The buzz on Twitter is Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman’s return from Pakistani captivity will be the shortest for a downed pilot in history.
Who is better placed to understand what went on in his mind in the past two days than fellow serviceman who found himself in similar circumstances, albeit for a longer time — Air Marshal KC ‘Nanda’ Cariappa? According to an article he wrote for Outlook magazine in 2015, on September 22, 1965, the last day of the India-Pakistani war, his Hawker Hunter was shot down near the J&K border and he was captured by the Pakistani army.
He gave his name, rank (squadron leader) and unit number to his captors and the information reached the Pakistani Army headquarters in Rawalpindi. His last name had struck a chord and they came back to ask him if he was the son of Field Marshal KM Cariappa, the first Indian chief of the armed forces after Independence. He said he was.
When the erstwhile Pakistan’s military ruler General Ayub Khan was informed about this prisoner of war, he made a radio announcement to the effect and possibly the only information an anxious family had about their son’s whereabouts in those times.
Behind this gesture lay a reason: Field Marshal Cariappa had been Ayub Khan’s boss in the Army before Partition and the latter continued to hold him in such high regard that he ordered the Pakistan high commissioner to personally go and meet Cariappa and apprise him of his son’s well-being.
He also offered to release him immediately. However, his offer was graciously declined by Cariappa, who said all captured Indian soldiers were his sons and they all deserved the same courteous treatment and his son would be released along with all others, which is how it happened.
