President Ram Nath Kovind presents the President's Colours to the Ladakh Scouts Regimental Centre

President Ram Nath Kovind presents the President's Colours to the Ladakh Scouts Regimental Centre today, August 21.
These are normally presented to units that distinguish themselves consistently over decades.
The Ladakh Scouts became a regular army regiment only in June 2001 after its stunning performance in the Kargil conflict, notes Ajai Shukla.

The dramatic air landing of two Indian infantry battalions in Srinagar in October 1947, which drove back Pakistani tribal raiders from the outskirts of the capital of Jammu and Kashmir, is the stuff legends are made of.

As the Indian Army built up troops in Kashmir, the raiders were driven back, and Baramula, Uri and Tithwal liberated.

But a similar, less known, crisis occurred in May 1948, when the capture of Kargil by tribal Lashkars left the routes to Leh open.

 

Defending Ladakh against the tribal hordes were just 33 men of the J-K state forces. Reinforcing the tiny Leh garrison were 20 volunteers, led by Lieutenant Colonel Prithi Singh: The legendary 'X Force' that dragged itself heroically over the wind-swept Zoji La pass.

But with the snows melting and passes opening, hundreds of Pakistani tribal fighters converged on Leh, driven by the promise of monasteries groaning with wealth, salacious dreams of unprotected women, and the belief that Ladakh's Buddhist men knew little of fighting.

'Cometh the hour, cometh the man,' it is said.

On May 13, 1948, as Lieutenant Colonel Prithi Singh raised the tricolour in Leh and called for volunteers to fight the invaders, the first hand to go up was that of Chewang Rinchen, a 17-year-old schoolboy from Nubra.

For the next two months, until the first Indian Army troops were airlifted to Leh and built up into a viable force, Rinchen and a band of youngsters that he formed into the Nubra Guards confronted and thwarted the battle-hardened tribals

For his heroic defence of Ladakh and the leadership he displayed, Rinchen was appointed a junior commissioned officer in the Indian Army and awarded the Mahavir Chakra, the army's second highest gallantry award.

Not content with being the youngest-ever winner of that award, Rinchen went on to win a Sena Medal in the 1962 war with China; and then a second Mahavir Chakra in 1971 for capturing over 800 square kilometres of territory from Pakistan, including the strategically vital village of Turtok.

Eventually retiring as colonel, Rinchen is one of the army's greatest legends.