It isn't just tragic but also very strange that the two times I very briefly met and shook hands with General and Mrs Bipin Rawat, they had both just stepped out of a helicopter. Both times, this was at the Hindan Air Force Base on the occasion of the Air Force Day Parade when he was Chief of Army Staff. The General, Mrs Rawat and other Air Force and Army personnel died in a horrific chopper crash on 8 December 2021. When there is such a tragedy that involves military personnel, some of whom I may have come across at some point, the feeling of loss is personal.
General Bipin Rawat was the first-ever CDS or Chief of Defence Staff of India. On 31 December 2019 he completed his tenure as Chief of Army Staff and on 1 January 2020 he took over as CDS. He hailed from a family with a military tradition; his father Laxman Singh Rawat having retired from the army as Lt. General. Over the course of his illustrious career, the General had been awarded the Param Vishisht Seva Medal, Uttam Yudh Seva Medal, Ati Vishisht Seva Medal, Yudh Seva Medal, Sena Medal, Vishisht Seva Medal and other commendations.
The General had handled various responsibilities involving the LoC with Pakistan, the LaC with China, the Northeast. As such he had a unique understanding of the multi-pronged military challenges that faced India. His international assignments included heading the multinational brigade of the UN Peacekeeping mission in Congo. He was known to be sharp and energetic and had a lot of ideas about modernising and better equipping the armed forces. As CDS he was initiating practices that would help each of the arms of the military – the army, navy and air force – work in concert and with better coordination.
He was on his way to address student officers at the Defence Services Staff College in Wellington when his helicopter crashed. While the CDS and his wife tragically died in the crash, 12 others went down with them on what was a routine official visit. The single survivor of the IAF Mi 17 V5 helicopter crash Group Captain Varun Singh is currently battling for his life.
Shortly after I got married, I encountered a tragedy as a new fauji wife. I had briefly met this bright young, vivacious woman who had recently become a mother. Her husband died in a fighter plane crash. When I met her next, wearing white, it was as if all the colour, laughter, joy and hope had been wiped out of her life. The tragedy seemed so stark, so personal, so immediate to me – after all these years, I haven’t been able to forget her face – more so I haven’t been able to forget the contrast between a young woman full of hope and joy transformed into someone grief-stricken and utterly lost; with scant idea of what the future held.
This has happened repeatedly over the years – a friend would eject safely from a crash and we would heave a shaky sigh of relief. We would get news of a tragic fatality and recall how we had been posted together at some point and mourn the personal loss. We would recall their spouse/ children and cry anguished tears at how they would handle the devastating loss and an unsure future. For the fauji family, these losses are personal, they are wounding, they leave scars.
The sole survivor of the CDS’s chopper crash, Group Captain Varun Singh had been awarded a Shurya Chakra this year. He received the honour for saving his LCA Tejas fighter aircraft during an aerial emergency in 2020. He now battles for his life in a hospital in Wellington.
Brigadier LS Lidder who passed away in the crash has a young daughter who is currently taking her class XII exams according to sources. Lieutenant Colonel Harjinder Singh, NK Gursewak Singh, NK Jitendra Kumar, L/NK Vivek Kumar, L/NK B Sai Teja and Hav Satpal are among the other deceased and would have left behind their own devastated families.
The names on the flight manifest – such as the image above, trigger feelings of very personal, very immediate loss. As for the families of those that are now gone, the loss and the grief is not something that any of us can even imagine.
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