The Army Chief Kargil tribute at the Kargil War Memorial in Dras opened the Indian Army's commemoration of the 27th Kargil Vijay Diwas on Sunday, as General Dhiraj Seth paid homage to the soldiers who fell in the 1999 conflict and offered his respects to the families they left behind. His words were brief, and mostly about the men who did not return.

Army Chief Kargil tribute at the Dras memorial

Gen Dhiraj Seth laid wreaths and paid homage at the memorial. "On Kargil Vijay Diwas, I feel a renewed sense of energy and pride," he said, before turning to the martyrs the day is built around. He called the presence of the Defence Minister at the ceremony a source of inspiration for the Army in the years to come, on a morning when Rajnath Singh delivered his own address at the same memorial.

The homage was plainly done. The Army chief bowed first to the fallen, then to the families who had travelled to Dras, and let the gestures carry the weight.


A maiden visit as Army chief

Sunday's Army Chief Kargil tribute was the first Gen Dhiraj Seth had paid at Dras since taking over the top job. He took charge as the 31st Chief of the Army Staff on 30 June, succeeding Gen Upendra Dwivedi, who had led the tributes here a year earlier. An armoured corps officer commissioned in 1986, he came to the post from the Vice Chief's chair.

Kargil Vijay Diwas marks the close of Operation Vijay, the 1999 campaign that cleared intruders from the heights above Dras, Kargil and Batalik. The fighting cost the services more than five hundred lives across that summer. The observance ran over several days this year, from the Shaurya Vijay Yatra motorcycle expedition that set out from the National War Memorial in Delhi to the commemorative programme held at Dras on the eve of the anniversary.

Warriors that cannot be matched

The Army chief kept his firmest words for the soldier himself. "The warriors of the Indian Army are superior to the soldiers of any other army in the world and cannot be matched," he said. He followed it with an assurance to the country, that the Army stood fully with the nation in its progress and would raise the national flag higher in the time ahead.

He said it without flourish, in the register of a man stating something he takes as settled rather than arguing for it.

Lines from a soldier of his own unit

Remembering the fallen, Gen Dhiraj Seth recited a few lines written by a soldier from his own unit. "मरना सभी को है, तुम भले मरे, / करके नमक हलाल, लड़ते हुए गिरे। / भूलोगे आप नहीं, जो छिप गई शक्ल, / सफेद ज़मीन पर, नाम हुआ तुम्हारा अटल।" The sense he drew from them, he said, was that death comes to everyone, but the soldier who falls in battle having proved loyal to the last is never forgotten, his name imprinted on the pale earth where he fell and made permanent. He read them because they fit the men of Kargil exactly.

The commemoration at Dras

Lieutenant General Pratik Sharma, who heads the Army's Northern Command, was among the senior officers at the memorial, alongside Ladakh Lieutenant Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena. The next of kin of soldiers who fell in 1999 were felicitated during the commemoration, and the Army chief closed by remembering them with the words Jai Hind, Jai Bharat.