The arrival of India’s first aircraft carrier

INS Vikrant was commissioned on March 4, 1961. An excerpt from HT’s report on the day

The Indian Navy gained its first wings March 4, 1961, when Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, Indian high commissioner, formally commissioned and named India’s first aircraft carrier Vikrant — the Valiant — and anti-submarine devices. With this, India became the only Afro-Asian nation to have an aircraft carrier. The only other country east of Suez so equipped is Australia, with Japan, once a great naval power, barred by the peace treaty from having such vessels.

The Vikrant is the largest unit of the Indian Navy and equipped with the most modern communications and radar system and armed with jet Seahawk fighters.

The ceremony took place in the hangar of the ship decorated with Indian colours. It started with the guard of honour arriving by the lift used for hoisting jet fighters into position. The gathering included the man who remodelled the ship and dignitaries of Belfast city, including the Lord Mayor. The British government was represented by the Civil Lord of the Admiralty, CL Orr-Ewing.

In his speech, Orr-Ewing said the vigorous growth of this new arm of India’s defence sector was just one of the many evidences of the tremendous virility of the new India which had emerged since gaining its Independence. He spoke of the close ties between the Indian Navy and the Royal Navy, adding: “The ability to operate modern jet aircraft at sea is a sure sign of the maturity of the service. It is proved that the Indian Navy has come of age.”

He considered the time of commissioning as most appropriate as it followed the Queen’s visit to India and on the eve of the Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ Conference.

Pandit, in a brief speech, said it was a major milestone in India’s naval history. In accordance with India’s defence policy which was based on Panch Sheel, the aircraft carrier would be used only for defence purposes and to guard India’s shores and shipping lanes.

Before Pandit unveiled the nameplate, Captain Pritam Singh ‘Peter’ Mahindroo, recited an invocation to Varuna from the Gita and the assembled gathering heard in rapt silence the sonorous Sanskrit hymn which recalled the memories of India’s glorious past.

Pandit then unveiled the nameplate and immediately overhead there was a fly past of Seahawk jet fighters of the carrier, which are now based in South Wales.

The Vikrant, after a period of trial and training, which will include two months at Malta, will arrive in Bombay in the last week of September this year.

The commissioning of the Vikrant marked the second milestone in building up naval aviation to guard India’s shores. The first was taken in 1953 when the naval air station, INS Garuda, was established in Cochin. Here naval pilots, observers and their technical personnel were trained who were then posted to man the Vikrant.

The Vikrant’s first commander is Capt PS Mahindroo and the carrier will have a peacetime complement of approximately 1,300 officers and men.

Whether in biryani or pulao, Basmati will rice to the occasion. That’s why it is an integral part of our heritage

HT ARCHIVE Vikrant was the largest unit of the Indian Navy at the time of its commissioning.

HT put Vikrant’s commissioning on the front page in its March 5, 1961 edition