This year on July 20, 2013 will be the Birth Centenary of the designer of
the most coveted Medal, The PARAM VIR CHAKRA.
Subject: Param Vir Chakra –India’s highest gallantry award Who Desgned
it and What it means.
Very interesting article on PVC as The Param Vir Chakra is referred to.
Param Vir Chakra –India’s highest gallantry award Who Designed it and
What it means.
Ask any aspirant, serving or a retired personal of Indian Defence
Services, these three words “Param Veer Chakra” mean more than their
life to
them. Many who have attained Martyrdom while fighting for the nation
with extreme courage have been honoured by this medal, for every other
young man who stands at the Line of Action it is the ultimate dream
& honour.Have you ever thought about what does the design on that
medal mean or who designed it?? Let me tell you about it.
Savitri Khanolkar is the designer of India's highest gallantry award,
the Param Vir Chakra.
Savitri
Khanolkar, born Eve Yvonne Maday de Maros, on July 20, 1913 - 1990
in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, to a Hungarian father André de Maday,
professor of sociology at Geneva University and President of the Société
de Sociologie de Genève, and Russian mother Marthe Hentzelt, who taught
at the Institut Jean-Jacques Rousseau. She later was known as Savitri
Bai, the name she was given after she married an Indian, became a
Hindu and took Indian nationality.
She spent her early childhood in Geneva, where she grew to be a
compassionate girl with a love of nature and the outdoors. In 1929,
when she was still a teenager, she met Vikram Khanolkar, who born in
Marathi family, a young Indian Army
officer undergoing training at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst in
the United Kingdom, who was holidaying in Europe. Although he was many
years older than she was, Eve fell in love with him. Her father
however, did not agree to let her go away to a faraway country like
India but
Eve was a determined young woman, and her love was strong. She followed
Vikram to India a few years later, and in 1932, she married him at
Mumbai. She began her new life adapting to Indian culture as Mrs.
Savitribai Khanolkar.
Despite coming (or maybe because of
coming) from a European background, Savitri Bai identified so closely
with Indian traditions and ideals, that her integration into Indian
society was smooth and effortless. She was a vegetarian, learnt to
speak fluent Marathi, Sanskrit and Hindi
and learnt Indian music, dance and painting. She always claimed that
she had been "born in Europe by mistake" as she was Indian soul, & woe
unto him who dared to call her a 'foreigner' & quote; She was so
fascinated with Hindu mythology that
she read extensively from Hindu scriptures and had a deep knowledge of
India's ancient history and legends. It was this knowledge that led
Major General Hira Lal Atal, the creator of the Param Vir Chakra, to
ask for Savitri Bai's help in designing a medal that would truly
symbolize
the highest bravery. Soon after Indian independence, she was asked by
the Adjutant General Major
General Hira Lal Atal to design India’s highest award for bravery in
combat, the Param Vir Chakra. Major General Hira Lal Atal was given
the responsibility for creating and naming independent India’s new
military decorations. His reasons for choosing Mrs.Khanolkar were her
deep and intimate knowledge of Indian mythology, Sanskrit and Vedas,
which he hoped would give the design a truly Indian ethos. She was a
painter and an artist, and wife of Captain (later Major General)
Vikram Ramji Khanolkar, a serving officer with the Sikh Regiment, at
the time of the request.
Coincidentally, the first PVC was awarded to her elder daughter' s
brother-in-law Major Som Nath Sharma from 4 Kumaon Regiment who was
posthumously awarded for his valour of November 3, 1947 during the
1947-48 Indo-Pak war in
Kashmir.
The design of Param Vir Chakra :
Savitribai
thought of the sage Dadhichi - a vedic rishi who made the ultimate
sacrifice to the Gods. He gave up his body so that the Gods could
fashion a deadly weapon - a Vajra, or thunderbolt, from his thigh bone.
Savitribai gave Major General Hira Lal Atal, the design of the double
Vajra, common in Tibet. Its a myth that the medal also carries images of
the fearless warrior king Shivaji' s sword Bhavani but this is a
popular perpetuated myth.
The Indian General Service Medal (1947) which contained the Bhavani
sword was withdrawn later.
The
medal itself is a small one. It is cast in bronze, and has a radius of
13/8 inch. In the centre, on a raised circle, is the state emblem,
surrounded by four replicas of Indra's Vajra, flanked by the sword of
Shivaji. The decoration is suspended from a straight swiveling
suspension bar, and is held by a 32 mm purple ribbon.
Savitri Bai had always done a lot a social work which she continued
in her later years, working with soldiers and their families
and refugees who had been displaced during the Partition. After her
husband' s death in 1952, she found refuge in spirituality, and retired
to the Ramakrishna Math. She wrote a book on the Saints of Maharashtra
that is popular even today.
Mrs. Savitri Bai Khanolkar died in 1990, but her memory lives on in
the great award that she designed. It is fitting that a remarkable lady
who truly loved India and was intensely proud of being an Indian
designed an award that
is given to soldiers who love their country so much that they are ready
to die for it. For more information on the recipients of PVC since 1947
google search "Param Vir Chakra"
Posts
