The Punjab Regiment

A Stamp for 1705

On 13 April 2005, India issued a commemorative stamp for the tercentenary of a single battalion, 15 Punjab (Patiala). Baba Alla Singh, founder of Patiala State, raised it on 13 April 1705. It served the Patiala state as a princely force under names that included First Patiala Imperial Service Infantry (Rajindra Sikh), from May 1900, and First Patiala Rajindra Sikh Infantry, from 1932. In the First World War it served in the Middle East, including Suez, Gallipoli and Palestine. In the Second it fought in Burma and later reached Port Dickson in Malaya and Batavia in Java.

It joined the Punjab Regiment only in 1951, one of four princely battalions taken in that year. 13 Punjab had been the Jind Infantry, 14 Punjab the Nabha Akal Infantry, and 16 Punjab the 2nd Patiala Yadvinder Infantry.

That is why the regiment has more than one date of origin. The East India Company battalions that formed its other root date from the Carnatic wars, 1761 to 1776, and sources count the regiment's age from different starting points.

The Galley on the Badge

The regimental insignia is a galley with a bank of oars and a sail. It goes back to the 69th Punjabis, later 2nd Battalion of the 2nd Punjab Regiment, which had fought in eight overseas campaigns by 1824 and got the badge for its readiness to serve abroad. The motto, Sthal Wa Jal, carries the same idea. The 2nd Battalion itself left the regiment in 1951, when General K. M. Cariappa handpicked it to become 1st Battalion, Brigade of the Guards.

The centre moved from Loralai to Multan in 1922, to Meerut in 1929 and to Ramgarh in 1976. Soldiers originally came as Sikhs and Dogras from districts that went to Pakistan at Partition. Recruitment opened to all castes and communities of Punjab, Haryana, Jammu and Himachal Pradesh in the late 1960s. The regiment remains mainly Dogra and Sikh, with 19 and 27 Punjab as exceptions. Its two war cries reflect that mix.

Machhoi, May 1948

In 1948 the Patiala battalion, then 1 Patiala, reached Zoji La on 21 May and the next day had a costly encounter at Gumri. It then patrolled between the pass and Machhoi. On 23 May, Jemadar Hardev Singh was leading a platoon patrol at Machhoi when it came under heavy fire from entrenched positions and lost a third of its men, killed or wounded.

Hit in the arm, he went through the snow from man to man and gathered the party on a hillside where it could hold until reinforcements came. He was hit twice more in the shoulder. He moved the wounded to the nearest cover and was the last to crawl back, when a medium machine gun burst mortally wounded him. He refused treatment until his men had been seen to, and organised their defence before he died. He received the Maha Vir Chakra. Zoji La itself was retaken on 1 November 1948, when Stuart tanks of 7 Cavalry went through with 77 Parachute Brigade. Zojila is among the regiment's battle honours.

Garibpur, Before the War

On 20 November 1971, two weeks before war was formally declared, 14 Punjab and C Squadron of 45 Cavalry, with 14 PT-76 tanks, took Garibpur in East Pakistan. The Pakistani 107 Infantry Brigade counterattacked the next day with M24 Chaffee tanks. The squadron commander, Major Daljit Singh Narang, was killed early in the fighting and Captain B. S. Mehta took over. Accounts of tank losses differ. Narang and the commanding officer of 14 Punjab, Lt Col R. K. Singh, both received the Maha Vir Chakra.

Longewala

The regiment's most widely known action was fought by one company. A Company of 23 Punjab, about 120 men under Major Kuldip Singh Chandpuri, held the border post at Longewala in the Thar Desert with medium machine guns, mortars and jeep-mounted recoilless rifles. It had no armour. A patrol under Second Lieutenant Dharam Veer reported the sound of a column on the night of 4/5 December 1971. The attack came after midnight: a Pakistani force of brigade size with tanks, crossing sand it had not scouted. Many of its vehicles bogged down.

With no Indian aircraft able to fight at night, the company held on alone through the dark hours. At first light Hunters and Maruts of the Indian Air Force attacked the stranded column, directed by Major Atma Singh in a light observation aircraft.

Numbers remain in dispute. Accounts give the Pakistani tank strength as 40, 45 or more and tank losses as 20 or over, or 36. In 2008, some officers credited the result mainly to the Air Force, and Chandpuri responded with a lawsuit for one rupee. His Maha Vir Chakra and the Vir Chakra to Subedar Ratan Singh are not in dispute. 23 Punjab received the battle honour Longewala and the theatre honour Sind.

At a glance

• Regimental centre: Ramgarh Cantonment, Jharkhand
• Motto: Sthal Wa Jal (By Land and Sea)
• War cry: Jo Bole So Nihal, Sat Sri Akal; Bol Jawala Ma Ki Jai