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The instinct does matter

MAJOR KULBIR SINGH. Dated: 1/19/2018 9:37:59 AM

Sometimes unconventional methods do change the entire scenario!

Major Kulbir Singh
Jammu, Jan 18
The first time I really noticed Jintu was via a column in Asian Age. I was in Manipur those days. My wife phoned me to tell about Jintu Gogoi. We habitually disagreed on everything about battles and war but this was a serious affair. My judgement was vindicated, he didn't fight another battle. This kid was from Assam. Not many would remember his name now but he was one of the heroes of the Kargil war.
As the last post was sounded and the soldiers in ceremonial gear turned their weapons upside down, they remembered the smiling face of the martyr whom they were honouring. Capt Jintu Gogoi, Capt Jintu Gogoi, who was recalled from leave to join his unit 17 Garhwal barely a 12 days after his engagement, was brought in a tri-colour draped coffin. A marigold wreath on it. Watched by his fiancee and relatives who waited for the senior officers to pay their respects before giving way to their own sorrow. "There is no hope now," Anjuna said. Just days ago she had spoken to her relatives about hoping that since Capt Gogoi’s body had not been recovered he may be alive. No tears fell from her bright eyes. The smile belied the shattered dreams. Yet the quiet dignity honoured the soldier more. Eager for news of how the end came, she spoke to the soldiers who had been with him at that time. "He was leading from the front. There were three men ahead of him. His body was found barely 150 yards from the picket on Jubar Hills that he had been ordered to take. A full burst from a machine gun had caught him in his solar plexus," she said. The men of 17 Garhwal had charged into battle shouting ‘Badri Vishal’, their battle cry. Of the four companies that went into battle one officer and eleven jawans did not return.
Nation's third highest wartime gallantry award Vir Chakra was awarded to Captain Jintu Gogoi on 15th August 1999.
During the Kargil war, their’s were perhaps some of the most heart-rending images: that of Capt Jintu Gogoi’s father, a former Indian Air Force officer, receiving the body of his 29-year-old son in full uniform; and Jintu’s young fiancee later saluting his pyre, bidding him farewell one last time. Jintu was posthumously awarded the Vir Chakra. However, that was then. As of now, Jintu is just another forgotten soldier whose family, for example, has still not been given the LPG distribution outlet that was allotted to them four years back.
Apart from financial support to Jintu’s family, an LPG distributorship in the area would go a long way in easing the hardship of the local population, who now have to travel a distance of 13 km to Badulipara, or even 30 km to Bokakhat for a cylinder of gas. More than 900 consumers stand to gain from an LPG centre at Khumtai, Jintu’s home in the Golaghat district of Upper Assam.
“I am not doing this for profit,” says Thogiram Gogoi, Jintu’s father. “If that had been my intention I would have applied for a fuel station.” There are more than 7,000 people here who can afford LPG, he says, but its simply not available, he says.
Jintu’s family has meanwhile found their own ways to remember him. His mother Duluprabha walks across the road to Jintu’s memorial to offer prayers every evening, while sister Luna preserves her brother’s cassettes with special care. “All this will be shifted to a small museum being constructed beside his memorial,” says Gogoi. Tributes from abroad too have come in. Among them, flower seeds sent by a person from the US to be sown in Jintu’s village. Gogoi was part of the 17th Battalion of the Garhwal Rifles, and was killed on June 30, 1999 during the Kargil conflict.
“People in the US and the UK remember Jintu,” says Gogoi. “But our own government has forgotten him. On his first death anniversary only the Golaghat unit of the All Assam Students’ Union, along with a few journalists, called us.” On the night of 29/30 June 1999 during “Operation Vijay”, Captain Jintu Gogoi wad tasked to evict the enemy from ridge line Kala Pathar near the Line of control in general area of Juber Hill complex in Batalik sub-sector. With utter disregard to his personal safety, he led the troops in the face of heavy enemy fire and reached the top by first light. However, he was immediately surrounded by the enemy and was asked to surrender. As he had no chance to protect himself, he chose the honorable way of fighting with valour and dignity. He opened fire on the enemy killing two enemy soldiers before making the supreme sacrifice. Before this action, lie made sure that his group had taken cover for safety. Captain Jintu Gogoi displayed most conspicuous act of bravery, unparalleled devotion to duty and leadership of most exceptional order in the face of the enemy in the most inhospitable terrain, and made the supreme sacrifice in the highest tradition of the Indian Army.