The Bihar Regiment

Haka and Gangaw

The 1st Battalion, The Bihar Regiment, took Haka in the Chin Hills of Burma on 19 October 1944, three years after it was formed. It was serving with the Lushai Brigade. On 11 January 1945 it captured Gangaw. Those two names became the regiment's first battle honours, along with the theatre honour Burma.

The battalion was not new material. It had existed since 1923 as the 11th (Territorial) Battalion of the 19th Hyderabad Regiment, formed at Dinapore. The British had not encouraged Bihari enlistment until after the First World War, although Patna had produced a sepoy battalion as early as 1757. In 1941 the territorial unit was regularised as 1 Bihar, dated 15 September. The second battalion followed on 1 December 1942.

The regiment had no centre of its own until the war ended. Lieutenant Colonel R.C. Mueller set one up at Agra on 1 November 1945. It moved to Ranchi in April 1946, then to Gaya that November, and settled at Danapur in March 1949.

Early battalions drew Ahirs, Rajputs, Bhumihars, Kurmis and Muslims from Bihar, with men from Odisha and Bengal. The usual pattern today is two companies from Bihar and parts of Uttar Pradesh and two companies of tribal recruits from Jharkhand and Odisha. The war cries are Jai Bajrang Bali and Birsa Munda Ki Jai. The motto, Karm Hi Dharm, was formalised only in 1974, under Army Order No. 347/74.

Akhaura

10 Bihar crossed into East Pakistan from Tripura on 1 December 1971, two days before the war formally began, moving cross-country alongside 4 Guards in 311 Mountain Brigade. Captain K.C. Sharma was killed leading his men on 2 December. The main assault on Akhaura went in on the night of 4 December, with the railway junction as the battalion's objective. Akhaura and the railway bridge over the Titas were in Indian hands by the morning of 5 December, which opened the way west towards the Meghna.

Three officers, three JCOs and 45 other ranks of the battalion died in the Eastern Sector during the war. The battalion received the battle honour Akhaura and the theatre honour East Pakistan. Elsewhere in the same campaign, 11 Bihar was part of the seaborne force landed at Cox's Bazar on 15 December to stop Pakistani troops escaping into Burma.

Jubar Ridge

1 Bihar, under Colonel O.P. Yadav, was sent to Batalik when the Kargil intrusions were discovered in May 1999. Its first task was the enemy observation post on Jubar at about 16,400 feet, and the first attack failed. The troops had been given too little time to acclimatise.

On 28 May Charlie Company under Major M. Saravanan was ordered to take Point 4268 on Jubar Ridge. The assault began at 0400 on 29 May after a four-hour approach. Naik Ganesh Prasad Yadav, a 28-year-old from Pandechak in Patna district, charged a sangar, killed two of the men in it, and was shot in the hip. He kept firing until he died, and received a posthumous Vir Chakra. Saravanan was also killed. The bodies of the two men and of Sepoy Pramod Kumar could not be recovered for 37 days. The battalion took Point 4268 and Jubar on the night of 6 and 7 July. The regiment's honour for the war is Batalik.

Ashok Chakras

The regiment has four Ashok Chakra recipients, all posthumous:

• Lieutenant Colonel Harsh Uday Singh Gaur, 10 Bihar, Baramulla district, 1994
• Captain Arun Singh Jasrotia, 8 Bihar, later 9 Para Commando, Kashmir, 1995
• Lieutenant Colonel Shanti Swaroop Rana, 3 Bihar, Kupwara district, 1997
• Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan, 7 Bihar, on deputation to the National Security Guard, Mumbai, 2008

Patrolling Point 14

Colonel B. Santosh Babu was commissioned into 16 Bihar on 10 December 2004 and took command of it on 2 December 2019. In June 2020 the battalion was in the Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh, under orders tied to a disengagement agreed in high-level talks. His Maha Vir Chakra citation says he was tasked with establishing an observation post in the face of the enemy. The government's memorial text records that his column cleared a Chinese post at Y Nala and then reached Patrolling Point 14, where a fight broke out.

The citation describes an adversary using "lethal and sharp weapons" along with stones thrown from the heights. It says he was grievously injured, kept command, and resisted "till his last breath" in hand-to-hand combat. He was 37. Twenty Indian soldiers died on 15 June 2020. Five men who fought in the clash received the Vir Chakra, among them Naib Subedar Nuduram Soren. Babu's widow and mother received his Maha Vir Chakra at Rashtrapati Bhavan on 23 November 2021.

At a glance

• Raised: 1st Battalion, 15 September 1941; Regimental Centre, 1 November 1945
• Regimental centre: Danapur, Patna
• Motto: Karm Hi Dharm (Work is Worship)
• War cry: Jai Bajrang Bali; Birsa Munda Ki Jai