Brig AP Dutta VrC 1971 War

by Dinesh  K Kapila

Excerpts from the Discussion with Brig AP Dutta, Vir Chakra ( Retd). His Memories and not just the about the War. By Dinesh K Kapila

Brigadier AP Dutta, VrC - 1971 War - Talking to Brigadier AP Dutta is refreshing. Straightforward and frank, I requested him about any interesting memories from the 1971 War. He was a Major and a Company Commander in the 1971 War. His memory is well really different!

Brigadier Amlan Pratap Dutta was a Major in the 1971 War. A brave officer, he was the Company Commander (Delta Company) in the 2/9 GR and was awarded the Vir Chakra for his valour in the battle for Jibannagar, this was on the Eastern Front, where the 2/9 GR was a part of the 62 Mountain Brigade (4 Infantry Division). Incidentally 62 Mountain Brigade was commanded by my father, Maj Gen (then Brigadier) Rajendra Nath, PVSM (Retd).
Talking to Brig Dutta is to talk to a soldier modest about his individual achievements and gallantry. Settled in Kolkatta, as would be natural for a Bengali, he had to be requested to open up.
The tall lanky officer is taciturn about his gallantry award though he religiously attends every Regimental and Commemoration function. A proud soldier, ask him more about his gallantry award, he only says abruptly that many good men sacrificed their lives, many were scarred for life, many who served and fought deserved the award too, maybe even better, he fought, won and came through, that is enough. No need to discuss this. However, yes he can recall some other incidents.
But he can certainly remember other episodes, a couple of which he does share speaking fast in short simple sentences. Including that as far as he was concerned the war was on from 23rd November 1971 itself! As his Battalion was already in East Pakistan (Bangladesh) around 23rd November 1971 onwards.
A rather very different episode he remembers vividly through the years is what he found while at times going through the letters and correspondence of the captured Pakistani soldiers and their formations. Most letters and communications were from West Pakistan and were the normal staid routine stuff life is made off. At least as regards the English ones or some they did try to make out. One rather interesting set of correspondence he remembers is that of one Major Shah, of the Frontier Force. They had many a battle and skirmish on opposite sides as chance would have it, till Major Shah surrendered to him. Incidentally the Major from Pakistan was most surprised when Major Dutta returned his letters, personal effects and belongings to him. He says he just told him, we fought, you and your men fought really well, I give you that. You lost and are a POW, that you have to live with. What will I do with all this or anybody else. This Major Shah had an obviously convent educated wife in West Pakistan and she wrote very well and regularly to Major Shah in the most impeccable English. She seemed to live with her in laws which seemed to her not the most comforting part of life ! Either she thought the letters could be censored or whatever was the reason, what Brigadier Dutta remembers vividly is that there was hardly any deep personal touch in the letters or any words of endearment. She had a young son, Aied, who had a running nose and coughed a lot, most of her letters vented her concern on this. She was trying homeopathy, not very successfully, which her father in law obviously was not too satisfied about. She resented being far away and away from him, that much did come through. She just wanted to be a part of a comfortable Cantonment life.
What surprised Major AP Dutta the most while sifting through the letters, of others as well, was the strange silence on the ongoing events in East Pakistan. Either most did not understand what developments were taking place in the previous months or they were totally blocked off in West Pakistan. Even some official messages did not contain any references to the important developments under way and their cataclysmic implications. The impact of what what was underway in the events upto and including September October November 1971 was just missing. He found it most puzzling and disconcerting then and still does so. He now feels he should have followed up his assessment with the POWs but as often happens, they got shipped out and he got on with the war.,As he observes even today in his customary clipped and straightforward manner, it was as though it was two separate worlds while technically and yes politically it was simply one nation.
Another episode he remembers and agrees to share is about is that his birthday on 6th December. In a war he says you do search for some moments of a pause in all the mayhem. The horrors inflicted by the Pakistani Army on normal civilians had also been disturbing. It had left him aghast that a professional army could be so brutal and communal. As a Bengali he obviously felt the pain much more.
Well, the company decided to celebrate his birthday on 5th December and they got separated slightly from the rest of the battalion. The celebration was time consuming obviously. The order of the March had to be changed and they got pulled up by the CO ! They made up for it post haste by coming to a location near Darsana where the Pakistanis were well dug in with marshy land all around. Still smarting from the pulling up, he and his men moved far into the rear of the Pakistani position, then set up a road block and then took out the gun position dominating the marshy land too. The men of 50 Punjab from Pakistan fought back hard once they realised they were trapped but Major (later LtGen) Tripurkar and his company as did his company, stood hard and fast. The first lot from 50 Pakistan Punjab did not realise the Indians had taken over the gun position and came shouting don’t fire, don’t fire. Major Tripurkar tried his Punjabi on them (he really honestly thought as per Brigadier Dutta that he had a flair for many languages but everyone thought otherwise!) but the Pakistani soldiers immediately caught the different accent. Once the 50 Punjab realised they were blocked, they fought hard. So as Brigadier Dutta tells it, he remembers this particular birthday solemnly every year. It was a real bloody battle. With a lot of casualties, He says softly but emphatically.
The atrocities exhibited by the Pakistani Army in 1971, specially the cruelty towards the minority community, make him feel there was something amiss in their professional ethos. Being a Bengali and knowing the language, it was a tough path to move on every day. There was not a day when he was not horrified by the sheer brutality and also blind hatred of the Pakistani Army for the minority community of East Pakistan. Retribution was a thought which did strike him at times.   
To finish off, here is one interesting one, which he let out in a most matter of fact manner ! At Darsana, 2/9 GR was attached with 41 Brigade temporarily. The first phase of the attack was to be by the 5/4 GR and the second phase by the 2/9 GR. As he says it, the 5/4 GR did their job all too well, full compliments to them, and they just charged through and kept going. That was their luck so to say ! And the glory was theirs.
The 2/9 GR was now facing a change in the tasked role, from attack to mopping up. It was then that they came upon the only functioning distillery in East Pakistan. It was still functional, it had a seven storey Warehouse and here Brigadier Dutta’s voice has a chuckle in it. It was like an oasis in a desert. He says well who would give up such a treasure and not only their unit, they treated the whole 4 Infantry Division !!! He can still recall it and even his voice has a smile about it. They were doing mopping up and it turned out to be such a most welcome surprise. The warehouse as Brigadier Dutta recalls was so large that even after gifting it to sundry units, some liquor was still left over !
But to him the lasting puzzle is the strange disconnect betweenthe families and men based in West Pakistan with the Units based in East Pakistan. And of course how in the middle of a most volatile and war like situation, families and men were writing to each other on the most humdrum issues of life, love, sickness, parents, families etc. It was all too normal. As life normally is.
Then there said Brigadier Dutta abruptly, you got my memory and that is all. And disconnected immediately. I was left to think over his memories and his reflections.
A salute to him and the likes of him.
Dinesh K Kapila

Brig Rajendra Nath, Bde Cdr, complimenting Then Maj AP Dutta after the battle of Jiban Nagar

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