Shanti Divas for bears & blooms

Hindustan Times

27-07-2025

During the summer of '99 Kargil War, Maj Deepak Rampal, Vir Chakra, would frequently liken himself to a lumbering mountain bear and not an agile snow leopard when sharing a lighter moment with his beloved troops in the thick of battle. At over a 100kg, the Delta Company Commander of 17 Jat (Mashkoh Warriors) was then the only 'bear' to be found in the Drass-Mashkoh heights because the natural denizens had fled the shelling and incessant Infantry firing. A stately Juniper tree at Ganasok and (on right) Black bears harassed by stray dogs at Drass. (Col Rajesh Adhau & Subedar Amin)
Despite his stocky build and legendary fondness for five-egg omelettes laced with cheese, Rampal's fighting spirit and professionalism ensured he was always climbing the steep inclines by leading his men from the front like a Himalayan Brown bear adept in his natural alpine environment. Rampal's D Coy was in the thick of things from July 4-8, 1999, when they assaulted the Point 4875 Complex.
Rampal and five volunteer soldiers launched an audacious daylight assault without artillery support on the Pimples feature defended by a section strength (11-12 soldiers) of the Pakistani 12 Northern Light Infantry (Haider) on July 8, 1999. The heroic assault caught the Pakistanis by surprise and they were busy having a meal in their bunkers. Rampal and his men threw in grenades from a few metres in classic Infantry close-quarter combat and wiped out the enemy lodgement. The lumbering bear had outwitted and trapped the enemy in its own den!
The bears are back in those Kargil heights as peace reigns on the 26th Kargil Vijay Divas. Alpine flowers bloom, drinking the sweetest water possible: that melting from the pristine peaks of 17,000 feet and tumbling to the valleys of Drass and Mashkoh. During the war, the barrage of artillery fire had poisoned melting snows with cordite remnants. Soldiers of both sides fighting at the top for more than two months had produced piles of excreta that polluted alpine water fountainheads.
Geraniums bloom in peace at Sando Top with Tiger Hill looming in the background and (on right) flora of Epilobium and Apiaceae species at Sando Top. (Col Rajesh Adhau)
The flora of the Kargil mountains was not only blown to smithereens by direct artillery hits but remaining plants drew in poisoned waters. Such was the power of Indian artillery fire that a distinctive V-Cut rock feature in the Drass mountains was altered to a U-cut! Soldiers who had drunk that polluted water were afflicted with traumatic ailments, such as passing blood in stools.
Col Rajesh Adhau, Sena Medal (Gallantry), was one of those rare Army doctors who attended to wounded officers and soldiers of his battalion, 13 JAK Rifles (Bravest of Brave), by being just 50 m away from bunkers. He made a pilgrimage to Gun Hill (ex-Point 5140, 16,864 feet) on the Drass LoC earlier this month. This was the peak immortalised in Capt. Vikram Batra's (PVC-P) victory call over the radio: Yeh dil maange more.
'So many years after the war, the scene is beautiful and serene. The flowers were blooming all over as we drove past Sando Top (13,900 feet) with Tiger Hill (Point 5060) to our west. I also went to the Ganasok-Yaldor LoC sector of Batalik. There I saw the Juniper trees (or 'Shupka', declared the State Tree of Ladakh in 2023), its gnarled trunk reflecting its battle with nature's vagaries. It was festooned with white strips of cloth and looked so gaunt, like a 'Ghost tree'. I saw the playful Himalayan marmots and weasels during my climbs to the erstwhile war zone,' Adhau told this writer.
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