GENERAL SUNDARJI IN
A BEAR-HUG WITH
KHALISTANIS
Lieut General (Retd)
Baljit Singh. The Hindu, 21 Dec 2012
“Ballay-Ballay-Ballay! Faujaan
ney taan baadi security khichh chhaddi hay.” (Bravo! You guys have surely thrown a security cordon around
yourselves”), said the three tall, well built and smiling Sikhs, dressed in
the crisp attire of the Bhangra Dancers, as they came striding towards us, in
St Petersburg in 1986. Whether they were Khalistanis or their sympathizers or
mere itinerant-visitors, we shall never know.
General K Sundarji,
accompanied by Mrs. Sundarji, was on a week-long visit to the USSR on a
reciprocal-invitation by his Soviet counterpart. Lieut General Chatterji, one
Major General (Self) and the Chief’s ADC made up the entourage. This was my
first exposure to VIP travel, that is, my baggage collected by the staff a day
earlier and myself driven to the airport a mere ten minutes before the
scheduled departure. When the Chief and Mrs. Sundarji arrived, we were ushered
through an elevated, tunneled passage-way connected direct to the
Business-Class entrance of the Aeroflot air-liner. A pretty hostess led the
rest of us to our seats in the Economy Class. As we settled for the night-long
flight to Moscow,
we heard animated Punjabi voices from the rear seats. We were certainly
surprised and a bit amused too but thought no more of it; certainly not in the
vein of any Khalistani mischief.
Our Soviet hosts were
fully conscious of General Sundarji’s Z Plus, security imperatives and the KGB
were taking no chances. Discrete as they were, but no discerning eye (that is,
Khalistani or Sympathiser) could have been fooled of the potent armed cordon
around us, despite its near invisible profile. On the third day of the visit,
we were shown their premier Cadet-Officers
Academy at St Petersburg. After lunch, we changed into
tweed jackets or casuals for a grand tour of that “City of The
Tsars”, ending with Peterhof, the magnificent Palace of Peter
the Great with the awesome “Cascade of Gold Fountains” at its entrance. Two
hours later, as we stepped out into sunshine towards our limousines, we were
jolted out of our reveries by the “Ballay-Ballay-Ballay”. What instantly
flashed across my mind, were the Punjabi voices heard before take-off at Delhi and I instinctively
stepped forward, and engaged the three Sardars in tete-a-tete.
Under the circumstances,
it was natural to open the conversation by enquiring as to what had brought these
stalwarts to St Petersburg?
And their forthright reply was; “Saada pahraa IAS wich see, tay Blue Star
they baad phagaura ban gaya
see. Kisay ne daasya ke oh Roos wich hay. Usaan ohnoo labhan aaya haan”
(Our kinsman, an IAS officer has been
absconding since Op Blue Star and on a tip-off, we came looking for him in Russia).
General Sundarji, in his trade-mark casuals (Chappals, faded Blue jeans and a
Guru Kurta), stood by my side, smiling at the three pairs of scrutinizing
eyes. By then the security cordon had very discreetly, closed around the
assemblage and in order to break out of the impasse, I introduced the trio to
the “Fauj
they Sardar, General Sundarji!”
In a flash, the Sardar
up-front stepped forward and embraced the Chief in a Bear-hug and in the true
Punjabi bonhomie, lifted him off his feet! Before General Sundarji could regain
his wits, the second Sardar followed suit. But when the third closed forward,
it was General Sundarji who lifting him off his feet, carried him around the
other two much to the merriment of us all! On a queue from our Liaison Officer
(a two Star General) we made to Part Company. And as though playing out a
rehearsed role, the Khalsas closed the episode with a loud and cheery, “Sat
Siri Akal!”
Now on the return journey,
we boarded the Moscow-Tashkent-New Delhi Flight, around 10 PM. On landing at
Palm and before exiting the air port, I had walked to the Custom Duty Free Shop
to purchase Kodak Colour Transparency Film Rolls. And Lo and Behold, who do I
meet; the very three Sardars who had obviously come on board the Flight, at the
Tashkent
stop-over!! So two days later, while writing the mandatory report for the PMO
(through the MOD & MEF), the thought upper most in my mind was that a
serving IAS Sikh Officer did desert the Service and vanish from India in the
wake of Op Blue Star; so the inference of possible “Khalistanis/Sympathisers”
cells in Russia, could not be discounted. Perhaps the presence of the KGB in
strength alone, had botched their attempt on The Chief’s life, at St Petersburg. However,
General Sundarji scored it out from the draft-report because (a) the KGB and
our Embassy would have instantly informed all concerned, (b) let us not shift
the focus of our report from the urgent aquisitions of military hardware which
we saw, (c) give a chance to the “Sleeper Cells” to slip into a comma and (d)
last but not the least, “I have no intention to spoil my evenings on the
cocktails circuit, with replays of this episode, please!” Had the Chief an
email ID up in Valhalla, he would surely have
chuckled on reading this piece!
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