Institution 03 · Belonging
THE BIHAR
REGIMENT
1 Bihar · 70 Infantry Brigade · Batalik, 1999
1 Bihar · 70 Infantry Brigade · Batalik, 1999
On commissioning, Hari left the tri-service world of Khadakwasla behind and joined a single infantry regiment — the one he would lead a company of, twenty years later, up the cliff at Jubar Top.
The Bihar Regiment carries the state's name and traces its lineage back through infantry battalions raised in the colonial era, reorganised into its present form after Independence. Like every Indian infantry regiment, it built its identity around a shared home state, a common set of traditions, and a fierce regimental loyalty that a young officer absorbs from the day he is commissioned.
For Hari, that meant leaving the mixed-service world of NDA squadrons and entering a much tighter fraternity — one battalion, one set of colours, one set of men he would train, live alongside, and ultimately lead into Batalik. By July 1999, that same regimental bond was what held a company together on an exposed cliff face: soldiers who had trained under him, moving because their company commander was moving with them.
1 Bihar's war in the Batalik sector carried both grief and triumph — the costly night at Point 4268 in late May, where the battalion lost Major M. Saravanan and Naik Ganesh Prasad, and then, five weeks later, Major Hari's company completing the capture of Jubar Top. The regiment's record in that sector holds both.