Down the annals of history

HERITAGE

“We may now be certain that whenever India is called to put an army in the field, the Queen’s Own Sappers and Miners will be part of that army. Whenever the Madras Sappers have been employed, they have added to their reputation and are a distinction to the Presidency...”

These words of General Frederick Roberts, the Commander in Chief of the Madras Army and later of the Army in India, uttered in 1883, ring true to this day. The Madras Engineer Group (MEG) also known as the Madras Sappers, has a record of extraordinary  achievement both in times of war and peace.

A regiment of the Corps of Engineers of the Indian Army from November 1932, MEG traces its origins to 1780, when two companies of the Madras Pioneers were raised in the Madras Presidency.

On  September 30, 1780, the Madras Government issued a general order that the Madras Sappers must consist of private Pioneers, Naiks, Havildars, Corporals and Sergeants dressed in blue jackets  carrying light pistols or pikes 6 feet long. Their then monthly salary varied between two and three pagodas and a half.  

Located in Madras initially, the Sappers moved their base to Bangalore in 1834 and have remained here since then. Unsurprisingly, roads like Assaye and the erstwhile Meanee, leading to the MEG headquarters near the Ulsoor lake, are named after some of the places where the Thambis (an endearing reference to the Madras Sappers, meaning younger brother, in Tamil) attained glory. 

Marks of  prestige

A key engineering unit of the armed forces, the Madras Sappers have contributed significantly in many battles, gaining tremendous recognition. Their first action overseas was in 1801 in Egypt which earned them an honour Tel-El-Kebir represented by the Sphinx. The Golden Dragon and Bronze Bell were received for the Madras Sappers' exemplary service in the Chinese wars of 1840 and 1900, respectively.  

After the British Army began bestowing battle honours, the first such award in India went to the Madras Army for the battle of Carnatic and Sholingur in 1781-’82.  Havildar Chockalingam, a Madras Sapper earned a custom-made medal for his bravery in the Coorg campaign of 1834. The reward’s uniqueness was that it was named after him.

Inducted into the Order of British India First Class, Chockalingam’s three generations were also honoured. Madras Sapper, Subedar Subramaniam, the first ever Indian Army recipient of the George Cross (posthumous) saved six lives by flinging himself bodily atop a mine.

Lieutenant M R Rajwade, another Madras Sapper became the first Indian sapper to get the Military Cross in February 1945. He courageously established a bridge head across the Scheveli river to capture Rangoon. And Dhobi Ram Chander, a non- combatant Madras Sapper, cut through an enemy ambush to protect the life of an officer. In 1948, he became the only civilian ever to get the Mahavir Chakra.  

While the British annexed Sind, fifty Madras Sappers, carrying only fusils and bayonets, helped the Cheshire regiment at the Battle of Meanee in 1843, safeguarding lives of many. Acknowledging their comradeship, the Cheshires presented  cylindrical Shako caps to the Sappers. The current Thambi head dress called Doopta is a modification of this.

Lieutenant Colonel (retired) Dinkar Verma, a Madras Sapper for 37 years and the present Officer in Charge of the MEG’s Museum and Archives profiled the initial thambis. “The British recruited men who were sturdy, could work hard in rough terrain and ate meat”, he said. The Quinsaps (short for Queen Victoria’s Own Sappers) worked and lived together, ignoring cultural and religious differences and have their own song.

When an Inspecting Officer once asked a thambi his caste, he apparently replied “Sapper caste, sir”. Numbering around 33,000 during the second World War, there are nearly seven thousand Madras Sappers now.   Apart from men, the MEG has utilised yaks, mules, camels, horses, elephants, etc. Among them, the Grey Mule was the most distinguished, serving for thirty one years from 1891 onwards.  

Engineering marvels

Some of the Madras Sappers’ officers told Deccan Herald Spectrum that they are all trained as soldiers. During war, their work begins before the start of a battle and lasts until after combat ends. Their jobs include constructing bridges, digging trenches or ‘saps’ (from which they take their name), laying roads et al.  In the first World War, the thambis, guided by Major R L Mclintok in 1912, devised the Bangalore torpedo system.

Considered the most rapid method of passing through barbed wire entanglement, the equipment is used even today. And, in February 1917, 12, 13 and 15 Coys (short for companies) made a pontoon bridge on the river Tigris using heavy artillery, to assist the ‘14 Indian Division’ to cross the 300- yard wide water body.

In 1948, the MEG laid a road between Baltal and Zojilla in Jammu and Kashmir within a month undeterred by the frequent snowfall and direct mortar fire. This gave them Zojila, the first battle honour after Indian Independence.   

At peace time, the Thambis are busy with carpentry and plumbing for the army’s various establishments. They have also assisted civilians during natural disasters like the Gujarat earthquake in 2001, the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 and the North Karnataka floods in 2009. Previously, the Madras Sappers were responsible for creating the Godavari and Krishna anicuts (dams) under the leadership of Colonel Arthur Thomas Cotton (later a knighted General) in the early 1850’s.

They were also involved in railway construction from 1855 onwards, much before the advent of railway companies during World War II. The MEG demonstrated their technical prowess by laying the Coonoor Ootacamund railway line in 1907. For long, the Madras Sappers have excelled in sports like sailing, boxing, canoeing and endeavours aboard the Trishna, worldwide yachting trip and the Dakshin Gangotri Research Station in Antarctica.

As I headed towards the MEG gate, I felt that I was leaving a different world – one where the honour of a team and loyalty towards it are valued above other things in life.