Hussainiwala: A Pilgrimage

In memory of the thirteen officers and men of 2 Maratha Light Infantry “Kali Panchwin” who made the Supreme Sacrifice at Hussainiwala in 1965

The bus ride from Amritsar to Ferozepur – on a rainy winter evening – was cold. Raindrops made their way into the bus through the open windows and splashed my arm. Every now and then, there was a flash of lightning in the sky, which had turned a deep shade of purple, and a roar of thunder. The weather was ideal for a quick snooze and having been on the road for over twelve hours by then, I suppose it would’ve been in order, but I didn’t think of it. No way were my eyes going to be closed when I entered Ferozepur.

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23^rd March 1931

The clamour outside Lahore Central Jail had made the British authorities nervous. A wall at the rear of the prison premises was broken and three bodies were swiftly loaded into a waiting police van, which was then driven to a place called Hussainiwala near Ferozepur where, by the banks of the Sutlej, the bodies were hurriedly cremated. Locals soon discovered the half-burnt remains and completed the last rites of their heroes.

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The Frontier Mail today runs from the CST in Mumbai to Ferozepur Cantonment. Before Sir Cyril Radcliffe drew the line that would alter the course of history, the train went all the way to Peshawar in the North-West Frontier Province. The railway station still stands at Hussainiwala, which was one of the halts for the Frontier Mail but the tracks have long been dismantled and there is no sign of any train. Radcliffe’s fatal line gave the spot where Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru were cremated to Pakistan, a nation they had never heard of. The land would return to India in 1961, swapped for Suleimanki near Fazilka by the Government.

My day in Ferozepur was uncharacteristic, to say the least. I got up well before my alarm went off and got dressed. By 10, I was on my way. The road to Hussainiwala involved turning off the highway and going straight, past tiny little hamlets and large swathes of land, dotted with trees here and there.

Soon, the Gypsy was on a bridge above the waters of the Sutlej. Instinctively, I took out my phone to take a picture, before being told that photography on the bridge was prohibited. It had recently been inaugurated by the Defence Minister, after over forty years of an Army-built Bailey Bridge being used for movement.

Ferozepur is known as the “Land of the Martyrs”. When I had first read the board earlier that morning, I wondered whether it was only three martyrs who were remembered when Hussainiwala was mentioned or were the rest given their due?

The first of three military actions at Hussainiwala took place at the Headworks built on the Sutlej which had been allotted to India, much to the chagrin of Pakistan who, as is their wont, managed to get their way. A settlement was reached – the maintenance of the Bund around the Headworks was India’s headache, but they weren’t allowed to militarise the area. Heavy flooding in late 1955 had caused damage to the right guide wall of the Headworks, and Indian engineers were deployed to repair the structure. To ensure protection of the labour force and the engineers, the Fourth Battalion of the Jammu & Kashmir Infantry (formerly the Jammu & Kashmir State Forces; today known as the Jammu & Kashmir Rifles or JAKRIF) took up positions near the area where the repair work was taking place, but not at the Bund, since that would violate the agreement with Pakistan, who were nevertheless annoyed by the presence of Indian troops. At 2100h on the night of 18^th March 1956, the Pakistanis launched an attack and were sent back within minutes. They tried again, failed again. 4 J&K Infantry stood up to and beat back the enemy despite the diplomatic limitations on their operational ability. It was a minor but decisive victory.

As I made my way to the Martyrs’ Memorial at Hussainiwala, I saw a dress rehearsal of a Guard of Honour. For a moment, I wondered whether my entire trip would collapse because of some visit; fortunately, the visit was scheduled for the next day, and I was able to see all that I had come to see. And more.

As you pass the war memorial, there is an open area with a pillar in the centre. A memorial to the Fifteenth Battalion of the Punjab Regiment, who had manned the area in the 1971 war and had, despite fighting valiantly, been vanquished. The names of those who had made the Supreme Sacrifice were inscribed, as were those of the personnel Missing in Action.

Straight ahead was the memorial to the freedom fighters. A vast open area, the first thing one comes to upon walking straight into the memorial is a small memorial to Batukeshwar Dutt, who had participated in the quest to make the deaf hear in the National Assembly along with Bhagat Singh. Beyond Dutt’s memorial is an upright structure with the faces of the trio on them. Turning left and walking straight, I came to the “Prerna Sthal”, the spot where the cremation had taken place.

Bhagat Singh – who I called “Bhat Singh” as a tiny three-year-old – has always been a hero of mine. He is right up there with the likes of Field Marshal SHFJ Manekshaw, MC, and my parents for me. To be able to do what he did required raw courage and an unwillingness to accept subjugation in any form or shape.

Standing before the statue (to which I take an aesthetic objection: why must Bhagat Singh be portrayed with a turban when he had cut his hair and was an atheist? Why the cultural misappropriation?), one realises how small one is in the greater scheme of things, while also serving as a testament to the sort of difference one person can attempt to bring about.

I turned around and confronted the sight that was the old railway station. The tracks had been replaced with dummies but the overall old-school charm that the structure exuded gave me a sense of the place. The ticket window was still there. Standing under the winter North Indian sun (which has the ability to create an atmosphere and colour palette like nothing else), I pictured refugees coming from and going to Pakistan, piled into and on top of the trains. It was truly incredible – Hussainiwala has seen battles being fought between the countries but is also a place of shared history.

I made my way to an area parallel to the memorial, next to the railway station, which looked out on to an open-air theatre where melas take place a couple of times in the year and where the memorial to Bhagat Singh’s mother Vidyavati is. Also visible was the technical marvel that made the railway journey to and from Peshawar through Hussainiwala possible: the mounds on which the tracks had once stood and on top of which the trains had run.

