“My tribute to Jasjit Sir”
Even as The Golden Arrows take off in their new avataar, Air Marshal (R) Harish Masand pays a tribute to Air Commodore Jasjit Singh who commanded No.17 Squadron 45 years earlier, then flying the MiG-21.
Even as The Golden Arrows take off in their new avatar, Air Marshal (R) Harish Masand pays a tribute to his CO, then Wg Cdr later Air Commodore Jasjit Singh, who commanded No.17 Squadron 45 years earlier, flying the MiG-21 from AFS Halwara. “Jasjit Sir was a remarkable man, thinker and strategist and I have tried to pay my tribute to him”.
The highly- publicised arrival of Rafales in an arrow-formation on 29 July 2020 at AFS Ambala as the initial tranche for No.17 Squadron, The Golden Arrows, brought back a flood of memories of my association with this Squadron. While I was in Hashimara with 37 Squadron for four years from 19681972, No.17 was our sister squadron. Those memorable days of camaraderie and fun, including operations during the 1971 war, remain still fresh in my mind (but would be part of another article on Hashimara and No.37 Squadron).
I had just finished a year as an instructor at the Air Force Academy, Dundigul in July 1975 when my posting to 17 Squadron on MiG-21s came about. Initially, I was reluctant since I was working on my A- 2 category and needed just six more months to collect the 300 instructional hours and appear for the categorisation. However, Air Commodore ‘Baba’ Katre, the Commandant, advised me “to go convert on the MiG-21s”, the mainstay of the IAF at that time, “and worry about A-2 Cat on MiG-21s later.” Following his counsel, we packed our bags and moved to Halwara. From Delhi, I drove up alone in my faithful
Ambassador, since we were told that there was no married accommodation and the Station Commander, Gp Capt Man Singh, did not permit ladies in BOQs. My wife, Malini was a little upset since we had just been married in late November 1974 and didn’t like the idea of staying back. However, she accepted reality and stayed back with my brother in Delhi till I organised some accommodation in Halwara.
I drove up on 17 August 1975, next day being a Monday, my reporting date. Fortunately, there were some friends from Hashimara still with the squadron and I washed up and got to the bar in time to celebrate the reunion. As it happened, the CO of 17 Squadron, Wg Cdr Jasjit Singh, walked into the bar a little later. Bonny Mukherjee, who was with me at that time, immediately introduced me to the CO as an old friend from Hashimara days. Jasjit Sir shook my hand but gave me a look and said, in his typical laconic way, that there was no hurry and I should first find a barber before I came to the squadron. My brother Sonny, from the 85th pilots’ course, had already told me a bit about Jasjit Sir including that he was his instructor at the basic stage, was a thorough professional and an excellent flier but was demanding of his pupils so this didn’t come as too much of a surprise.
I hunted down the barber early next morning and charged to the squadron just as they were all coming in from the met briefing. Flt Lt AL ‘Oscar’ Deoskar, Adjutant of 17 Squadron, gave a funny look at my short hair, having met me at Srinagar in May 1972 with long hair, and ushered in an almost bald Harish, but impeccably dressed with a peak cap and logbooks in hand as was customary, into the CO’s office. Wg Cdr Jasjit Singh gave me a cup of tea but refused to look at my logbooks. He didn’t say much but exploded a bomb under my chair saying that he did not want me in the squadron – without stating why! I sat there dumbfounded for a moment or two and then told Jasjit Sir, “Well, Sir, you were in P Staff till recently, know most people there, why didn’t you get the posting cancelled. You could’ve saved us both some time and effort?” – or words to that effect!
