Eastern Command remembers its chief Lt Gen JS Aurora

Shubhadeep Choudhury

Tribune News Service

Kolkata, June 8

Indian Army’s Kolkata-headquartered Eastern Command on Monday paid glowing tributes to its former chief Lt Gen Jagjit Singh Aurora on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Aurora’s taking over the responsibility of the Command as its GOC-in-C.

“The #WarriorsoftheEast shall always remain indebted for the revered contributions by #Lt Gen Jagjit Singh Aurora, PVSM and value his contributions to be ever etched down the memory lane,” the Eastern Command said in a message posted on multiple social media platforms.

Lieutenant General Aurora took over the reins of the Eastern Command on June 8, 1969 and remained in the post till February 10, 1973. During his tenure, he was instrumental in creating Bangladesh and secured surrender by a Pakistani General with over 90,000 troops.

The black and white photograph of Lt Gen AAK Niazi of Pakistan army signing the Instrument of Surrender under the gaze of Aurora on December 16, 1971 at Ramna Race Course in Dhaka encapsulates the most momentous occasion in the history of Indian Army.

In his book “The Lightning Campaign: The Indo-Pakistan War, 1971” Maj Gen DK Palit (retd) wrote that while drawing up his strategy, the Pakistani commander (Niazi) reckoned “without Eastern Army’s GOC-in-C Lt Gen J S Aurora”.

“No commander before him (Aurora) had ever attempted a war of movement such as this in a land where rivers run to five miles in width, where the going is all infantry – with no scope for fast moving

armoured thrusts, where the enemy was a formidably organised foe…,” wrote General Palit.

During the peak of the 1971 war Aurora commanded nearly half a million men, including the Mukti Bahini and the Army’s northern divisions facing Tibet.

“No Lieutenant General in military history has commanded so large an army and so heavy a strategic responsibility,” Palit added.

In an obituary published in British newspaper The Independent, Aurora was lauded for following “the novel strategy of ‘leaving the highways for the byways’, thereby obviating traditional battle engagements”.

“He formed small, highly mobile units that surrounded the Pakistanis, cutting them off from one another and from their extended supply lines,” wrote the London newspaper.

The ace Sikh soldier was born on February 13, 1916 in Kalle Gujjran in Jhelum district, now in Pakistan. He was commissioned into the 1st battalion of the 2nd Punjab Regiment in 1939, and served in all three Indo-Pak Wars fought till date.

Aurora had criticised the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi for the Operation Blue Star. He also had a stint in the Rajya Sabha as an Akali Dal representative.

Aurora died on May 3, 2005 at the age of 89.