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My first memories of Lt Gen Aurora were of him sitting atop a jeep, hands folded and garlands weighing around his neck as the vehicle moved slowly along Ludhiana's Field Ganj bazar. He had just returned after winning a war. I was all of five years of age as my father hoisted me over the shoulders for a better view. (Only Gable hoists a child better in It Started In Naples, better even than Sophia Loren did.) For the next few years, I used school notebooks which had a photograph on the title of Lt Gen Aurora, an image that was to become a fullstop in the memory of the nation: Aurora watching keenly as Gen Niazi signs the Instrument of Surrender.

My father used to instill a lot of romance into the stories he told of Indian Army’s bravery in the 1971 war. Aurora's was the bravest tale.

So it was with a childlike awe with which I first met the great general in the Constitution Club in Delhi in early ‘90s. He was the prime force behind The Sikh Forum and it was a pleasure to listen to him. He spoke like a sage. And died like one.

I was working with The Times of India when this hero died. It wasn't easy writing about him as the news had affected me deeply, but then the urge to pay a tribute carried the day. The front page of The Times of India that day, personally overseen by the editor Sridhar Raman, was also a tribute to the hero.

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	"Newspapers always excite curiosity. No one ever lays one down without a feeling of disappointment." Charles Lamb, 1833 "Frankly, despite my horror of the press, I’d love to rise from the grave every ten years or so and go buy a few newspapers." Luis Buñuel, Spanish filmmaker "I often wonder what future historians will say about us. One sentence will suffice to describe modern man: he fornicated and he read newspapers." Albert Camus, French novelist, dramatist, philosopher, 1956

Lt Gen Aurora, The Man Of War
Who Preached Love
And Practiced Peace
…and died a very sad man

S P Singh

It could not have got any bigger.

He had overseen the surrender of over 90,000 Pakistani soldiers, stripped the epaulettes off a Pakistani general's shoulder, something no one before or after him had ever done, and made him sign an Instrument of Surrender at the very spot where Shiekh Mujibur Rahman had declared freedom of Bangladesh about nine months earlier.

Thirteen years later, the same man ran for his life on the streets of Delhi. On October 31, 1984, "I alongwith Air Chief Marshall (retd) Arjan Singh (and two others) left the house of Patwant Singh but immediately saw on our way mobs attacking the Sikhs ... Within 15-20 minutes we returned," the retired general Jagjit Singh Aurora told the Nanawati Commission.

"It was shocking. I K Gujral was furious and said it is shameful that the man who led the country to its biggest victory needed protection," prominent Supreme Court lawyer H.S.Phoolka told me. Aurora and his wife had to spend the night of November 1, 1984 at the residence of Gujral. “It was apparent that the government of the day was not interested at all in protecting the lives and properties of citizens,” Aurora stated on oath before the Commission.

It could not have got any more shameful.

But dignity came naturally to Aurora. He looks composed in the picture as Lt Gen AAK Niazi signed the surrender. "He looked composed when he barged into the house of India's Home Minister PV Narasimha Rao on November 1, 1984 to demand action to stop rioting," Phoolka said. And he looked composed and happy when General Niazi's daughter-in-law came to meet the Auroras years after the surrender.

Recently, a depositor of a Delhi-based company, Hindustan Financial Management Ltd, filed a case naming Aurora as accused. Aurora's counsel argued that he was no longer associated with the company, but the Patna judge refused the anticipatory bail application.

It could not have got more embarrassing.

But Aurora remained composed. It was his nature.

"My father was a soldier, but he could tell the most wonderful of fairy tales. For him, my mother was the most beautiful woman till her very end when she was very old. We learnt from this man of war what love is all about," Aurora's daughter Anita Kalra said, as she stood by the side of a frame which has a picture of Aurora watching Niazi signing, a picture which is a full stop in the nation's memory.

"My father was fond of telling us a story of a dead Pakistani soldier from whose pocket he found a letter from his wife. So poignantly had the wife beseeched the soldier husband to return home safe and sound that papa's eyes would well up with tears w hile telling us the story. He could never complete it. Now, he never will," Kalra said.■

May 3, 2005

Also see:
Great Soldiers Never Die...

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Instrument of Surrender

"INSTRUMENT OF SURRENDER"

The PAKISTAN Eastern Command agree to surrender all PAKISTAN Armed Forces in BANGLA DESH to Lieutenant-General JAGJIT SINGH AURORA, General Officer Commanding in Chief of the Indian and BANGLA DESH forces in the Eastern Theatre. This surrender includes all PAKISTAN land, air and naval forces as also all para-military forces and civil armed forces. These forces will lay down their arms and surrender at the places where they are currently located to the nearest regular troops under the command of Lieutenant- General JAGJIT SINGH AURORA.

The PAKISTAN Eastern Command shall come under the orders of Lieutenant-General JAGJIT SINGH AURORA as soon as this instrument has been signed. Disobedience of orders will be regarded as a breach of the surrender terms and will be dealt with in accordance with the accepted laws and usages of war. The decision of Lieutenant-General JAGJIT SINGH AURORA will be final, should any doubt arise as to the meaning or interpretation of the surrender terms.

Lieutenant- General JAGJIT SINGH AURORA gives a solemn assurance that personnel who surrender will be treated with dignity and respect that soldiers are entitled to in accordance with the provisions of the GENEVA Convention and guarantees the safety and well-being of all PAKISTAN military and para-military forces who surrender. Protection will be provided to foreign nationals, ethnic minorities and personnel of WEST PAKISTAN origin by the forces under the command of Lieutenant- General JAGJIT SINGH AURORA.

Signed:

(JAGJIT SINGH AURORA) Lieutenant-General General Officer Commanding in Chief Indian and BANGLA DESH Forces in the Eastern Theatre

(AMIR ABDULLAH KHAN NIAZI) Lieutenant-General Martial Law Administrator Zone B and Commander Eastern Command (PAKISTAN)

16 December 1971"

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