AFVOA Newletter August 2020

Section 5 - Memoirs CV 2 No. 02 / 2020 Page 124 of 237 16 When Madrasis Saved India’s Capital Capt D P Ramachandran Genre: Military History hile we celebrate yet another Independence Day, it might be worthwhile to revisit the turbulent days that followed our independence and remember the heroes who saved the national capital of Delhi, the epicenter of those eventful days, from sliding into anarchy and utter chaos. Indian independence, August 1947: Like the rest of the nation, for the Indian Army too, the days that followed the great event were to prove traumatic. While on one side, the army went through the agony of being split into two, as the Indian and Pakistani ones, on the other, it was charged with the unenviable assignment of maintaining peace amidst the holocaust of the partition riots. The soldiers from the south, whose forefathers had more than 200 years earlier – as mercenaries and unwittingly though – rallied under the British colours, to fight and win the earliest battles that would put India on the inexorable path to unification as one country for the first time ever in history, were, appropriately enough, to play the crucial role of being the guardians of peace at the national capital of a free India, which was being torn asunder by the murderous riots. And these men, professionals to the boot they were, rose up to the challenge to do a magnificent job, the nation would be hard put to forget. As the riots erupted, the 2nd and 4th Battalions of the 3rd Madras Regiment were chosen to maintain peace at Delhi. They did it unbiased without fear or favour, keeping with the highest traditions of military discipline. The crucial role played by the Madras soldiers in the riot-torn national capital in those difficult days found its echo internationally, when the New York Herald Tribune paid a handsome tribute by writing that, “Whether popular or not, the Madras Regiment, fully backed by the Government of India, seems today to maintain peace in the area of Old Delhi, which, three weeks ago, was littered with corpses.” Within India, Prime Minister Nehru himself was prompted to state that, “But for theMadras Regiment, India would have lost Delhi.” The regiment received great public acclamation in the end, when the 4th W