Ignoring these irritants as trivialities and following his passion, Hardit earned the coveted ‘Wings’, his name etched in history forever, as India’s first fighter pilot. At the end of a great struggle, Hardit enrolled as a cadet in RFC during March 1917, soon graduating with an “honorary” commission, denying him the pay and status to command British troops. Having heard many exploits of his war-hero, Guynemer, the ace French fighter pilot, Hardit cherished the dream of flying a military plane – a feat that didn’t seem possible, until the demand for pilots grew in the face of heavy losses, when some sympathetic voices in Whitehall supported enlisting Indians into the RFC. Little did he know then, that he would be the first Indian Ambassador to France, soon after Indian Independence.
LION IN HINDI LANGUAGE DRIVER
Being a Sikh, he had a natural liking for military service, but being denied soldiering for being a man of colour, he enrolled himself as an ambulance driver in France, ferrying volunteer nurses and wounded men to the hospital during the Great War. As a young boy in school, he had to fight hard, just to keep his turban and faith intact.įollowing the footsteps of the legendary Ranjitsinghji (Ranji), who successfully battled extreme opposition to play for England purely on merit, Hardit weathered many a storm before he could play for Sussex County Cricket Club. It is entirely to the credit of Hardit that he surpassed every obstacle with hope, enthusiasm, and the highest level of emotional maturity.
It is a pity that our school history books don’t even mention his name, even though his story could be an inspiration for an entire generation.Īuthor Stephen Barker describes in great detail, how challenging it was for an Indian to serve in the British armed forces, fighting racial discrimination – both institutional and interpersonal. From the moment he set out sailing to London – all alone as a 14-year-old, until he breathed his last little short of his 91st birthday, Hardit Singh Malik’s voyage of life is an outstanding saga of self-belief, grit, determination, courage, patriotism, valour and more.
It is indeed difficult to believe that a Rawalpindi boy from an orthodox Sikh family ended up fighting Germans, flying both for Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and the Royal Air Force (RAF) during the First World War, at a time when military aviation was considered an exclusive privilege of the European elite.