Our first meeting had ended on that not so pleasant note. Before my MCF on type in Adampur and later, while I was waiting to start flying, I would be sitting in the crew room sipping endless cups of tea or coffee and reading aviation magazines or Russian
manuals on the MiG- 21, Jasjit would come to the crew room after his flying to have his regular post-flight cup of coffee or breakfast. As soon as he entered, almost everyone would disappear on one pretext or the other and Jasjit Sir would just sit there, watching me I felt. Later, my friends told me that if you hung around the crew room, Jasjit Sir would find some job for you. So, to avoid being loaded with secondary duties, they would do the disappearing act. Personally, I had no qualms on this issue so, most times, Jasjit Sir and I would be the only two in the crew room without much conversation exchanged. I soon realised that Jasjit Sir had an uncanny ability to judge a person’s abilities and talents through observation and would find the right jobs for them for betterment of the Squadron. So, if Bonny had the gift of the gab, he was the regular MC for all our parties and also i/c Squadron Diary. If RS Pannu had green fingers, he was i/c Garden and, by far, our squadron garden was the best on the station despite the squadron having come up in a desolate area across the runway. If my course mate, BS ‘Genda’ Grewal was from a farming community, he was out planting trees all across the station with a bit of farming in the clear areas. ‘Oscar’, being the meticulous bookkeeper, studying for staff college entrance exam was the natural adjutant and ran the squadron well. Soon thereafter, Jasjit Sir nominated me to assist the Flight Commander, MV Singh, in flying training and also to do the PAI’s job and assess all attack films and armament scores.
At the same time, Jasjit Sir loved to challenge and goad the younger lot to do better. Towards this, as soon as I started my air to ground phase in the ops syllabus, he would lay a wager, with a chuckle, on the scores of that sortie over a bottle of beer. While I lost a few in the initial days, there was nothing sweeter than a beer won from him later on. I also realised that actually Jasjit Sir also welcomed challenges and questions from his subordinates. While most people never questioned the CO’s brief, I found myself raising my hand and questioning what he had said on many issues but that never ruffled Jasjit Sir because he loved a good argument. MV and ‘Oscar’ regularly advised me not to question the CO for my own future’s sake but I had become a little hard of hearing by then, perhaps with all that jet noise! However, much later, I found out that Jasjit Sir actually appreciated when the subordinates spoke up, better with facts and indirectly tried to inculcate such independent thinking and speaking up for what one believed in. I am not going in to specific instances here because that would make for a small book but I will end later with how I found out, and survived despite questioning him and other seniors on the station on so many occasions.
In the middle of my ops training on type, while we were on detachment at Suratgarh in February 1976, I was detailed for a 10 week Photo Interpreters Course at Poona and was asked to move at short notice. Since this would have meant a break in flying and ops syllabus as also the fact that I was unlikely to
ever be used as a PI unless I became medically unfit, I strongly represented against the course and requested Jasjit Singh to get it cancelled with his P Staff connections. He just smiled and said he had already tried but with my FR experience on Hunters during 1971 war and engineering background, P Staff were quite adamant.
At Intelligence School in Poona, I pretended that I couldn’t see the stereo image on the PI’s bifocals for the first week when the instructor, Flt Lt Colville D’Souza who had become very friendly by then, told me he had no option but take me to the CO, Wg Cdr Agarkar. The CO asked me to tell him honestly what the problem was. I told him I didn’t want to do the course. He then asked which squadron I had come from and why the CO of the squadron hadn’t been able to get my name off from the course. The moment he heard it was Jasjit Sir, he almost jumped and said if Jasjit Sir couldn’t get it done, no one could so I might as well enjoy Poona for 10 weeks whether I could see the images or not. That is the kind of esteem Jasjit Sir as held in even outside the pilot community.
In mid-September 1976, I finished my ops syllabus by day and was declared ‘Ops Day’. In October, my posting came to 101 Squadron in Adampur that had been designated as the training squadron. Despite my impending move, Jasjit Sir got me my trainer captaincy and night qualification. Just before leaving the squadron, he finally told me why he didn’t want me in the squadron. He said he knew that as soon as I became operational, I would be moved to some other squadron and No.17 would not get any benefit of having trained me – and that’s why he said he didn’t want me in the squadron ! Fortunately for me, I went back to Halwara a couple of times for RSO duties at SK Range and called on the Jasjit’s many times, the reward being a good drink and some good ‘gyan’. It was during one of those visits in Halwara when I told him that I was trying to question the seniors less these days, he looked at me with a smile and said I would wither and fade away the day I stopped standing up for what was right. I now realise he was absolutely right.
