stand by the right in preference to power and wealth and domination; to elect the self-forgetfulness of dedicated loyalty than to the greedy watchfulness of worldly calculation; to court death with honour in preference to a life in shame.

"It is this glorious privilege which is symbolised in an unmistakable fashion in the Episode of Saragarhi, which bears eloquent witness to the truth that dedication to the absolute values is the destiny of worthwhile human existence. It is this witness by the immortal heroes of Saragarhi which has made an unforgettable contribution of immense significance to the great traditions of the Indian Army which the Indian people but justly hold in such high esteem and warm affection. Let us hope and trust that these traditions will continue to grow and we shall ever carry in our hearts, with loving gratitude, the inspiring memory of the martyrs of Saragarhi. May their souls rest in eternal peace."

The news of the battle was flashed to London. The British Parliament rose to give a standing ovation when the story was related to a packed and emotion-filled House. As a result of the fighting an immediate award of posthumous Indian Order of Merit (IOM) to each of the heroes was announced. The award was the highest gallantry award given to the Indian ranks in those days and equivalent to Victoria Cross (Param Vir Chakra).

The award of so many IOMs in one day was something unheard of and remains unparalleled in the annals of military history. All dependants of the Saragarhi heroes were awarded two squares of land (50 acres) and Rs.500 as financial assistance.

There was great public appreciation of this bravery and undaunted courage. To commemorate the gallantry of the twenty-two immortals, two historic shrines and beautiful momorials were built, one each at Amritsar and Ferozepur by the Government. Memorials were also constructed by public subscription at Ferozepur and at the Samana Ridge near Fort Lockhart. A cairn was built on the actual site where the Saragarhi Post once stood.

Lt. Gen. SC Menezes, PVSM, SC, who retired in 1980 as Vice Chief of theArmy Staff, told me, a few weeks ago, that in June 1947, he visited the piquet, when as a Major at that fort (Kurram-NWFP) with the 3rd Battailon of the Indian Grenadiers, possibly one of the last officers of the indian Army to do so.According to him, the plaque, then installed at the site by the British on a cairn in 1897 was still there when he visited it from Fort Lockhart.

Air Chief Marshal Arjan Singh, DFC, who retired as Chief of the Indian Air Force in the sixties, has mentioned to me that he has flown over the Saragarhi area, when he was posted at Kohat in the forties in undivided India. He told me that the beroic action at Saragarhi could be compared to the famous "Charge of the Light Brigade" (immortalised in Lord Tennyson’s famous poem). In this heroic action 9 Victoria Crosses were awarded.

"Of these 21 men of the 36th Sikhs, a newspaper report later stated, `They behaved with splendid courage and there is perhaps no more touching instance of inflexible devotion to duty than this in the whole narrative of frontier fighting’. (Extract from ‘The Frontier Ablaze - The North-West Frontier Rising 1897-98’, by Michael Barthrop, published recently.