Shimla, May 9 (IANS) Whistle-blower Shakti Singh Chandel, who pursued the matter single-handedly when the stolen George Cross bravery medal landed in Britain’s leading auction house and stalled its auction, is aghast at the attitude of the Himachal Pradesh government towards a prized military decoration.
The state government should realise that these memorials of valour and military decorations are the most gracious tributes to the gallant acts of soldiers, said the former Indian Administrative Service officer who is settled here.
Whether ornate or simple, diamond-studded, gold or mere gilt and iron, the very sight of these medals evoke grateful homage of mere mortals who for few moments were god-like in battle on fields now generally forgotten, he said on Saturday.
It is regrettable that the state government has taken such an event so casually, he added.
The British High Commission in Delhi, which retrieved the medal from an auction house, will return it to the soldier’s widow, who was struggling to get the honour back, at a ceremony in her native village in Bilaspur district on Monday.
Brahmi Devi, 80, received the George Cross awarded to her martyred husband from the then viceroy, Field Marshal Lord Wavell, in 1946.
Her husband Naik Kirpa Ram was awarded the George Cross, considered the civilian counterpart of Britain’s highest military decoration — the Victoria Cross — for sacrificing his life to save his comrades while disposing off a misfired rifle grenade at a camp in Bangalore on September 12, 1945.
But the medal was allegedly stolen from Devi’s house in 2002. After a prolonged legal battle, her counsel in Britain managed to get back the medal. However, the British government supported efforts to have the medal returned to her.
Chandel has reasons to express his anger at the attitude of the Virbhadra Singh government in the state.
The ceremony should have been organised in Shimla and the chief minister should have taken the trouble to present the medal to Brahmi Devi himself, he said.
Official sources said the government has directed the deputy commissioner of Bilaspur to organise and coordinate the function.
He said Vijay Sharma, an advocate from Hoshiarpur who is now practicing in England, had volunteered to contest the case at the high court of London free of cost against Captain Ashok Nath, the holder of the medal.
However, the high court, in an order on June 5, 2013, approved a pre-trial settlement on payment of 12,000 pounds (over Rs.10 lakh) to Captain Ashok Nath.
The entire payment was then donated by NRI Lalwani, said Chandel who pursued the matter from day one.
The medal was lying in the custody of Senior Counsel Ian Mayes QC, who has been holding it in the safe vault of the Middle Temple which is one of the Inns of the Courts of England and Wales for the last one year.
Naik Kirpa Ram’s widow Brahmi Devi, then aged just 13, had been married just days before her husband left for the battlefield.
In 1946, she travelled from her small village of Bhapral in Bilaspur district to Delhi to receive the medal in his honour from the then Viceroy of India Field Marshal Lord Wavell.
Raja Anand Chand, then ruler of Bilaspur, was also invited by the Viceroy for the occasion, said Chandel, who wrote a biographical account about Naik Kirpa Ram in his book “Bilaspur — through the centuries”.