Colonel Colonel ( ; abbreviated as Col., Col, or COL) is a senior military Officer (armed forces), officer rank used in many countries. It is also used in some police forces and paramilitary organizations. In the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, a colon ...

Hoshiar Singh Dahiya ,

PVC Polyvinyl chloride (alternatively: poly(vinyl chloride), colloquial: vinyl or polyvinyl; abbreviated: PVC) is the world's third-most widely produced synthetic polymer of plastic (after polyethylene and polypropylene). About 40 million tons o ...

(5 May 1936 – 6 December 1998) was an Indian military officer and a recipient of India's highest military honour, the

Param Vir Chakra The Param Vir Chakra (PVC) is India's highest Awards and Decorations of the Indian Armed Forces, military decoration, awarded for displaying distinguished acts of valour during wartime. Param Vir Chakra translates roughly as the "Wheel of Supre ...

, for his gallantry during the Indo-Pakistani war of 1971.

Early life

Hoshiar Singh Dahiya was born in Sisana village,

Sonipat Sonipat is a planned industrial city and administrative headquarter in Sonipat district of Haryana state of India. It comes under the National Capital Region and is around from New Delhi. It lies 214 km (128 miles) southwest of Chandigar ...

district,

Haryana Haryana () is a States and union territories of India, state located in the northern part of India. It was carved out after the linguistic reorganisation of Punjab, India, Punjab on 1 November 1966. It is ranked 21st in terms of area, with les ...

to Choudhary Hira Singh in a

Jat The Jat people (, ), also spelt Jaat and Jatt, are a traditionally agricultural community in Northern India and Pakistan. Originally pastoralists in the lower Indus river-valley of Sindh, many Jats migrated north into the Punjab region in l ...

family of Dahiya clan. After his schooling and one year's study at the Jat College, Rohtak, he joined the Army. He was married to Dhano Devi, who is still alive as of December 2021.A date with war heroes
The Tribune, 15 Mar 2019. He was commissioned in

The Grenadiers The Grenadiers is an infantry regiment of the Indian Army, formerly part of the Bombay Army and later the pre-independence British Indian Army, when the regiment was known as the 4th Bombay Grenadiers. It has distinguished itself during the two ...

Regiment A regiment is a military unit. Its role and size varies markedly, depending on the country, military service, service, or administrative corps, specialisation. In Middle Ages, Medieval Europe, the term "regiment" denoted any large body of l ...

of the

Indian Army The Indian Army (IA) (ISO 15919, ISO: ) is the Land warfare, land-based branch and largest component of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the Commander-in-Chief, Supreme Commander of the Indian Army, and its professional head ...

on 30 June 1963, and was promoted lieutenant on 30 June 1965. His first posting was in NEFA. In the 1965 Indo-Pakistan war, he saw some action in the Rajasthan sector, for which he was

mentioned in despatches To be mentioned in dispatches (or despatches) describes a member of the armed forces whose name appears in an official report written by a superior officer and sent to the high command, in which their gallant or meritorious action in the face of t ...

. He was promoted to captain on 30 June 1969.

Param Vir Chakra Citation

The

citation on the Official

Website reads as follows:

Later Major Hoshiar Singh

Singh was promoted to substantive major on 30 June 1976, subsequently serving for two years as an instructor at the Officers Training School, Madras (now Chennai). In 1981 he was posted as an Instructor at the Indian Military Academy, Dehra Dun, and was promoted to lieutenant-colonel on 8 April 1983, he eventually rose to command of his battalion. Having reached retirement age for his rank, Singh retired from the army on 31 May 1988 with the honorary rank of colonel. He settled in Jaipur, but frequently visited his village of Sisana and successfully encouraged many residents to join the armed forces. He succumbed to a

cardiac arrest Cardiac arrest (also known as sudden cardiac arrest CA is when the heart suddenly and unexpectedly stops beating. When the heart stops beating, blood cannot properly Circulatory system, circulate around the body and the blood flow to the ...

on 6 December 1998, aged 61, and was cremated with full military honors at Jaipur. He was survived by three sons, two of whom followed their father into the army as commissioned officers in the Grenadiers, with one joining the 3rd Grenadiers.

In popular culture

Major Hoshiar Singh statue at Param Yodha Sthal Delhi

Mohanlal Mohanlal Viswanathan (; born 21 May 1960), known mononymously as Mohanlal, is an Indian actor and filmmaker who predominantly works in Malayalam cinema, Malayalam cinema besides also having sporadically appeared in Tamil cinema, Tamil, Hin ...

reprised Major Hoshiar Singh's character as Major Sahadevan in the 2017

Malayalam film Malayalam cinema, also referred to as Mollywood, is a segment of Indian cinema dedicated to producing films in the Malayalam language, primarily spoken in Kerala and the Lakshadweep islands. It encompasses both the mainstream film industry ...

, 1971: Beyond Borders.

References

External links