PROMINENT MOHYALS

ZORAWAR CHAND BAKHSHI
Lt. Gen. Zorawar Chand Bakhshi (Hindi: ज़ोरावर चन्द बख़शी) (b 1919) is a famous retired soldier of the Indian Army, and has the distinction of being "India's most decorated General"
  Gen. Bakhshi belongs to the Lau clan of the Mohiyal community, noted for its martial tradition. His father, Sardar Bahadur Bakshi Lal Chand Lau OBI was a decorated soldier as well, in the British Indian Army.
His family belonged to the village of Guliana, Rawalpindi District. As with many other non-Muslims of that region, his family had to shift to India after the independence of Pakistan. Prior to the partition, he graduated from Rawalpindi's Gordon College in 1942.
CAREER AND AWARDS
After being commissioned into the Baloch Regiment of the British Indian Army in 1942, his first major battle was against the Japanese in Burma in World War II, where he earned a Mention-in-Despatches for overcoming a heavily fortified Japanese position. After the Liberation of Burma, he participated in the operations to liberate Malaysia from Japanese control, earning a fast-track promotion to the rank of a Major for his role.
Upon the Partition of India in 1947, he was transferred to the 5th Gorkha Rifles regiment of the Indian Army.
In the Indo-Pak war of 1948 , he was awarded a Vir Chakra for his bravery. Soon afterwards, he was awarded the MacGregor Medal in 1949. In the Indo Pak war of 1965, he was instrumental in the capture of the Haji Pir Pass from the Pakistani Forces, for which he was awarded the Maha Vir Chakra. In the early 60s, he led his battalion in a United Nations Operation to undo the secession of the province of Katanga from Congo, in the process earning a Vishisht Seva Medal

 

. In 1969-1970, he led very successful counter-insurgency operations in pockets of North East India. In the 1971 war, he was instrumental in the capture of territory in what is now referred to as the crucial Chicken-Neck Sector, for which we was awarded the Param Vishisht Seva Medal

 

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He is popularly known as "Zoru" in the Indian Army

BAHADUR SHAH ZAFAR

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BAHADUR SHAH ZAFAR


The last Mughal king, Bahadur Shah, better known as Bahadur Shah Zafar, was born in 1775 at Delhi. He was the son of Akbar Shah from his Hindu wife Lalbai. Bahadur Shah, after the death of his father, was placed on the throne in 1837 when he was little over 60 years of age. He was last in the lineage of Mughal emperors who ruled over India for about 300 years. Bahadur Shah Zafar, like his predecessors, was a weak ruler who came to throne when the British domination over India was strengthening and the Mughal rule was nearing its end. The British had curtailed the power and privileges of the Mughal rulers to such an extent that by the time of Bahadur Shah Zafar, the Mughal rule was confined to the Red Fort. Bahadur Shah Zafar was obliged to live on British pension, while the reins of real power lay in the hands of the East India Company.

During the reign of Bahadur Shah Zafar, Urdu poetry flourished and reached its zenith. He himself was a prolific poet and an accomplished calligrapher. He had acquired his poetic taste from his grandfather and father who were also poets. He passed most of his time in the company of poets and writers and was the author of four diwans. Love and mysticism were his favorite subjects that found expression in his poetry. Most of his poetry is full of pain and sorrow owing to the distress and degradation he had to face at the hands of the British. He was a great patron of poetry and literary work and some of the most eminent and famous Urdu poets like Mirza Ghalib, Zauk, Momin and Daagh were of his time.

A plaque proclaiming the end of the Mughal Dynasty

It was at the time of Bahadur Shah that the War of Independence in 1857 started. In Bahadur Shah Zafar the freedom fighters found the symbol of freedom and therefore nominated him as their Commander-in-Chief. In the initial stages, the freedom fighters were successful, but later on the strong and organized British forces defeated them. Bahadur Shah, who had been proclaimed as an emperor of whole of India, was overthrown. He was arrested from Humayun's tomb, in Delhi, where he was hiding with his three sons and a grandson. Captain Hodson killed his sons and grandson and their severed heads were brought before him. Bahadur Shah Zafar himself was tried for treachery. He was exiled to Rangoon (now Yangon), Burma (now Myanmar), in 1858 where he lived his last five years and died in 1862 at the age of 87.