July 12, 1999
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KARGIL WAR Lest We Forget HAV JAI PARKASH SINGH, 39
When told that Jai Parkash's body had to be cremated amidst the icy peaks because it was torn apart by enemy fire, all the father -- his voice choked with emotion -- could say was, "I'm proud he got the bullets on the chest." It's this Jat pride that keeps the men of Desalur in Haryana's Jhajjar district going. Sending men to the armed forces is a treasured tradition here. No wonder then that 19-year-old Jai Parkash didn't think twice before signing up during an army recruitment drive near his village in 1980. His sharp-shooting skills made Jai Parkash the natural choice for the first patrols sent up to probe an enemy occupied ridge on May 8. The patrol came under immediate attack, but the gutsy Haryanvi held his position. He flashed a message to the rear about the attack and was trying to evacuate his seriously injured fellow colleagues when a barrage of mortar shells cut him short. His body could only be retrieved five days later, too mutilated to be transported. Sitting in the courtyard of his house, Ran Singh stoically looks at the framed black and white photograph of his son and consoles his wife Piari:"Only the brave die for the country." Jai Parkash's wife Kamlesh has no tears left to shed, as she gathers her two sons -- aged six and eight -- about her. But ask her if she will send them to the army and pat comes the reply: "Why not? I am waiting for them to grow up." Ran Singh is equally emphatic. "So what if my son has died, the tradition must not die". He has only one regret: he could not salute his son's body. -Ramesh Vinayak HAV-MAJOR
YASHVIR SINGH TOMAR, 39 I Such are the ways of the Tomars. On June 12, there were 11 of them from Charlie company of 90 men whose mission was to capture Tololing Top, a crucial, well-defended peak. Lt Praveen Tomar, 23, the youngest of them, remembers what a sombre Yashvir had said: "Sahib, gyarah ja rahe hain aur gyarah jeet kar hee lautenge (Sir, 11 Tomars are going; 11 will return only after victory)." It was a brutal night and a third of the company was dead and injured. At 2:30 a.m. with desperation setting in, Yashvir collected all the grenades of his men and charged the deadly bunker holding up victory. He got there and tossed 18 grenades and silenced the bunker. When they found Yashvir he lay still, shot in the head and chest, grenade in one hand, assault rifle in the other. Tololing Top had fallen. It is one of the most daring actions of the war. Tomars of Charlie company found victory and returned -- only they were one short. Yashvir's sons Uday, 11, and Pankaj, 10, don't cry. At home from the Army School in Meerut where they study, they already see no other life but the army. For a Tomar, there is no other way. -By Sayantan Chakravarty and R Vinayak |
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On May 29 two
soldiers delivered a packet to Ran Singh, 65, a retired soldier in Desalur village,
Haryana. It contained the ashes of his son, Havaldar Jai Parkash Singh, who died on the
battlefront in Kargil. 
n Sirsili they do not weep,
even silently, for their dead. They smile instead. It is not easy, but in this Rajput
village in Baghpat, Uttar Pradesh, where pride and honour comes before death and defeat,
Girwar Singh Tomar, 70, is following tradition. He's completed the last rites of his
eldest son, Havaldar Major Yashvir Singh Tomar. The youngest, Harbir of 2 Jat Regiment, is
there in the high passes. All that the senior Tomar, smiling wanly, will say is,
"Tradition does not allow our menfolk to come back defeated from the battlefront.
They must do or die." 
