A soldier forgotten

As Brigadier John Dalvi said about his return to India from captivity: “We deplaned (at Dum Dum airport in Calcutta on 4 May 1963.) and were greeted with correct military protocol, tinged with a chill reserve. It was only later that I found out that we had to clear ourselves of the charge of being brainwashed ~ a strange charge from a Government which had itself been brainwashed into championing China’s cause for more than a decade. Without a doubt, the prisoners had been declared outcasts. Apparently, we should have atoned for past national sins of omission and commission with our lives.”