Page 205 - Leadership in the Indian Army

longer Inder. From today, I will be your Raj.’ After that day, he began to be
called Raj.
At Bishop Cotton School, Raj did well, both academically as well as in

sports. Particularly good at mathematics and science, he always stood first
in his class. He played all games, excelling at boxing, in which he
represented the school for three years. He had a flair for languages, and
began to learn Latin, French and Urdu. At that time, Bishop Cotton had
almost 200 boys, of whom only around 30 were Indians. The Britishers
tended to look down on Indians, whom they dismissed as lacking in
physical and mental abilities. Raj Batra’s performance put paid to this

theory, and he became a shining example for the other Indian boys.
In 1932, Raj and his cousin Jagan passed the Senior Cambridge
examination, with Raj getting a first and three distinctions. Back then, the
school had a college wing attached to it, which he joined the next year.
Summer classes were held in Simla and the winter ones at the Government
College, Lahore. In May 1934, Raj took his Intermediate examination at

Simla, and once again passed in the first division. He then joined
Government College, Lahore, the premier college in Punjab.
Raj’s father wanted him to join the ICS, which was then the most sought-
after government service for Indians. Entry to Sandhurst had been stopped
after the Indian Military Academy (IMA) was established at Dehradun in
1932. However, ICS trainees still had to go to England, which added to the
glamour surrounding the service. The ICS was regarded as the ‘steel frame’

which held India together for the British Empire, and therefore enjoyed a lot
of prestige and authority. Though his father had arranged for him to go to
Cambridge, Raj had made up his mind to join the army. He took the Public
Service Commission entrance examination for the IMA in 1935 without any
preparation. He not only qualified, but stood first, and his father reluctantly
agreed to his joining the IMA.

Raj Batra entered the IMA at Dehradun on 19 August 1935. At that time,
there were three types of entries—Open, Army and State families. Each
batch had 40 cadets, with 15 each from the ‘O’ and ‘A’ categories, and 10
from the ‘S’ category. Batra’s batch was the seventh one to join the
academy, and had 16 ‘O’ cadets, 20 ‘A’ cadets, and only two ‘S’ cadets,
making a total of 38. Raj was allotted to A Company, where he met B.S.
‘Tutu’ Bhagat, who had joined six months earlier. Tutu soon became a role

model for Raj, as well his guide and mentor. He was responsible, in some