Every Child Is a Story

From the testimony of Lt. Col. Digvijay Singh — Indian Army, Army Aviation

Colonel Singh flew helicopters over the Kargil ridges in 1999. He had spent the previous hour telling me about sixteen-thousand-foot mountains, a Pakistani post he very nearly put his aircraft down on, and the men he and his crew lifted out of the valleys while the shelling went on. He gave me the numbers without pausing — six hundred and three taken out, five hundred and ninety-nine survivors — twenty-six years on. So when I asked him for the one story he most wanted kept, I expected the mountains. He chose, instead, a girl from a village outside Dehradun who nearly failed class ten.

She had come to his school, and six months later her father died. He fixed on one thing after that: that she should be raised properly. Around class seven or eight she began to stray — the environment there, he says, without elaborating. He scolded her. It made no difference. She did badly in class ten, and he knew she was capable, and he could not work out how to bring her back.

She called him bade papa.

So he tried the only thing left. He told her he was going to let her go. Don't do that, Sir, she said. She was unwell by then, and she told him she would not be able to keep studying — but asked to be allowed to sit the examinations anyway. He agreed, and then went to her teachers and instructed them to show her no leniency of any kind, to treat her exactly as they would any other child.

She did well in class eleven. He did not believe it — he told her outright that she might have copied, and went to the teachers to check. They told him she had not. In class twelve she was still not attending regularly. She scored seventy-one per cent. He is taking her to Odisha now, for admission.

“What I've learnt is to never give up — and that for me, every child is a gift from God.”

I have thought about why he chose this and not the mountains, and I think the answer is in the arithmetic. Six hundred and three went into those helicopters and five hundred and ninety-nine came out. Four did not, and he knows exactly how many, which is its own kind of arithmetic to carry for twenty-six years. This girl is one. She did.

There is a second girl at the school, also close to him. He asked her what she wanted to do; she said she wanted to teach. She topped her class, started taking lessons there after class twelve, and is now a teacher on his staff. Teaching, he says, does not require degrees. It requires knowledge and passion.

The school and hospital were built by Colonel Singh with his three brothers and his sister, and serve villages including Doonga and Bhauwala, outside Dehradun. The girl's name is withheld here at the archive's discretion.

I.Nobody Ever Talked About the Money

InterviewerIf you could speak to your younger self, what would you tell him?

OfficerIn our times, very few people were materialistic. Nobody talked about pay. At the end of the month the CDA¹ would send it — but it was not the done thing to even look at it. You were not working for that. We were very detached from all this. Our main aim was esprit de corps², and to lead our men. Right from the beginning we tried to be good leaders and to set an example, to be on the right path. In our time things were different. Our only aim was to don the uniform and prove ourselves.

Contextual Notes and Historical References

1 · CDA: The Controller of Defence Accounts, the office that disburses pay to Indian armed forces personnel.
2 · Esprit de corps: The shared pride and loyalty binding the members of a regiment or unit — a central idea in Indian Army regimental culture.

II.A School at Ten, and the Question of Childhood

InterviewerWas there a defining moment when you knew you wanted to join the Army?

OfficerIt was at school. I am from Sainik School¹ — there is one at Purulia, in Bengal². Joining that school was the first step towards joining the Army.

InterviewerYou must have joined at around ten. Do you feel childhood ends slightly earlier for children who go into institutions like that?

OfficerThat depends on your definition of childhood. What are the ingredients of a childhood?

InterviewerI think the general perception would be that you do not have to worry about what lies ahead — at least not at that stage.

OfficerNo. At that stage you have to be on your toes, thinking. It is survival of the fittest. In our time punishment was there to be taken — and you had to find ways not to be punished. So your mind was extra creative and extra alert. We were all ragged, along with the rest of your peer group. Studies were compulsory; apart from that it was play and sport, all day. I didn't miss childhood. People say that in a boarding school you start getting detached from your family. For me it was the opposite.

InterviewerThese institutions seem to foster a very close-knit community.