The outer wall of the railway station induced a haunting shudder in me with the bullet holes that lined it and the gaping holes on the top. Who says it’s only men who are scarred by war?

I exited the Martyrs’ Memorial and made my way to the plaques installed by the Army to commemorate what they had done at Hussainiwala.

There it was, the plaque I was looking for. To the immediate right of the one in the centre.

My entire visit to Hussainiwala was to see where my father’s battalion – 2 Maratha Light Infantry – had won a battle honour in 1965. Funnily enough, though, my father wasn’t even born at the time of the battle.

2 Maratha LI had come in from Mathura to defend the Hussainiwala Headworks from an enemy attack, a task made tougher by the knowledge that the fall of the Headworks and the Hussainiwala Bridge would mean that the road to Ferozepur and Ludhiana lay open. It had to be defended at all costs.

2 Maratha LI – under the command of Lt. Col. TTA “Terry” Nolan – reached an almost entirely evacuated Ferozepur on 4^th September 1965 and a company under Maj. JS Dhillon was immediately sent to Hussainiwala Bridge to relieve a company of 9 Madras. Col. Nolan subsequently deployed the battalion in a defensive position at the Bridge, with three companies at the front, and one company along with a 3-inch mortar platoon at the rear.

Late the next evening, the majority of the battalion sneaked across Hussainiwala Bridge under the cover of darkness, a brazen move given that a Pakistani Observation Post housed in a 100-feet-tall structure stood no more than three hundred yards from the Bridge.

A 3.7-inch howitzer battery was deployed as artillery support at the rear of the Bridge; there were no other units nearby that would engage the enemy along with 2 Maratha LI. The battalion would face off against an entire infantry brigade (three times the size of the battalion, plus supporting elements such as armour).

On 7^th September, they came under heavy bombardment from enemy artillery, resulting in two men being killed in action and a third being wounded.

As shells rained down on the battalion, Col. Nolan ordered that the enemy observation post “Kikar”, which dominated over the Headworks area, be captured. Maj. Harphul Singh and “Bravo” Company conducted the assault on the tower and captured it, also taking the enemy outpost “Kujjanwali”.

As the battle raged on, the Marathas sent out patrols that went deep into the enemy forward defences and gathered information for the howitzer battery to direct barrages of shells at. Some patrols were led by “Alpha” Company Commander Maj. JS Dhillon, and 2Lt. Feroz Doctor and Sub. Ramdas Somewanshi led others. One instance involved Sub. Somewanshi getting as close as twenty yards from the enemy positions as Pakistani armour and artillery moved forward.

The Pakistani onslaught came on 19^th September, when an infantry battalion moved in with tanks for support after their artillery had directed immense shelling on the Marathas, who stood their ground despite the obviously overwhelming material strength of the enemy. The unit destroyed two of the three tanks recceing the area, capturing the third, for the loss of two men.

Perhaps fittingly, given how Hussainiwala is a memorial to the ideal example of the young Indian revolutionary, young officers were key to the defence, with three of them – Capt. M. Chandrasekharan, Capt. KM Palande and 2Lt. SW Deshpande leading the commando platoons with great success.

Despite the strength of the enemy, the Marathas held on to Hussainiwala because of relentless patrolling and sheer will and courage to not let the vital sector fall into enemy hands. They faced barrage after barrage unflinchingly and destroyed armour despite having just one howitzer battery and a mortar platoon for support.

They fought till the very end, holding on to Hussainiwala for over a fortnight, spurred on by Col. Nolan’s diktat before the fighting commenced: Kali Panchwin aakhri jawan aur aakhri goli tak Hussainiwala par baithega. Col. Nolan himself wasn’t there when the ceasefire was declared on 23^rd September, having been killed in a shelling two days earlier.

A young officer – 2Lt. PS Rana – made the Supreme Sacrifice, along with twelve other soldiers (Naiks Vithal Patil, Vishnu Kadam and Shamrao Chavan; Lance Naik Narayan More; Sepoys Daga Nikam, Banda More, Raghunath Chalke, Shankar Bhosale, Baban Falke, Vasu More & Mahadev Paste). The Marathas had successfully defended Hussainiwala but had lost their CO. A quote attached to the capture of Kondana Fort (Sinhgarh) by Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj’s forces comes to mind when I think of Col. Nolan’s martyrdom even as the battalion held Hussainiwala: “Garh aala pan simha gela”.

To be able to see a place where so much of our country’s history lies, where so much of our Army’s history lies, is a true privilege. Battlefields aren’t easily accessible in India; they are in remote locations with confusing names. Those that are accessible aren’t known about or spoken of, Hussainiwala perhaps even lesser than others, given that we lost the area in ’71. It was an education to go there. To plot a future for ourselves, we need to see what is in our past. There are moments which will fill us with pride, and some that will fill us with shame. We need to see, and we need to know, because otherwise, we are just groping around in the dark. It isn’t about thanking the Army or even about acknowledging it; it’s about seeing what our nation has gone through. History comes alive in places like Hussainiwala. It is more than a visit, it is more than an experience. In as god-fearing a nation as ours, I probably wouldn’t have found a better word to describe my trip to Hussainiwala: pilgrimage.

I am immensely grateful to my father’s friends and colleagues: Brig. Manish Gupta, for having made my visit to Hussainiwala a possibility, and Col. Samir Palande (the above-mentioned Maj. Gen. [then Capt.] KM Palande’s son), for the immensely helpful excerpts from the book “Valour Enshrined” by Col. CL Proudfoot and Lt. Col. MG Abhyankar which served as the basis for my writing on the 1965 Battle.