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Ikkis: No age to die

Two very different army officers - a generation apart - performed acts of extreme courage for which each was recognized by a grateful nation with its highest gallantry award, Param Vir Chakra (PVC). A recent movie, Ikkis, recounts the life of one of the two, Second Lieutenant Arun Khetarpal, PVC (Posthumous). The other is Captain Manoj Kumar Pandey, PVC (Posthumous), with a story awaiting a screenplay. Both came up with the same answer to their respective combat predicaments – the ultimate in leadership.

While Manoj cleared enemy sangars off rocky heights of the Khalubar ridge in the Kargil sector; Arun joining battle in the Basantar bridgehead, knocked off enemy tanks wielding the still-functioning main gun of his tank, itself earlier disabled by a direct hit. The fierceness of the battles raging around them is clear from Kargil throwing up four PVC brave-hearts, including Vikram “Dil Mange More” Batra; and the Basantar sector, two - the other being the doughty grenadier, Hoshiar Singh.

The leadership puzzle

The intriguing part is though the two subalterns were superficially quite unlike each other, their courage suggests that deep down they were kindred souls. The dissimilarities in their background and personalities makes it difficult to catch what is the essence of such endeavour, something if captured could help the military inoculate all its junior leaders with.

Manoj, short and wiry, had his highpoint of his cadet days in striding up as team captain to collect the cross-country trophy – perhaps the most prestigious of academy trophies - at the National Defence Academy’s (NDA) famed glider dome. Not from a well-off family, he was likely irrepressibly unshod as a child. So, when the runners lined up for the start gun to go off, he would have his shoes on; but just after the start, he’d kick them off to run the rest of the rugged route - and win - barefoot.

Ikkis shows Arun similarly engaged in his last term. In the movie, he is depicted sounding a trumpet to gather his course-mates around him. He goes on to inspire them for a like collective effort, in his case, to move the squadron up from its long-held ranking at the bottom of the championship table. Over the term, they uncharacteristically top the table. He played a crucial role in the makeover, netting the drill competition – taken as the second most significant trophy since it has mass participation quite like cross-country - with the squadron marching to his word-of-command as squadron cadet captain (SCC).

Very alike in deed, yet the two were somewhat dissimilar in getup. While Manoj was the son of a small shopkeeper, Arun’s father was an army brigadier from the engineer corps. Manoj went to a sainik school, while Arun attended a public school. Arun was quite a swashbuckler – proficient at the saxophone and having a romantic interest at his elbow to boot. In contrast, Manoj was unassuming and - in a course-mate’s words - ‘happy-go-lucky, never hassled and always smiling.’ They were similar in one aspect: Arun was highly duty conscious and Manoj, focused.

Manoj had the advantage of having spent some time with his troops up at the highest battlefield, Siachen, prior to the outbreak of the Kargil War, allowing both – his Gorkhas and he - to get to understand each other deeply. In contrast, Arun, pitchforked into the 1971 War just six months out of the Indian Military Academy (IMA). He had to win the die-hard respect of his tank buddies doubly-quick.

Arun’s story

Ikkis shows Arun grow up the hard way, without the benefit of the combat-arm basic course. Finding the dates coincided with an upcoming war, tear-eyed Arun asked his reputed commanding officer Lieutenant Colonel Hanut Singh to be taken off it. Hanut placed Risaldar Sagat Singh Rathore as his instructor to in-house mould him and another just-commissioned officer. Rathore transformed the two into junior leaders befitting the over two-centuries old, “Fakhr-e-Hind” Poona Horse. Sadly, both fell to enemy action in separate engagements.

Ikkis traces Arun’s leadership journey, much of which amounted to learning after a fall. The most significant episode has Arun at attention in front of his squadron commander (squaddie) at NDA. Taking his duties as SCC rather to heart, he was there to report a course-mate for wrong-doing. He fails to take the squaddie’s offer of an off-ramp, when the major hints that complaining of a course-mate amounts to ratting on a colleague, afoul of the academy culture of course-spirit. Apparently, he had earlier warned the wrongdoer, but recurrence led up to this. Even so, the very act of standing up for the ‘harder right’ – as the NDA prayer goes – shows moral courage. The movie goes on to reveal his girl-friend goading him to do the right thing, pushing him to realise that he’d gone overboard, particularly since his friend ends up losing a term. His apology settling the matter shows Arun taking responsibility for his actions.