OfficerThe human bonding is terrific — because good human bonding develops in difficult times. In good times you are very formal. When you are in danger, as in the army, that is why we are so close. Most of your generation today do not live in difficulties. I tell my own children: you are all saturated. You have got everything that you need. So there is no challenge.

Contextual Notes and Historical References

1 · Sainik Schools: A network of residential schools established from 1961 to prepare boys for entry to the National Defence Academy and a career as officers, drawing heavily from families of modest means.
2 · Sainik School Purulia: Founded in 1962 in Purulia district, West Bengal — among the earliest schools in the network.

III.Kargil, from the Air

InterviewerWhen you think of your career in the uniform, what comes back to you first — not chronologically, but instinctively?

OfficerThe best part was the Kargil War¹ — when you got to really do justice to your training.

InterviewerCould you share some stories from that time?

OfficerI was in aviation. I was a helicopter pilot. We used to look after the surveillance of that area. Initially nobody knew. Yes, there used to be infiltration and counters — but these are very difficult heights, sixteen thousand feet or so, these mountains. That area was not physically held in winters. It used to be patrolled, but not held. That was an unwritten understanding between both sides — the no man's land², our people on one side and theirs on the other. In winters they used to go down, because it was difficult to maintain position in those areas.

OfficerTaking advantage of that, the Pakistanis came at the beginning of 1999 — January, February — and occupied those areas. After the winters were over, when people went up there — basically the Bakarwals, the nomadic herders³ — they came and told us they had seen some people. Initially people thought they were terrorists or infiltrators. But when they went there, and some of them were encountered, they found that they had well established themselves.

OfficerThen we got into checking where all they were. Our work was to look into them. And we couldn't make out which was their post and which was ours. I almost landed into a Pakistani post — and they also didn't know whose helicopter it was. I found they were in khaki and we were wearing olive greens. I saw them, and I turned back.

OfficerThere used to be firing; they would fire their cannons. There is a valley — the Dras valley⁴. We used to go in there and see the thing bursting in the air — they would fire what are called air shots⁵, and the cannon shots would burst in the air.

OfficerThe main thing was the ability to save people. When there was actual firing, we used to go inside and pick up the people. We worked to take out six hundred and three people, with five hundred and ninety-nine survivors. That was one of the greatest satisfactions.

Contextual Notes and Historical References

1 · The Kargil War: The conflict of May–July 1999 in the Kargil district of Ladakh, fought after Pakistani soldiers and irregulars occupied Indian positions vacated for the winter.
2 · No man's land: The unheld ground between two opposing forces. On the high Kargil ridges both armies withdrew from certain posts each winter, by long-standing tacit understanding.
3 · The Bakarwals: A nomadic pastoral community of Jammu and Kashmir who move their herds to high pasture each summer. Bakarwal herders were among the first to report the 1999 intrusions to the Indian Army.
4 · Dras: A valley town in the Kargil sector, overlooked by the Tololing and Tiger Hill features and among the most heavily shelled positions of the war.
5 · Air shots: Airburst artillery, fused to detonate above the ground so that fragments spread downward — particularly dangerous to troops and to low-flying aircraft.

IV.What Changes, What Endures

InterviewerWhen you look at the Indian Army today, what has stayed the same and what has changed?

OfficerTo some extent that inter-human bonding has reduced — because of the atmosphere. We can't help it. Earlier there were no distractions. We all stayed like a family in a regiment. Today everybody has other means of keeping themselves occupied. We used to keep meeting every day. After the evening, all the bachelors would go across and stay till eleven or twelve at night. That was our only source of entertainment, or whatever you want to call it. Today there are many other ways, and people are busy in their homes. In those days the ladies did not work; today everybody is working somewhere.

InterviewerBut the culture still exists.

OfficerThe point is there, because you are still staying together. You are working together. And the main thing is there is no profit making. That is the difference. If you go into an institution, or you start something of your own, your focus is on creating profit, income. There, there is nothing of that. You are focused on keeping yourself ready for the day.

V.Men Who Will Die for You, and Men Who Calculate

InterviewerHow did military life shape your understanding of responsibility towards the people under your command?

