Aboobaker Osman Mitha
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Major General Aboobaker Osman Mitha | |
---|---|
Service/ | British Indian Army Pakistan Army |
Years of service | 1942–1972 |
Rank | |
Battles/wars |
War Medal 1939-1945 |
Background
Aboobaker Osman Mitha was born on 1 June 1923 at his family residence in the extremely posh Malabar Hill neighbourhood of Bombay, British India. He was born into an affluent and wealthy business family belonging to the Memon community.[4][5] He grew up in a traditional Indian joint family environment, presided over by an imperious grandfather and powerful grandmother. His entire childhood and early youth was spent in tony south Bombay, he attended the elite schools and colleges there and was attended on by a retinue of servants.[citation needed]
Career
British Indian Army
As a young man, Mitha rejected both a career in business and the bride chosen for him by his grandfather, deciding instead to embark upon a career in the army. After finishing high school he joined a pre-cadet academy, and was selected for a commission in the
Mitha refers to the blatant racism that British officers practised against their Indian colleagues in his posthumously published book, Unlikely Beginnings. He wrote, "If there were ten officers in a mess, two of them British, they would see to it that they had little, if anything, to do with their Indian counterparts".
Pakistani Army
When British India divided into the
Lt Col (later Maj Gen) Aboobaker Osman Mitha held several important positions as an army officer. He was extremely hands on and leading from the front type of an officer. This made him a legend not only in the Army, but also with the Navy and Air Force.
In 1954, Mitha was selected to raise an elite commando unit for Pakistan Army, the Special Service Group (SSG). Cherat, a hill station near Peshawar, was chosen as the highly restricted site where the commandos were to be trained and based. Mitha's sole instruction to his handpicked Pakistani officers was, "Be proud of your poverty." He became a legend within the SSG, a fact attested to by SSG officers who came after he had moved on from the SSG.
He remained head of the SSG for 6 years, from 1954 to 1960. So well-received were his training and personality development skills that in 1966, he was appointed commandant of the Pakistan Military Academy. He left his mark on hundreds of young cadets when he commanded the Pakistan Military Academy from 1966 to 1968. He then commanded the 1 Armoured Division from 1968 to 1970. Then he was moved to East Pakistan.
In East Pakistan
In 1951, Mitha had married a Bengali Christian girl of Brahmin heritage, and this gave him a connect with East Pakistan. In 1965 he commanded an Infantry Brigade in East Pakistan and was also active there in early 1971 as Deputy Corps Commander. He was particularly active in East Pakistan in the days preceding the military action of 25 March 1971. Other generals were present in Dhaka along with Yahya Khan. They secretly departed on the evening of 25 March 1971, that fateful day after fixing the deadline for the military action. Mitha is said to have remained behind. Lt Gen Tikka Khan, Maj Gen Rao Farman Ali and Maj Gen Khadim Hussain Raja were associated with the planning of the military action. Eventually their action bloodied the capital city Dhaka with the blood of thousands of residents including students, military and police personnel, politician and the general mass. Later documents regarding their action on the early hours of 26 March 1971 known as Operation Searchlight was revealed to the world.
Betrayal by Lt Gen Gul Hassan
Mitha was Quartermaster General at the
Perhaps the fact that Mitha's wife was a Bengali Christian woman worked to his disadvantage.
According to Mitha, the same Gul Hasan who got him sacked had saved then-Brigadier
Honors, dishonors and death
In the course of his military career, he was awarded the Hilal-i-Jur'at, Sitara-i-Pakistan, and Sitara-i-Quaid-i-Azam. After retirement he was stripped of his medals and pensions without due cause, and that was quite a surprise to the public as he was never court-martialed. But Mitha gained more popularity by this due to which he was kept under surveillance by the Bhutto Administration as he was also a hero for his juniors in the SSG. He remained under surveillance throughout the Bhutto years.
After being sacked from the Pakistani army, Mitha had a hard time finding any kind of employment. Had it not been for the generosity of a friend living in Britain, who asked Mitha to manage his farm for him in Pakistan, he would have been on the street. Mitha died in December 1999, twenty-eight years into his enforced retirement. Upon his death, one of his friends wrote to his wife:
- At the end of a tumultuous life, all he wanted was a room to sleep in, one to write and eat in – a space to walk, reflect and gaze across the fields to the distant hills.
Books
- Fallacies & realities : an analysis of Lt. Gen. Gul Hassan's "Memoirs"
- Unlikely beginnings : a soldier's life
Personal life
While he was serving in the British Indian army (pre-partition), Mitha fell in love with Indu Chatterji, daughter of Prof. Gyanesh C. Chatterji of Lahore Government College. Indu belonged to a Bengali Christian family; they were originally Bengali Brahmins but had converted to Christianity at some point. She had grown up in Lahore, but the family had moved to Delhi at the time of partition. Her family (as also Mitha's) were strongly opposed to the marriage on grounds of culture: there were differences of religion, language, food habits and even other elements of their basic value syatems. For instance, Indu was trained in the south Indian classical dance form Bharatanatyam, and after marriage, she had to give up dancing in public, because this was frowned upon in Pakistan, especially when the dancer was the wife of an army officer. Also, Indu had filmi connections - her elder sister Uma Anand was already the wife of Indian (and Hindu) film-maker Chetan Anand, and later in 1954, her cousin Kalpana Kartik, herself an actress, would marry Chetan's brother, the famous Indian hero and heart-throb, Dev Anand.
Despite all these very obvious differences, Mitha persisted in a long-distance courtship, and Indu reciprocated. That Mitha's feelings were not just puppy love but something more lasting was proved by his sheer perseverance, and four years after the young lovers' separation, Indu, much against the wishes of her family, came over to Karachi and married Mitha. This happened in 1951, and the couple had a very happy, harmonious life together. They became the parents of three daughters, two of whom turned out to be very talented classical Bharatanatyam dancers.
Awards and decorations
Hilal-e-Jurat
(Crescent of Courage)
WITHDRAWN |
Sitara-e-Quaid-e-Azam
(Star of the Great Leader) (SQA) |
Tamgha-e-Pakistan
(Medal of Pakistan) (TPk) |
Tamgha-e-Diffa
(General Service Medal)
|
Sitara-e-Harb 1965 War
(War Star 1965) |
Tamgha-e-Jang 1965 War
(War Medal 1965) |
Pakistan Tamgha
1947 |
Tamgha-e-Jamhuria
(Republic Commemoration Medal) 1956 |
1939-1945 Star
|
Burma Star | War Medal
|
Queen Elizabeth II
(1953) |
References
- ^ "The forgotten hero". Dawn. 2 August 2009. Retrieved 14 October 2016.
- ISBN 978-0-19-579413-7.
- ISBN 978-1-4711-0588-3. Retrieved 14 October 2016.
- ISBN 978-0-19-579413-7. Retrieved 27 September 2013.
He said that as a Memon he felt very proud when he heard that not only had I become a brigadier, but also had raised and commanded the only commando unit in the Pakistan army.
- ^ "Indian Army List". Defence Department, Indian Government. August 1947. p. 269P(1). gives DoB
- ^ October 1942 Indian Army List Most Secret edition
- ^ October 1946 and August 1947 Indian Army Lists