Even after he moved to IDSA at New Delhi and I moved on in life, I kept calling on him and spending some very educative evenings with him where he discussed topics like air power, modernisation of the Air Force, affordable defence as well as nuclear issues. His vision and writings on such matters are well known to the entire strategic community in India, and abroad, and I benefited immeasurably by hearing it first hand. The reward now was always an annotated copy of his latest book or paper. The next time I met him, we would sit and discuss what he had given me.
When I was posted to Delhi in 1993 and working on the MiG-21Bis upgrade programme, we got even more opportunities to share a drink and some thoughts. Needless to reiterate, through all these interactions, I learned a great deal from Jasjit Sir and could never repay all that he gave me despite not wanting me in the squadron at first!
Fortunately, I got the opportunity to repay a small part of this debt to the Squadron and Jasjit Sir before I left. I got my Ops Day on 15 September. Less than a week later, DASI came visiting essentially for a check on the senior leadership and Flight Commanders. Jasjit Sir put me in almost every sortie that he could. When the Director, Gp Capt Mally Wollen asked him why, Jasjit Sir just said Harish is the latest Day Ops pilot and he wanted to show DASI how the Golden Arrows leadership trained its youngsters.
Jasjit Sir himself was extremely good at low-level navigation and I was put as his wingman in a 4 aircraft LL live strike on SK Range with one 57mm rocket. Halfway through the navigation, the inspector, Wg Cdr Ben Brar declared himself ‘hostile’. I spotted him comfortably and ordered a hard turn as had been briefed. A little more than ninety degrees in the turn, Ben called off the attack and declared himself as ‘friendly’. We reversed and Jasjit Sir just called out a slight speed increase and steered a few degrees off the calculated course for a while. At pull up point, we were right on time and track and everyone got some good results. Ben Sir, in the debrief, complimented Jasjit Sir on the mission but said with a smile that we hadn’t synchronised the compass after the tactical action and so could have gone off-track hinting that the mission success after the bounce was a fluke. I immediately went and got the Russian navigation booklet on the MiG-21 that clearly stated that the KCI-6 was a pure gyro, unlike a magnetic-gyro such as the G4-F compass on the Hunter, and was not to be slaved in flight. Ben Sir was magnanimous enough to say that he had thousands of hours on type but didn’t know this!
Another one was when Mally Sir was claiming a kill in group combat before one of the defenders got on to him, without a film and without using the gyro sight and I had to mathematically prove that he required almost three times the lead that he applied on the fixed sight at the range and speeds we were at. Again, Mally Sir complimented Jasjit Sir on the way the Squadron was trained. Jasjit Sir told me later I had paid the Guru-Dakshina in full – but I know I still owed him a lot more.
On a lighter note, in late 1987 while I was commanding No.28 Squadron on MiG-29s, his son Ajay Jasjit Singh came and joined the squadron as a young Flight Lieutenant from 45 Squadron in Naliya. Instead of telling Ajay, whom I had known as a boy from Halwara days, that I didn’t want him in the squadron, I told him that I would treat him exactly like his father had treated me in 17 Squadron! Knowing his father well, Ajay got visibly perplexed, as I had been more than 12 years earlier, till I couldn’t carry on with the joke and assured him that that meant very well and I would teach him as much as I could, like his father had. As a matter of fact, I thought Ajay would do well to take on the low level aerobatics on MiG-29s after Ramesh Goyal and I had left in June 1989 but he was considered too young by the AOC-in-C who said it would be considered later. Unfortunately, Ajay had to leave fighters a few years later because of serious injuries in an ejection but successfully went on to join the airlines.
Jasjit Sir was a remarkable man, thinker and strategist and I have tried to pay tribute to him by attending almost every Jasjit Singh memorial lecture from the time it was instituted – and I was in India. I thought I would pen this down now since there may not be a memorial lecture this year because of the pandemic.