BATTLEfIELd ARCHAEOLOGISTS PREPARE INdIA’S MARTIAL HISTORY
In Chandigarh, a team of 10 youngsters, including a husband and wife, from diverse fields is quietly busy since 2015 preparing the country’s martial history. They are focusing on the north-west and the northeast of the country. Called “battlefield archaeologists”, they resigned from their wellpaid jobs in management, engineering, information technology, economics, humanities and psychology to take up this interesting research assignment, a first of its kind. They were hired on a three-year contract. Their workplace is Punjab’s Directorate of Defence Services Welfare. They have been scanning reams of researches and interviewing people to compile the country’s military history since the ancient times. Their main focus is on those bygone eras that shaped and rewrote the subcontinent’s history. The idea to write an “authentic military history” was born in March 2015 when information was required for the Punjab State War Heroes Memorial and Museum project at Amritsar. The museum complex was inaugurated in October 2016. Guided by their coordinator, Major General (Retired) Raj Mehta, AVSM, VSM, the team members recently made a presentation on various aspects before Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh, a known military historian. Amarinder Singh recently unveiled his latest book, The 36th Sikhs in the Tirah Campaign 1897-98: Saragarhi and the defence of the Samana forts. The book is a befitting tribute to one of the bravest last stands of the world, which was fought in the rugged terrain of Saragarhi in the North West Frontier Province, now in Pakistan, where 22 men battled 8,000 Afridi tribals. They fought bravely for seven hours, killing 200 Afghans and injuring 600, before breathing their last. One of the “battlefield archaeologists” said, “It is fascinating to research the battles that the Sikhs under Maharaja Ranjit Singh fought and they were probably the only ones to conquer Afghanistan.” Maj Gen Mehta, an armoured officer, told The Sunday Guardian that the team’s research captures everything that is militarily noteworthy, from the Harappan civilisation, early Persian campaigns, Alexander’s invasion and right up to the present day.