Colonel Narendra Kumar(born 8 December 1933) also known as Narendra Bull Kumar or Narinder Kumar, is India’s most decorated soldier-mountaineer. He is known for the mountaineering reconnaissance expedition he undertook in Teram Kangri,Siachen Glacier and Saltoro Range for Indian Army in 1978 at the age of 45.[1][2][3] If he had not undertaken this expedition, all of Siachen Glacier and its adjoining regions, including the Nubra Valley, would be Pakistan’s. That’s an area covering almost 10,000 km2 (3,900 sq mi).But because of his expedition,Indian conquered all the entire area. Kumar crossed seven mountain ranges—Pir Panjal Range, Himalayas, Zanskar, Ladakh, Saltoro, Karakoram and Agil—to give India Siachen.
Early life
Narendra was born in Rawalpindi, British India in 1933.He has three more brothers who all joined Indian Army. His skirmishes with history began in 1947,when Narinder represented Punjab state at a scouts jamboree in Paris at the age of 13. The team of 50 scouts was returning by ship, when news of Independence broke over them like a tsunami. “All of us, Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus, decided to design a flag,” he says. “We put the Union Jack in the Centre, India and Pakistan on either side.” They wanted to sing a national song, but which one? So in just-broken voices, “we sang… tera sahara.” One night, he thought a ship engine had failed. Next morning, he found all Muslims had been asked to disembark in Karachi. Narinder got off in alien Bombay and went to Shimla, where his parents had migrated after partition of India. Narendra's youngest brother ascended Mount Everest in 1985, but died after falling from 8,500 m.
Army life and mountaineering
Narendra Kumar entered the Indian Army in 1950.He took part in boxing,riding and cycle-polo during his years of training. He was ommissioned in Kumaon Rifles in 1954 and then became interested in winter sports and mountaineering. He earned "Bull" sobriquet at the National Defence Academy, Dehradun, during the first boxing match he fought. His rival was a senior cadet, Sunith Francis Rodrigues, who went on to become the Chief of the Army Staff (India). Col Kumar lost the bout, but helped earning himself a nickname: Bull.The nickname Bull comes from his tendency to charge relentlessly into whatever he's doing.
The mountain bond was born when Colonel Kumar met Tenzing Norgay, director of the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute, in Darjeeling.In March 1958, Narendra led the successful Army and Navy expedition to Mt. Trisul(23,360 ft). He was the first Indian to reach up to 28,700 ft, in his first attempt at climbing the Mount Everest in 1960, before having to turn back due to inclement weather.In 1961, Kumar led a harrowing 5-men expedition to climb Neelkanth (21,644 ft) in the Garhwal Himalayas. While descending from the summit,Kumar lost four of his toes due to frostbite. In 1964,he was first Indian to scale Nanda Devi.In 1965, he was deputy leader of a team that put nine Indian Army climbers at the top of the world’s tallest peak. Capt. Mohan Singh Kohli, who led the 1965 Everest expedition, said Kumar’s climbing career was "astonishing". In 1970 he led the first recognized ascent of 23,997 ft Jomolhari(Chomo Lhari), the highest mountain in Bhutan. Kumar successfully climbed the Kangchenjunga from the toughest north-east spur in 1976. Later,Kumar was put in “permanent category C” by the Indian Army, which meant no postings above 7,000 ft. Every time he was in the mountains, he had to give the government a non-liability certificate saying that he absolve them of all responsibilities should anything happen to him.He has entered the oxygen-depleted death zone above 8,000 m, twenty times. He spent 35 years in the Indian Army. Lieutenant General VR Raghavan, commanding officer of Operation Meghdoot, called Colonel Kumar ‘a mountain of information’. Wing Commander T. Sridharan, now the treasurer of the New Delhi-based Indian Mountaineering Foundation called Kumar “India’s Chris Bonington”.He is a lifelong camaraderie with Tenzing Norgay.
