“The Meghdoot Force: A Legendary Beginning for India’s Special Forces”, ForPolIndia, October 13, 2025
“In the summer of 1965 the situation in Kashmir looked grim. Pakistan’s Operation Gibraltar had sent scores of insurgents over the Cease‑Fire Line, and New Delhi’s orders were to stay defensive. Among the staff officers listening to the casualty reports was Major Megh Singh Rathore, a lean Rajput from Rajasthan with the wiry moustache of a cavalryman and the combat experience of a veteran. He had served in the Italian campaign in World War II, fought guerrillas in Nagaland and, now in his early forties, was languishing in a staff job after being passed over for promotion. When the Army Commander lamented aloud, “Can’t we do something about this?”, Megh Singh stood up. “Sir, let me take a few men across,” he reportedly said. This is the backdrop of how Meghdoot Force came into being.
The general he addressed, Lt. Gen. Harbakhsh Singh, was not known for timidity. He listened to the audacious proposal: pick a handful of volunteers, slip across the line and hit the infiltrators where they lived. “If you succeed,” the commander is said to have smiled, “I’ll pin your rank back on myself”. Thus began one of the most remarkable chapters in India’s military history.
A unit born of boldness
Megh Singh travelled to Srinagar and hand‑picked his men from 3 Rajputana Rifles and 3 Rajput, regiments steeped in the folklore of Rajasthan. Retired special‑forces veteran Colonel Awadhesh Kumar later wrote that there were only two officers, two JCOs and fewer than eighty soldiers, and that around thirty of them were Kayam Khani Muslims. He wasn’t making a political point; he wanted Pakistan to know India could fight as one. On 27 August 1965, he addressed the volunteers: “We have met for the first time today,” he acknowledged, before reminding them that their forefathers had fought together for centuries. He promised to lead from the front, to be the first man over the enemy line, and gave anyone who wished to leave an honourable way out. No one walked away…..”
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