First Lt Gen P S Bhagat memorial lecture held, Army chief hails his legacy

The first Lieutenant General P S Bhagat Memorial Lecture was held here on Wednesday with Army Chief Manoj Pande hailing him as an ''outstanding professional and a prolific writer''.

The Army hosted the lecture on the 'Legacy of Lt Gen Prem Bhagat -- A Visionary and Strategic Leader', under the aegis of the United Service Institution of India (USI) at the Manekshaw Centre.

The lecture was conducted as part of 'Lt Gen P S Bhagat Memorial Chair of Excellence' instituted at USI, by Gen Pande on October 14.

Former army chief Gen (retd) V P Malik delivered a keynote address during the lecture, in which he gave many anecdotes from the legacy of Lt Gen Bhagat from his early days as a second lieutenant till his demise, while working as Chairman of the Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC), the defence ministry said in a statement.

Gen Pande, and former Army chiefs Gen (retd) V N Sharma (Retd) and Gen (retd) M M Naravane attended the event along with several veterans and serving officers and civilians to draw inspiration from the legacy of Lt Gen Bhagat, whose charisma has left an indelible mark on the history of the Indian Army, it said.

''Late Lt Gen P S Bhagat who served as the first General Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the re-raised Northern Command was an outstanding professional and a prolific writer,'' Gen Pande said.

The Army chief said, ''As a young second lieutenant, Lt Gen Bhagat was the first Indian soldier to have been awarded the prestigious Victoria Cross in World War II, while clearing minefields, under enemy fire, with his vehicle encountering a mine explosion thrice, sustaining an ear drum puncture, yet going about his task relentlessly for 96 hours, without break''.

He also fondly mentioned the tale in which Lt Gen Bhagat, as an army commander in Lucknow in September 1971, saved the city by pushing the trucks loaded with stones and boulders to plug the flow through the breach on the Gomti River, for which local newspapers captioned him as ''the saviour of Lucknow''.

The next edition of this memorial lecture is scheduled to be conducted in April 2024, in which Lt Gen (retd) K T Parnaik, Governor of Arunachal Pradesh, has consented to deliver the keynote address.