OfficerLeadership is a trait that has to be fostered. Right from day one we were taught to set an example. Your own ability to project yourself as the right person to be followed by your soldiers has to be ready. And nobody thinks about themselves in the army. If somebody is in trouble, the other man does not think — he will be there to help. He does not ask how will this affect me? — which is a very common thing otherwise. Today, if I find someone lying on the ground, I may think twice. There, that thought is not there. It is spontaneous. It is ingrained in you. It comes automatically. That is the beauty of it.

InterviewerHow different is leading volunteers and civilians, compared with leading soldiers?

OfficerWorld apart. Men believe in their leaders. They will swear by them; they will die for them — and the other way round too. That is why you see so many officers lead from the front. Here it is the other way. Everybody will see what the profit is. They will carry out calculations.

VI.What Four Brothers Decided

InterviewerWhat led you to found this? What was the motivation behind it?

OfficerI'll go back to my background. We are a joint family — four brothers and one sister. We are very close, and we still meet. We decided that after we had completed our responsibility to our children and to our professional lives, we would stay together and do something. It is God's grace that we are doing what we are doing.

OfficerInitially this was a hospital. And before the hospital was made, I used to go around to the local schools and see the conditions there. There was hardly any education. Children used to come and go — they didn't know why they used to come. I started teaching in these local schools, Doonga, Bhauwala, and then we adopted the schools. Finally we thought we should build something of our own, where we could ingrain the values we look forward to.

VII.What a Soldier Owes After the Uniform

InterviewerWhere do you think former servicemen can make the greatest contribution after retirement?

OfficerIn all fields. Basically the discipline part, which is lacking in society. Discipline plus honesty. I have been telling the government; I have met people. I have told the education system, I have told the ministers, that we can really grow this — and we are not looking for any returns. Similarly I have gone to the defence ministers. I suggested that now they are retiring, they can be deployed here. They get a pension, so they are not very interested in the money. But they are interested in being creatively employed. There are a lot of institutions looking for them. They have a great many skills, and the main thing is their discipline and their honesty. That can be used in society.

OfficerIn whatever I did — I was not an educationalist. But I had basic knowledge, and when I started the school I had to think what to do. I had to go back to my own school days. I had to close my eyes and think.

InterviewerThere has been a great deal of debate recently about the Agniveer scheme¹. What is your view of it?

OfficerLook at it from a broader perspective. At the macro level, today's war is not hand-to-hand fighting. It is very technical. Yes, soldiers are still required to hold ground — if you are going to occupy a place, physically the soldiers have to go there. Otherwise you cannot simply keep firing. I believe that if you want to occupy territory, it has to be humanly held. But today's methods of war have changed. So you do not need so many people.

OfficerAnd there has been talk earlier of countries like Israel, where military service is compulsory — at least people get some values built into them when they serve. It is a way to do that. Anyone who has trained for four years inculcates the basic traits, which can then be utilised in society. So I feel it is sound. They are working on it — on the percentage that can be absorbed. Right now it is twenty-five per cent. The first batch is coming out in October. Before that, some issues will be there.

Contextual Notes and Historical References

1 · The Agnipath scheme and Agniveers: A recruitment model introduced in 2022 under which most soldiers, sailors and airmen enlist for four years, with a proportion retained thereafter for full terms of service. Recruits are designated Agniveers.

VIII.She Never Showed It

InterviewerWho has influenced your life the most?

OfficerMy mother. She always supported me. During the war also — during Kargil — when I used to speak to her, she never used to break down. Inside she must have been worried. But she never showed that.

Lt. Col. Digvijay Singh

The full story, as I was told it

The Shape of Memory

I.Nobody Ever Talked About the Money

II.A School at Ten, and the Question of Childhood

III.Kargil, from the Air

IV.What Changes, What Endures

V.Men Who Will Die for You, and Men Who Calculate

VI.What Four Brothers Decided

VII.What a Soldier Owes After the Uniform

VIII.She Never Showed It

The Keystone

Photographs & Service Record