Indian Army

Editor's note: This is an effort to remember the members of the Indian Armed Forces who died in the 1962 war with China. The complete list of the Indian Army personnel who died in the 1962 war is available here (under creation).

We invite their family members, friends, colleagues and others who knew them to send us their recollections about the martyrs.There is no pre-set format. Could include photos, scan, poems, whatever, all Indian languages OK. There will be a separate page for each person. Please send all materials to indiaofthepast@gmail.com. This is an ongoing effort, and information will be added as it becomes available to us.

This page is for Gulab Bhojwani

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Name: Gulab Chimandas Bhojwani
Service: Indian Army
Unit/Corps: Army Ordnance Corps
Rank: 2/Lt
Service No: 13813
Born: dd Month 19yy
Commissioned: dd Month 19yy
Recorded date of death: 21 November 1962

Contributions from family

Air Marshal Subhash Bhojwani - IAF (Retd) writes

Born in 1941, Vinod was brought up and educated in Amritsar. He attended Government Medical College, and subsequently trained as a surgeon at PGI, Chandigarh. He left for USA in 1969, and retired in 2003 as Director of Critical Care Services at a teaching hospital in Michigan. Married with two grown sons, he continues to visit India at least once a year.

The year was 1975. I was surprised to see my wife in the lobby of the small motel in San Francisco. She had flown in from Los Angeles. I had gone to San Francisco to attend a meeting and had run into an old friend from Ohio. The friend had decided to move to the same hotel as me to save some money. After the day-long meeting we had eaten together and leisurely walked back to the motel. A couple of drinks each we had with dinner had left us relaxed and in a good mood.

But, she was serious and waved away my friend's hearty greetings. "We have to leave!" she said.

"I received a call from India, Satish is injured."

"Is it a scooter accident?" I asked, Satish was my older brother.

"No, he is burnt, and he is in the hospital. I bought a return ticket for you."

She tried to console me on the return flight to Los Angeles. I had difficulty in understanding how he could sustain burns. His work as a manufacturer of hand-made oriental carpets did not involve any fires or furnaces.

Next morning, we were able to talk to her father who also said that Satish had sustained more than 90% burns on his body, and was in a very precarious condition.

Editor's note: We want to to remember the soldiers of India's Armed Forces. We invite their family members, friends, colleagues and others who knew them to send us their recollections about their family members. There will be a separate page for each person. Please send all materials to indiaofthepast@gmail.com. This is an ongoing effort, and information will be added as it becomes available.

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Lieutenant-Colonel Brahmanand Avasthy

Name: Brahmanand Avasthy
Service:Army
Unit/Corps: 4 Rajput
Rank: Lieutanant Colonel
Service Nunber: IC-1070 
Born: 24 April year not available
Commissioned: not available
Recorded date of death: 21 November 1962

Contributions from family

Life and Fate: How the 1962 War tore a family

This is not a new story. This story is not one looking for sympathy or pity, as all of these days have been left far far behind. This is not a common story of the loss and desperation of a family but rather it is the story of a very brave woman's struggle with life and its vagaries, in face of a terrible calamity.

Editor's note: This is an effort to remember the Indian soldiers who died in the 1962 war against China.

We invite their family members, friends, colleagues and others who knew them to send us their recollections about the martyrs. There will be a separate page for each person of the 1962  martyrs. Please send all materials to indiaofthepast@gmail.com. This is an ongoing effort, and information will be added as it becomes available to us.

From a search on the Internet several years ago, I was able to find a list of the the Indian soliders who died in the war. The list is attached here. It may be incomplete or incorrect - I have no way of verifying it.

More than 3,000 Indian soldiers died in this war - the table below states 3,137 Indian soldiers died.

The file included a graph that showed when the casulaties occured. This graph is reproduced below.

Manjula Mathur was born to Bengali parents in Kolkata on 29th May 1955. Her father was an Indian Army doctor, and her mother a home-maker. She travelled extensively in India with her parents, and lived in quaint, closely-knit Cantonments. She served in the Indian Defence Accounts Service, and retired in 2015. She is married to Satish, who retired from the Indian Police Service. She is a devoted mother to her sons Sachit and Suchir, and daughter-in-law Pankhuri. Manjula is an enthusiastic bird watcher and bird photographer. Her bird photos have been published in her book Bird's Abode. She lives in Mumbai and Poona.

In our childhood and early adult years, we lived in a succession of Barrack-type Army bungalows in diverse Cantonment towns such as Allahabad, Poona and Alwar. As my father ascended the rank hierarchy, we graduated to more modern duplex houses with garden spaces at Tenga Valley in Arunachal Pradesh and lastly at Bhatinda in Punjab. The common thread through all these residences spread over various corners of our large and beautiful country was the presence of verdant and fragrant gardens due to the efforts of one member of our family - our father.

Brigadier C.H. Majumder (Lt. Col. at that time) at Nowshera, Jammu and Kashmir, 1971.