On the last day of the three-day Military Literature Festival, a session — titled ‘Crossing the River Meghna’ — was held on the story of a very significant battle of Bangladesh's war of independence which was fought jointly by the Indian Air Force and the Army.
Squadron Leader Rana Chhina was the moderator of the session, in which the decorated military generals, who participated in this very important battle of Bangladesh's war of independence which has been recorded in the war history as 'Crossing of River Meghna', were the main panelists.
Inaugurating the session, Lieutenant General Gurbakhsh Singh Sihota — who fought in the war as a pilot — described in detail that despite the difficult conditions, on December 9, 1971, the five to 15 kms long Meghna River was crossed and the Pakistani army was forced to retreat.Later, Major Chandrakant, who fought this war and took part in the ground battle while crossing the Meghna River, gave a heart-wrenching note of the field battle which was fought during this war. He described that though they suffered heavy losses, the Indian Army had shown unparalleled bravery in repelling Pakistani forces and liberating Bangladesh.
KHALISTANI ‘ISSUES’ SHOULD HAVE BEEN ADDRESSED POLITICALLY, NOT FORCEFULLY: SAYS EXPERTS
Throwing light upon the events in a decade-long period from 1970s to 1980s that led to the Operation Bluestar in Punjab, former senior police officers opined that all the issues in those days, should have been addressed politically and not forcefully as there are no military answers to a political problem.
During the first session of the third and final day of the ongoing fourth Military Literature Festival-2020, a detailed discussion was held on the book — ‘The Khalistan Conspiracy by GBS Sidhu’. The session was moderated by former IPS officer GS Aujla, with book’s author GBS Sidhu, a former RAW officer, Punjab’s former DGP MPS Aulakh and one of most senior-most journalists Jagtar Singh, who has covered Punjab for many decades, as the panelists.
Sidhu, who played a key role behind the inclusion of Sikkim into Indian Territory, remembered the aspects related to rising militancy in Punjab and abroad, especially Canada and other European countries, where Sikhs migrated during the 1970s.
Served as a Special Secretary in the Research and Analysis Wing, Sidhu threw light about the efforts of the Union Government that time to settle the issues revolving around militancy.
Aujla said that the ‘issue’ was not addressed at the political level at that time and history gives us a great lesson that political will was lacking to solve the issue during the period. Former DGP Aulakh, who had held prominent positions in the Intelligence Bureau, illustrated the series of events of that period.
Senior journalist Jagtar Singh, who also wrote the book ‘Rivers on Fire: Khalistan Struggle’, talked about the militancy period which took 40,000 lives. He said that the Khalistan narrative had affected the relations with countries like Canada in the past and the issue persists even today.
He said that the Government of India should release the papers related to that period for a clear picture.
DEVELOPMENT IN COLONIAL RULE WAS ONLY IN BRITISHERS’ INTEREST: THAROOR
Congress Lok Sabha MP Shashi Tharoor, in conversation with renowned artist Major Bikramjeet Kanwarpal, asserted that the infrastructural development done in the colonial rule, including Railways, was only aimed for fulfilling interests of Britishers.
“The conventional argument that the Britishers made is that they left behind a number of institutions and practices which India had benefited from but the problem is that none of those things had anything to do with the interests of India.
Every single thing that they could point to was only created for the British in their interest in order to prolong their role or enhance their profit,” said Tharoor, adding that Railways is the best example as it was only built to transport material to the ports from where it could be sent to England and another purpose was to fetch Army to every part of India to put the situation of mutiny or any other law and order situation under control.