Mountaineering Expeditions to Siachen in 1978 and 1981
In 1978, Kumar, as commanding officer of the Indian Army’s High Altitude Warfare School, joined two German explorers in an attempt to navigate the upper reaches of the Indus river in Ladakh. Two years later, one of his former co-travellers returned to India and asked Kumar to join him in an expedition to the Nubra Valley, which separates Ladakh from the Karakoram ranges. Kumar took one full batch of students from the High Altitude Warfare School in 1978, saying that he is taking them for practical training.It was the first Indian expedition into the remote glacier. The team started at the snout of the glacier and reached halfway up the massive bulk of uncharted ice, braving temperatures that dipped to -50 degrees Celsius, and navigating tricky crevasses, peaks and passes—bound to each other with thick ropes. The Indian Air Force provided valuable support to this expedition through logistic support and supply of fresh rations.The team returned with the trash left behind by Pakistani expeditions as proof of their incursions. Unusually for the normally secretive Indian Army, the news and photographs of this expedition were published in The Illustrated Weekly of India, a widely circulated popular magazine.[4]
In April 1981, Kumar went back to Siachen Glacier with blank maps and a meagre budget of ₹50,000 (US$630), this time covering it from its freezing snout to its icy source. He thus became the first person to scale the uncharted Siachen Glacier—the world’s third pole.In his salty style, Kumar said “Once you get the heights, you’re the tiger. We put the tricolour at the farthest end of Siachen.” He also summited Sia Kangri (24,350 ft), India’s northernmost point.
The first public acknowledgment of the maneuvers and the developing conflict situation in the Siachen was an abbreviated article titled "High Politics in the Karakoram" by Joydeep Sircar in The Telegraph newspaper of Calcutta in 1982.[5] The full text was re-printed as "Oropolitics" in the Alpine Journal, London, in 1984.[6]
Though the mountaineer in him wanted to capture K2 (in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir), bringing more peaks into India.Had Col Kumar been given a clearance in 1981, he’d perhaps have climbed the K2 peak in the Karakoram ranges as well. But to reach K2, he would have had to traverse the Shaksgam Valley, which the Pakistanis had illegally ceded to China. So, India halted its advance, on reaching the northernmost tip of the Siachen glacier, settling in on its frozen waste.
Operation Meghdoot
Three years later, on 13 April 1984, the Indian Army launched its first major offensive attack,known as Operation Meghdoot against the Pakistani army at Siachen Glacier and established bases along the glacier. The detailed maps, plans, photographs and videos made by Kumar and his team,helped Indian Army to conquer the whole of Siachen Glacier and also the area to the west of it,along with the main ridges and passes along the Saltoro Range.
Personal life
His is married to Mridula. They have a daughter Shailaja Kumar(born 1964), India’s first woman winter Olympian,who participated in 1988 in Calgary, Canada in Alpine skiing.[7][8] and a son Akshay(born 1969), an adventure travel professional who runs Mercury Himalayan Explorations, one of the first rafting companies to navigate the Gange and Brahmaputra
Award and recognition
On 25 June 2010, Narendra Kumar was honoured with the MacGregor Medal, awarded by the United Service Institution of India for the best military reconnaissance, exploration or survey in remote areas in India.
Narendra has been awarded Padma Shri,fourth highest civilian award in India.
He received Arjuna Award and was also awarded the IMF Gold Medal by the Indian Mountaineering Foundation.
Narendra Kumar is only colonel with Param Vishisht Seva Medal(PSVM) distinction in all three services,which is generally accorded to generals.
He was awarded the United Nation's fellowship for Ski Teaching and was trained in Switzerland and Austria for 4 months. In his efforts to launch river rafting in India, he made the first descent of River Indus in Ladakh and the Teesta in Sikkim.
He has also been awarded Kirti Chakra and Ati Vishisht Seva Medal(ASVM).
He's a national hero in India, the star of seven films, six books, and two postage stamps.
There is a base in Siachen Glacier known as Kumar Base, a key forward logistics post at a height of 4,880 m.
Later life
He is staying in Delhi now.
India
Indian Army