Thimayya: An Amazing Life

Recently, Field marshal SHFJ Manekshaw, MC, was asked who, in his opinion, had been the best General of the Indian Army. “Timmy, of course,” General Thimayya was not only a brilliant tactician and strategist but one whose vision went beyond everyone else’s. The challenges he faced, and his response to them, were simply incomparable.” It is amazing how Thimaya became an important actor in some of the major legacies of conflict of the mid 20th century: Korea, Kashmir, the Chinese Hegemony in Asia, and Cyprus. He was the only Indian who commanded a bridge in World War II and later in Japan as part of the occupation force. He was the only Indian general who was invited to the Japanese surrender ceremony in named in Nicosia, Cyprus, and whose Government also issued a special stamp in his memory. As Commander, Punjab Boundary Force. He handled the holocaust of partition and saved thousands of refugees; it became such an achievement that made the famous poet Faiz Ahmed say in this praise; Na Hindu, Na Mulalman, sirf insaniat the Thimayya ka iman (Thimayya was neither Hindu nor Muslim. Humanity alone was his sole faith.) The war he fought in Kashmir against the British-led Pakistani Army, showed his strategic brilliance. As Chairman of the NNRC in Korea, he earned what President Eisenhower called the ‘respect of both sides by firmness and impartiality of his decisions in the face of conflicting pressures and moral view points. He became an instant celebrity. The biography would be of immense interest to historians, defence and Thimayya admires.