Page 209 - Leadership in the Indian Army

regimental centres. In the case of Signals, the procedure was slightly
different. Because of the sensitive nature of its role, Indian officers were not
taken into Signals directly, but were posted, on paper, to a Cavalry or

Infantry unit. They were accepted into Signals only after completing an 18-
month course at the Signal Training Centre, Jubbulpore, followed by a
three-month course at the Army Signal School Poona, and a six-month
attachment to a non-Indianised Signal unit (Waziristan District Signals).
They were seconded for duty with the Signal Corps, and formally posted to
an Indianised Signal unit (4 Indian Divisional Signals), only after they
could meet the required standard. Those found unsuitable were reverted to

the regiments to which they had been formally posted. Before Raj, only five
Indians from Dehradun had been commissioned into Signals, starting with
A.C. Iyappa in August 1935, and followed at six-monthly intervals by G.K.
Mehta, Joe D’Souza, B.D. Kapur and B.S. Bhagat. Mehta did not make the
grade, and was reverted to 19 Hyderabad Regiment. The only KCIO to have
been sent to Signals, Sangram Keshav ‘Sunshine’ Ray, who had passed out

from Woolwich in September 1932, had also been similarly reverted to the
Cavalry.
Raj’s first day at Jubbulpore was inauspicious. He was received at the
railway station by B.D. Kapur, who took him to his quarters. The next
morning, at breakfast, when he was telling Kapur about the achievements of
his company—which had won the Commandant’s Banner—as well as his
own in winning the Sword of Honour and the Gold Medal, a senior British

officer, Major ‘Father’ Williams, who was sitting across the table, suddenly
shouted: ‘Shut up, Batra. Breakfast is a quiet meal.’ This put an end to the
conversation, and Raj’s exuberance subsided like a burst bubble under the
cold stare of Charles Ommaney, the Senior Subaltern. Later in the day, Raj
was taken to the Adjutant, Captain Donald Burridge, and then formally
presented to the Commandant, Colonel George Pollard, who was also

known as ‘The Terror’. It was only several months later, when Raj let
himself be beaten by the Commandant at squash, that Pollard began to
approve of the young Indian. However, he still had to contend with
Ommaney, who had not forgiven him for his behaviour at breakfast on his
first day in the mess.
Raj’s stay at Jubbulpore was eventful, and he always remembered it with
nostalgia. One of his favourite stories relate to Ronald Frankau’s famous

poem: ‘I am terribly British’. After the Signal Training Centre had beaten