Col Narendra ‘Bull’ Kumar who helped India secure Siachen Glacier passes away at 84

NEW DELHI: Colonel Narendra ‘Bull’ Kumar, a highly decorated Army officer and a ‘death-defying’ mountaineer
passed away at the Army’s Research and Referral (R&R) hospital here at 84 on Thursday after suffering from age-related ailments.
He was instrumental in convincing India’s military leadership about the strategic importance of the Siachen Glacier. Colonel Narendra's reconnaissance expedition to the glacier led the Indian Army to launch Operation Meghdoot in 1984 to secure the icy heights from an evident Pakistan aggression.If he had not undertaken this expedition, all of Siachen Glacier — area covering almost 10,000 sq km — would be of Pakistan today.
Lt Gen Sanjay Kulkarni (Retd), former DG infantry, who was trained at Indian Army’s High Altitude Warfare School, Gulmarg, as Lieutenant when Colonel Kumar was its commanding officer and who also participated in Op Meghdoot, told TOI that “Col Kumar earned the nickname ‘Bull’ after he had a bout with his senior Sunith Francis Rodrigues at the National Defence Academy. Though Rodrigues won the match and later became the Army chief, Kumar earned the name ‘Bull” for himself. Like a bull, he would take challenges head-on without bothering about the consequences. A legendary mountaineer, a true gentleman and an officer.”
Col Kumar’s Siachen mission started after a German explorer showed him an American map of northern Kashmir that marked the LoC much further to the east than he expected. Realising that the US appeared to have cartographically ceded a large chunk of eastern Karakoram, including Siachen, to Pakistan, Col Kumar sent the map straight to the then DGMO, and sought permission to do a recce. Col Kumar and his team crossed seven mountain ranges — Pir Panjal Range, Himalayas, Zanskar, Ladakh, Saltoro, Karakoram and Agil — and gathered valuable intelligence about Pakistan’s intention to occupy the Siachen.
“Soon after Col Kumar’s recce in 1978, India started long-range patrols of the glacier extending upto 2-3 months in 1982, ’83 and ’84 to keep an eye on Pakistan’s designs. In 1984, Pakistan wanted to launch an operation on May 1 to conquer Siachen but India pre-empted their attack by launching Op Meghdoot on April 13, 1984,” Lt Gen (R) Kulkarni told TOI. To honour Col Kumar’s immense contribution to the mission, an Army base in Siachen is named after him as ‘Kumar Base’, an honour generally given to martyrs, he said.
Born in Rawalpindi in 1933, Kumar entered the Army in 1950. He was commissioned in Kumaon Rifles in June 1954. The mountain bond was born when Col Kumar met Tenzing Norgay, director of the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute, in Darjeeling. The soldier-mountaineer, who had lost four of his toes to frostbite in 1961, was the first to scale Nandadevi (1964), first to put India on Mt Everest in 1965 and first to climb Kanchenjunga from its toughest north-east face in 1976 — a mountaineering feat described by the British Alpine Journal as “far more difficult than the Everest ascent”. He had also entered the oxygen-depleted death zone of Everest above 8,000 m for over 20 times.
Even his list of medals is long. In 1965, Col Kumar was awarded Padma Shri and later Arjuna Award for the Everest expedition. Kumar is the only colonel to this day with Param Vishisht Seva Medal (PVSM) distinction in all three services, which is generally accorded to Generals. He was also awarded Kirti Chakra and Ati Vishisht Seva Medal.
Like the father, his children had also won laurels. Married to Mridula, Col Kumar’s daughter Shailaja Kumar is India's first woman winter Olympian, who participated in Alpine skiing in 1988. His son Akshay Kumar was an adventure travel professional who ran Mercury Himalayan Explorations, one of the first rafting companies to navigate the Ganges and Brahmaputra. But in September this year, Akshay died of a cardiac arrest in Delhi. Col Kumar had been "heartbroken since then".