That he was inspired by a sense of duty is clear when at the IMA, he distances himself from his sweet-heart, reasoning that his taking french-leave to see her on discovery resulted in his being taken off the Sword of Honour shortlist. He argues that he would not like to be distracted from becoming worthy of his forthcoming pips. Towards the end of the film, when the war is drawing to a close, Arun is seen writing a forces’ letter to patch up with her. In the event, the girl in time became an army doctor, sending a cake to Arun’s parents on his birthday every year.

Ikkis does not romanticize Arun. The movie lightly touches on his distaste for boxing, with Arun reporting sick rather than getting into the ring in his weight category. If it was fright, it only humanizes Arun, reminding the viewer that he as a cadet on a learning curve was but a teenager.

In the regimental mess, Arun vows to bring home to the regiment a second PVC, the first having been notched up by its legendary commanding officer, Ardeshir Tarapore, in the 1965 War. Tarapore, commissioned in the Hyderabad Infantry unit (which incidentally was commanded by this writer’s grandfather) had been granted a transfer from infantry to cavalry after his showing physical bravery. On the firing range, he saved his detail from a grenade accident. His moral courage was evident from his taking on the British commanding officer of his next regiment to task for racist remarks. Such was the quality of officership in Poona Horse, which Arun was raring to measure up to. However, he was denied an opportunity of a skirmish almost right through the war, maturely held in reserve by his CO.

His last moments are epic, and there is no better narration of this than that of the Pakistani tank commander opposing him in battle. Though Pakistan surrendered in East Pakistan, the war went on a day longer on the western front. During those last hours, the regiment had firmed-up the bridgehead across Basantar river, but was being furiously contested in successive counter-attacks by the Pakistanis. A Pakistani regiment, 13 Lancers - ironically the pre-Partition ‘sister’ regiment of the Poona Horse - led the charge. Arun’s troop sprang to the fore as reinforcements. They overran the perimeter of the bridgehead in pursuit of the Pakistanis after one bout. Reforming, the Pakistanis returned for another go, with the squadron commander, Major Nissar, in the lead. The final scene has Arun fending off the Pakistanis in defiance of orders and standard procedures to abandon a burning - and disabled - tank. His last round puts the Pakistani commander’s Patton out of action. With Major Nissar surviving the exchange, history gets a live, unbiased witness.

The other part of Ikkis has interspersed scenes from a later time, when Arun’s father, Brigadier Khetarpal, visits Pakistan in a period of relative bonhomie between the two countries, when Track II dialogues seeking rapprochement were on. The brigadier had migrated from across during Partition and wished to visit his village. Major Nissar - who had since retired as a brigadier himself - volunteered to host the visiting Indian. Coincidentally, Khetarpal’s village was near the scene of Arun’s last battle. In a poignant scene, his host Nissar paints the tactical picture of his son’s first and last battle. Khetarpal absorbs the sad narration with sobriety and not a bit of rancor.

The message

The director does well to fire his anti-war message from the shoulders of one of India’s most senior and respected actors, late Dharmendra, who assayed his final celluloid role as Khetarpal just before his recent demise. The times required the dual message on the futility of war and of war between neighbours - if not brothers. On the face of it, a simply-told tale of valour hardly balances jingoistic films, especially one currently demolishing earlier records of audience attendance. Sensibly, that the movie does not attempt to match such movies in publicity, budgets, technical wizardy and noise is itself a resounding refutation of the narrative of eternal enmity sought by propaganda masquerading as film. Fearing the message will strike a chord, the regime’s minders have forced an insertion at the end, helpfully from its perspective, reminding film goers that the neighbor is not to be trusted.

For the military, the leadership puzzle is set to remain. That such human material obtains in every strata of society is altogether a good thing, and must be tapped. The military has traditional means to shape this putty for its moment. It has Arun and Manoj as models. Arun would have been 75 today, and Manoj 50. Their examples across time caution conservatism, with leadership uninfluenced by the loud-mouthed and rabble-rousing, one that takes enemies as having mascara-filled or ‘small’ eyes, model new India seems to be harking after. Ikkis’s story of a 21 years-old, makes clear that the warrior dharma has no place for hate.