Gurdaspur: Every morning, Balwinder Kaur and her husband Balwinder Singh begin their day by counting down the minutes until 11 pm. That’s when their son Gagandeep, 24, is able to call them from Ukraine, where he is fighting on the frontlines for the Russian army. Only after hearing his voice do they go to sleep, knowing he has survived another day. And then the next morning, the sickening wait for the 11 pm call starts all over again.
Gagandeep’s parents have been on tenterhooks since March, when he and six other co-travellers from Punjab and Haryana were “forcefully” recruited to serve on the battlefield. The Gurdaspur family’s agony intensified last week when the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) confirmed the death of two Indian men from Punjab. Immediately, Gagandeep’s parents were bombarded with calls from officials inquiring about their son’s whereabouts.
“Media, police, IAS officers, everyone called to ask about my son. I was so scared,” said Balwinder Singh.
The MEA confirmed the identity of Tejpal Singh from Amritsar, while the second fighter is yet to be identified. Two other Indian nationals, 23-year-old Hemal Ashwinbhai Mangua from Gujarat and 30-year-old Mohammed Asfan from Hyderabad, died earlier this year. Reportedly, over a hundred Indian men have been forced to take up arms for Russian forces after joining as “security helpers”.
The MEA’s 11 June statement said it had “strongly taken up the matter” of their release with the Moscow authorities as well as the Russian ambassador in Delhi. It also demanded a halt to further recruitment. “Such activities would not be in consonance with our partnership,” the statement said.
But for families like Gagandeep’s, this is cold consolation.
“The war is brutal, anything can happen. I fear the worst,” a distraught Kaur said at the family’s bare-bones three-bedroom house in Gurdaspur, where desert coolers did little to dispel the heat.
Gagandeep spoke briefly with ThePrint via the Imo app Sunday, but the call was cut short by sirens.
“There is danger here; I need to go back into my bunker,” he said and cut the call with the promise of getting back in touch in an hour. ThePrint has been unable to contact him since.
Gagandeep continues to fight in a war he didn’t sign up for, for a country he doesn’t love, and for a cause he doesn’t believe in.
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‘Asked to choose between jail & army’
Gagandeep’s journey to a war zone began with a dream to work abroad. The trip to Russia in December, he claimed, was meant to “strengthen” his passport for a future Schengen visa.
Also travelling with him, with the help of the same agent, were six other men—Lovepreet Singh (24), Narain Singh (22), Gurpreet Singh (21), and Gurpreet Singh (23) from Punjab, and Harsh Kumar (20) and Abhishek Kumar (21) from Haryana.
But a couple of months into the trip, things went awry. On 3 and 4 March, the group sent out SOS videos, pleading with the Indian government to bring them back.
“If you don’t bring us back now, you won’t even be able to find our dead bodies,” one of them said in the first video.
Speaking to ThePrint, Gagandeep said the men were “duped” by a taxi driver, setting off a harrowing chain of events.
“The driver told us we could visit Belarus in accordance with our visa. So, we all paid him $100 each and left for Belarus. But in the middle, he asked for more money. We didn’t have it so he left us stranded on the road. That’s when the police apprehended us and handed us over to the army,” Gagandeep recounted.
The police, Gagandeep’s father added, told them they had two choices: spend 10 years in prison, or serve in the army for a year. The men, all in their 20s, chose the latter.
My son is a vegetarian, but in Russia, only meat and rice are served. And we don’t even know which animal’s meat is put on the table
-Balwinder Singh, Gagandeep’s father
However, after their video statement circulated in India, those at the camp were separated from each other.
“They found solidarity among themselves; the Russians probably didn’t like it,” Balwinder Singh said bitterly.
The family is now worried that the unidentified casualty from Punjab could be one of Gagandeep’s friends.
ThePrint has emailed MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal to enquire about the Indian government’s efforts to repatriate the young men. This report will be updated when he responds.
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‘All money spent on macaroni’
Sometimes during the day, Balwinder Kaur is unable to breathe. She gets palpitations, breaks into a sweat, and is unable to sit straight—panic attacks have become a daily part of her life ever since Gagandeep was sucked into a battle thousands of kilometres away. She is able to get by only with the help of her nieces who have travelled from a nearby district to stay with her and help her with household work.
“I am so depressed I have started forgetting things. Don’t ask me,” she said.
Her husband, meanwhile, has been busy writing letters to various government ministries and departments—the MHA, MEA, the Punjab Chief Minister, the local administration, and the police.
“I feel helpless. What else can I do?” Singh said. He added that some parents of the men met with Home Minister Amit Shah, who has assured help. The families have also contemplated sitting on a dharna at Jantar Mantar.
A small farmer, Singh once owned nearly three acres of land but sold most of it to fund Gagandeep’s dream of working abroad. However, financial worries pale in comparison to his current anxieties. He barely eats and rarely leaves home, haunted by the image of his son in a war zone.
“I don’t even know what he gets to eat. My son is a vegetarian, but in Russia, only meat and rice are served. And we don’t even know which animal’s meat is put on the table,” Singh said.
I wouldn’t have cared if his life was on the line for India. But this is different; he needs to be brought back immediately.
-Balwinder Singh
What also bothers him is that Gagandeep has only one uniform set with him.
“They could at least give him two separate sets. He doesn’t get to change,” Singh said.
Gagandeep has a bank account in Russia in which he receives a salary, but most of his money goes into buying macaroni, which is all he eats there, according to Singh.
Despite the circumstances, serving in the army, voluntarily or involuntarily, has earned these families a certain respect in their villages. They are seen as having sons who are “faujis”.
This also holds true for Vikramjeet Singh and Manjeet Singh from Dinanagar in Gurdaspur, who were apprehended by the Russian police and returned to India in March itself.
“The media reported that I fought on the front, but I never did. Since we were young and short, we were sent back,” said Manjeet, who is 5 ft 5 inches tall.
Balwinder Singh claimed that the seven young men have received discharge slips from the Russian foreign ministry, but their commanders refuse to sign them.
Until then, Gagandeep continues to fight in a war he didn’t sign up for, for a country he doesn’t love, and for a cause he doesn’t believe in.
“I wouldn’t have cared if his life was on the line for India,” Singh said. “But this is different; he needs to be brought back immediately.”
(Edited by Asavari Singh)
Papa war kyon nahi rukwate? If he could do it to help students, why can he not do it for these men?