Remembering Lt Gen PS Joshi, the unconquerable

At the Paris Paralympics men’s shot put F57 category event, Havildar Hokato Hotozhe Sema intuitively raised his arms in celebration after his bronze medal throw. The 40-year-old Sumi Naga soldier had lost his left leg in an IED blast at Kupwara in 2002. Fitting him with a replacement prosthetic leg, his surgeon at the Artificial Limb Centre, Kirkee, noting his superb upper body fitness, encouraged him to pick up shot put. In no time, the paralympics centre at Bombay Engineer Group, Kirkee, roped in the plucky Sema.

That’s when a wave of halcyon recall overtook me. It was 1978. A rookie Captain, I was doing a key career course at Mhow. My ‘buddy’ was Capt Bikram Singh, a Sikh Light Infantry officer and later Army Chief. We were doing a mountain warfare exercise in the wooded Malwa plateau. Our Directing Staff was Lt Col PS Joshi. He was tough, quiet and clued in with a no-nonsense but not unpleasant veneer.

We climbed up a steep incline with Col Pankaj teaching, questioning and assessing. We were scrambling for the last stand when he slipped and fell. ‘Stay away,’ he commanded Bikram and me, who were the closest. We watched with pride as the Colonel crawled down the slope on his knees to reach his separated Kirkee prosthetic, its retaining leather straps broken.

The Cavalry thinks on its feet. In seconds, I’d whipped off my boot laces, seeking silent permission to do jugaad. Col Joshi smiled his approval. We’d become friends for life without my ever becoming familiar with him. Gentlemen keep it simple and lasting.

Lt Gen Pankaj Shivram Joshi was in the visual spectrum a double-amputee ‘handicapped’ officer. In the mental and physical space, however, he converted adversity into victory by making ‘Invictus’ his anthem — and won. ‘Invictus’ is a Victorian-era poem, the word meaning ‘unconquerable’ in Latin. It was written by William Ernest Henley, an amputee at 16, with doctors telling him that a double amputation was inevitable — till Henley decided that gangrene and death weren’t his destiny, but rather the productive life he forged for himself. He did, however, make a wry concession: “I am afraid my marching days are over.”

Pankaj did one better. An NDA entry, he was commissioned into 1/8 Gorkha Rifles in 1962, joining his unit in Ladakh where the Gorkhas had just earned ‘Battle Honour’ Chushul. They showed their pluck against the Chinese on Gurung Hill despite suffering grievous losses. Across the Pangong Tso, Maj Dhan Singh Thapa had, some time earlier, earned his Param Vir Chakra by pulling out his khukri though seriously wounded when there was no ammunition left — huge reminders to 2/Lt Pankaj on his unit’s grit, guts and never-say-die ethos.

Pankaj took part in the 1965 Indo-Pak war in the Chhamb sector. During a mine-clearing operation, when heavy snowfall had dislocated landmines at Nathu La in 1967 post the near-war skirmish with PLA, doctors amputated his shattered legs: the right leg below the knee and the left at the calf.

Pankaj made this adversity his strength by resuming, despite prosthetics, all professional, academic and sports activities like his peers. 1/8 Gorkhas was reborn as 3 Mechanised Infantry, equipped with Topaz APC and later the Russian combat vehicle BMP-1. It had earned fame in the 1973 Yom Kippur war by giving the Egyptians an edge over the Israelis.

Unsurprisingly, Pankaj was selected to command it. His wife Prabha Devi recalls with pride: “He told his men he was back after 14 years the way Lord Rama returned to Ayodhya after exile.” This was the time the Army took to reconcile with the reality that amputation was a service reality which could be negotiated with grit and resolve.

Pankaj went on to command an armoured brigade, an armoured division and a pivot corps on the IB. He was to later become Army Commander, Central Command, and India’s first Chief of the Integrated Defence Staff.

A Russian language expert, he had done two top flight courses in America, had been an Instructor and Commandant at the College of Combat, Mhow. He was also an Instructor at the Staff College. He had his feet firmly anchored in reality. All he wanted was a fierce desire not to be helped or pitied. ‘I can do all any person can,’ he’d say, ‘I need your unqualified acceptance that I am your equal if a trifle different.’ His ‘Invictus’ spirit burgeoned till the bell tolled for him on July 1, 2009.

As Henley captures in ‘Invictus’:

“In the fell clutch of circumstance,

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeoning of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.”