Page 165 - Leadership in the Indian Army

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F IELD M ARSHAL S.H.F.J. M ANEKSHAW

, MC

The Architect of India’s Victory over Pakistan

Field Marshal Sam Hormusji Framji Jamshedji Manekshaw is, without a
doubt, the most popular and colourful of military leaders in India. Having

led the nation to its first decisive victory in 1971, ‘Sam Bahadur’, as he is
popularly known, became a household word. He was India’s first Field
Marshal, and remains, even today, the most admired and idolised of our
Army Chiefs. He has a charismatic personality, and it is impossible not to
feel overawed in his presence. Vigour, dash and elan—he has them all, the
typical signs of a great soldier. However, if there is one attribute which can
be called his hallmark, it is his ready wit, and sense of humour. Anecdotes

about Sam abound, and one keeps hearing new ones even now, more than
30 years after he has quit active service. A Field Marshal never retires, and
Sam epitomises the spirit, as no one else can. His admirers are legion, and
not a few of them are of the fairer sex. Though now over 90, he can still
make girls in their teens swoon when he walks into a room.
Sam is a Parsi, and was born on 3 April 1914 in Amritsar. The Parsis are a

very small community, found mostly on the western coast of India,
especially Bombay and certain areas in Gujarat. Though small in number,
the Parsis are a very progressive community, with 100 per cent literacy.
Though their main occupation is business, they have produced some of the
most eminent politicians, lawyers, industrialists, artists, doctors and
engineers in the country. Sam’s grandfather, Framroze, was a teacher, who
lived in Valsad and had taught Morarji Desai, who later became Prime

Minister of India. Sam’s father, Hormusji, was born in Valsad and became a
doctor. He was married to Hilla, a Parsi girl from Bombay whom he had
met while studying medicine at the Grant Medical College. Hormusji began
practising in Bombay but later moved to Amritsar, where there were fewer
doctors and better prospects for setting up a medical practice. During World