The ongoing military standoff between China and India has brought to limelight an untold heroic story of late legendary leader Biju Patnaik during the 1962 Sino-China war. Patnaik’s contribution in the freedom struggle of Indonesia, for which he was awarded that country’s Bhoomi Putra’ award, is known to everyone, but his instrumental role in formation of the Establishment 22, a secret force also known as Special Frontier Force (SFF) under the control of Cabinet Secretariat and the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), has yet remained unsung.
In a video message, Naval veteran Commodore Ranjit Rai has spoken on the role of Biju Patnaik in the formation of Establishment 22, which is being talked about in the context of the present Indo-China standoff. Establishment 22 is a covert unit of the Indian Defence forces.
Highlighting Patnaik’s strategies to fight the Chinese Army in 1962, Rai said the Establishment 22 was set up on Jawaharlal Nehru’s birthday on November 14 by the then Intelligence Bureau chief BN Mullick and Biju Patnaik, then a 27-year-old pilot, who was given charge of the operation.
Patnaik was a close confidante of Pandit Nehru. Persuaded by the two, Nehru had accorded approval for formation of Establishment 22 with the Gorkha refugees from Tibet to combat the Chinese.“Bijubabu, who was my guardian from 1952 to 1955 and sent me to the NAVY and NDA, had been trying to train some people compassed there on parachuting and all. But then Chakrata, which is an old Gorkha unit, a training unit of British, was used to set up a secret base, wherein Tibetan volunteers along with Gorkhas were taken in for training under Indian Army officers,” Rai revealed.
Patnaik needs to be honoured today when it is clear that in south of Pangong Tso, the Vikas Battalions of Establishment 22 helped the Indian Army push the Chinese back and take position. The Special Frontier Force (SFF) was raised by the Intelligence Bureau in the immediate aftermath of the 1962 China-India war.
The covert outfit recruited Tibetan exiles (now it has a mixture of Tibetans and Gorkhas) and was initially named Establishment 22 (Major Gen Sujan Singh Uban, an Artillery officer who raised the group, named it after the 22 Mountain Regiment he commanded). Subsequently renamed SFF, it now falls under the purview of the Cabinet Secretariat. It is headed by an Inspector General, who is an Army officer of the rank of Major General. The original task, as envisaged, was clandestine operations behind the lines in Tibet.
The SFF units are not part of the Army but function under its operational control. The units have their own rank structures of equivalent status with Army ranks. However, they are special force personnel highly trained for a variety of tasks.