Sanjay Nahar
Founder-President, Sarhad
In July 1995, Vijay Kumar Chopra, Managing Editor of Punjab Kesari newspaper group
suggested to me that I should meet Lt. Gen. Ved Prakash Malik in Pune. Gen Malik was the Chief
of Southern Command then and I had started my work in Kashmir under Vande Mataram, a
social organization of which I was one of the founders.
I met Gen Malik at his residence in Pune. During the course of our discussions, he suggested that we should take lead in working for the people in Kargil and Leh. He also suggested that we should constitute a separate organization for this purpose.
By then, inspired by a poem of well known poet Gulzar, I had started an organization called Sarhad. Gen Malik liked the name. At that time, Kargil was hardly known to the outside world as the now famous Kargil War hadn’t happened yet.
Thus, I can say that the foundation of Sarhad’s work in Kargil was laid down at Gen V. P. Malik’s official residence in Pune. Later on, our relations grew deeper.
In the year 1998, Sarhad launched the Sant-Sufi Sandesh Yatra , a peace march from Pune to Srinagar. It was an instant hit in the country. Even before the message given by this march could establish in the society, Pakistan stabbed in India’ back and began incursion in our territories under the disguise of mujahideen.
In the first week of May in 1999, I received a call from Vijay Thombare of Market Missionaries, an ad agency in Pune. He arranged my meeting with the then union minister Pramod Mahajan. Around that time, the coffins of the Indian soldiers martyred in Kargil had started coming in. After this meeting, Vande Mataram and Sarhad jointly took out a march in Pune, involving people from all religious groups.
Our message was that entire country stood firmly behind the Indian Army. All the media promptly publicized the patriotic movement. Soon afterwards, Sarhad distributed the daily need items to the people living in Dras, Machchil, Kargil village and Batalik.
These were the areas where the war was actually going on and naturally the people were worst affected. This operation was possible because of the initiative taken by Late Shriram Bhide and Sanjay Aher of the Rupee Bank Employees’ Trust and the cooperation offered by the J&K Home Minister Mushtaq Ahmed Lone and his secretary Jehangir Mir.
Sarhad’s team of people engaged in this relief work was perhaps the first to get in direct touch with the people of Kargil in this way. Gen Ved Prakash Malik was the Chief of Staff of the Indian Army at that time. He wrote us a letter commending our efforts and said that it had sent a positive message about the Indian Army as well.
Over the period, when Sarhad started the Know India Tour initiative for the orphaned children of J&K, we included children from Kargil in it as well.
I met Gen Malik at his residence in Pune. During the course of our discussions, he suggested that we should take lead in working for the people in Kargil and Leh. He also suggested that we should constitute a separate organization for this purpose.
By then, inspired by a poem of well known poet Gulzar, I had started an organization called Sarhad. Gen Malik liked the name. At that time, Kargil was hardly known to the outside world as the now famous Kargil War hadn’t happened yet.
Thus, I can say that the foundation of Sarhad’s work in Kargil was laid down at Gen V. P. Malik’s official residence in Pune. Later on, our relations grew deeper.
In the year 1998, Sarhad launched the Sant-Sufi Sandesh Yatra , a peace march from Pune to Srinagar. It was an instant hit in the country. Even before the message given by this march could establish in the society, Pakistan stabbed in India’ back and began incursion in our territories under the disguise of mujahideen.
In the first week of May in 1999, I received a call from Vijay Thombare of Market Missionaries, an ad agency in Pune. He arranged my meeting with the then union minister Pramod Mahajan. Around that time, the coffins of the Indian soldiers martyred in Kargil had started coming in. After this meeting, Vande Mataram and Sarhad jointly took out a march in Pune, involving people from all religious groups.
Our message was that entire country stood firmly behind the Indian Army. All the media promptly publicized the patriotic movement. Soon afterwards, Sarhad distributed the daily need items to the people living in Dras, Machchil, Kargil village and Batalik.
These were the areas where the war was actually going on and naturally the people were worst affected. This operation was possible because of the initiative taken by Late Shriram Bhide and Sanjay Aher of the Rupee Bank Employees’ Trust and the cooperation offered by the J&K Home Minister Mushtaq Ahmed Lone and his secretary Jehangir Mir.
Sarhad’s team of people engaged in this relief work was perhaps the first to get in direct touch with the people of Kargil in this way. Gen Ved Prakash Malik was the Chief of Staff of the Indian Army at that time. He wrote us a letter commending our efforts and said that it had sent a positive message about the Indian Army as well.
Over the period, when Sarhad started the Know India Tour initiative for the orphaned children of J&K, we included children from Kargil in it as well.
Likewise, when we worked to implement the Model Village Scheme of the government in that state under the leadership of veteran social worker Anna
Hazare, we also involved people from Kargil area in it.
Further, in 2003, when Sarhad decided to establish a school in Pune for the children of J&K, Lt. Gen. Ravi Dastane, who was posted in Kargil, selected and
sent 17 children from that area.
In 2017, Chinar Publishers, the publishing arm of Sarhad published the Marathi translation of Gen Malik’s book on the Kargil War Kargil: From Surprise to
Victory under the name Kargil: Ashcharyacha Dhakka te Vijay. The book is translated by noted author Prashant Talnikar. In this way, gradually, Sarhad’s
association with Kargil and surrounding areas and the various people in Kargil grew.
Today, there are in all 37 children from Kargil among the 150 children from J&K studying at Sarhad. Among them is Stanzin Dorje, son of Tashi Namgyal,
the first person to alert the Indian Army about Pakistani incursion, which resulted in the Kargil War. Then there is Joginder Singh, 15 members of whose
family were killed by the terrorists in a separate incident during the Kargil War. Sarhad also adopted Nasreen, daughter of the porter who took body of
Captain Saurabh Kalia from the enemy territory.
These children have now grown up and we are involving them in our initiatives like making Kargil an international tourist destination, promoting
domestic tourism to the place with the help of the Hotel Owners’ Association from Kargil, and establishing their contacts with the Tour Operators’
Association in Pune etc.
In 2014, Pune based entrepreneur and health enthusiast Sanjeev Shah and an old friend Vikas Desadla expressed to me their interest in taking out a
bicycle rally in Northeast with the help and under the banner of Sarhad.
Named ‘Call of Brahmaputra’, the Rally was a huge success in 2015. It taught us that humanitarian work of Sarhad can receive ready support from well
meaning and likeminded people. With this experience, the same group took out a similar rally in J&K. The then Tourism Minister G A Mir and Tourism
Secretary Talat Parvez of J&K wholeheartedly supported it.
Later, Sanjeev Shah decided to take lead in Sarhad’s efforts to bring Kargil on the international map as a major tourist destination. Through this
association the idea of connecting the youth of this area with the mainstream Indian youth through sports like cycling and marathon, and also various
cultural initiatives, came up. This resulted in organization of the first Kargil International Marathon in the year 2017. People like Mohd. Hamza from
Kargil, Arvind Bijwe and Nikhil Shah from Pune joined our hands in this cause.
This is the third year in succession of the Kargil International Marathon and to mark this occasion we are publishing this Coffee Table Book.
We sincerely thank Dr Sanjay Parva, the Dept. of Tourism and Dept. of Culture, J&K, Gen (Retd) Ved Prakash Malik, all the professional associations in
Kargil, especially Shabbir and Ashraf Ali, and last but not the least, the Indian Army.
We hope this book will draw the attention of sportsmen and enthusiasts as well as tourists and tourist businesses across not just India but the world
and attract them to Kargil.
Pune,
May 17, 2019
May 17, 2019
