Colonel Narendra ‘Bull’ Kumar (retired) was born in Rawalpindi, now Pakistan, in 1933.
New Delhi:
Colonel Narendra ‘Bull’ Kumar (Retired), who contributed significantly to our country’s security by paving the way for India’s move to the Siachen Glacier, died on Thursday, the last day of 2020.
Born in Rawalpindi, now Pakistan, in 1933, the mountaineering legend led an Indian army expedition to the Siachin Glacier in April 1984. Preventive mobilization helped then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi launch Operation Meghdoot.
“We went on this expedition and that’s where we climbed all these high passes. Every time we went, Pakistanis would come and fly over us. And to make fun of us and make us aware that they knew (of our presence) they used to release colors. We smoked there. We were unarmed and quite scared, “Col Kumar had said in an earlier interview.
Little did the Pakistani forces know at the time that the company led by Colonel Narendra Kumar was going to pave the way for a full occupation of Saltoro, the mountain range that runs alongside the Siachen glacier.
Strategically speaking, whoever controls the Saltoro Range controls Siachen, the crucial strip of land that India occupies between Pakistan to the west and China further to the east.
Colonel Kumar skied all the passes, dominated by the Indian army, that led to the glacier and established the highest and most inhospitable battlefield in the world.
Colonel Narendra Kumar was part of the first successful climb of Mount Everest in India in 1965.
A few years earlier, in 1978, he had scaled the world’s third highest peak, Kanchenjunga, from its northeast spur, an attempt that had not been made in 45 years.
He also led expeditions to nine other Himalayan peaks above the altitude of 24,000 feet.
Colonel Narendra Kumar, affectionately known as “Bull”, was cremated today at Brar Army Square in Delhi. He was 87 years old.
In Indian mountaineering circles, 2020 will always be remembered as the year in which the country lost a legend.
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