Hello, Warriors! One of India’s most celebrated military officers, Lieutenant General (retired) Jacob Farj Rafael Jacob passed away on January 13th. JFR Jacob, was head of the Indian Army’s eastern command during the 1971 India-Pakistan war that resulted in the creation of Bangladesh.
The 93-year-old passed away around 8.30 am at the Army Hospital (Research and Referral) due to pneumonia.
Born in Kolkata (then Calcutta) in 1923, Jack Farj Rafael Jacob grew up in a conservative Baghdadi Jews household under the British rule. His family had origins in Iraq. Jacob did his schooling from Victoria School in Kurseong, West Bengal.
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As a teenager, Jacob was strongly influenced by wartime poetry. Unmarried and childless, Jacob wrote an open letter to the youth of Delhi at 93, addressing them as his “sons and daughters”.
Jacob had joined the British army at the age of 18 “to fight the Nazis”. This kid later on went to command the Eastern Indian Army and played a pivotal role in defining the Indian Army’s strategy during the course of operations.
In the 1971 war, he designed a “war of movement” plan which was to capture all of East Pakistan including Dhaka by avoiding the towns in between and using secondary routes to reach the capital city. This plan, carried in just 15 days, made the Indian Army’s incursion of Dhaka successful.
After graduating from Officer’s Training School Mhow in 1942, Jacob also fought in World War II in northern Iraq, North Africa, Burma (now Myanmar), Sumatra, etc. He went on to graduate from artillery schools in England and the United States, where he got special training in advanced artillery and missiles and went on to serve for 37 years in different ranks in the Army.
After being promoted to Brigadier in 1963, he fought in the 1965 Indo-Pakistani War. Later on, Jacob was promoted to Major General in 1967.
In 1971, Lt General Jacob was credited responsible for getting the Pakistani Commander Lt General AAK Niazi to sign the surrender document allegedly by blackmailing him that he would let the Mukti Bahini, the force of Bengali freedom fighters, loose on Pakistani nationals in Dhaka if he didn’t sign. Handing the document to General Niazi, which asked for Pakistan Army’s unconditional surrender, Jacob gave him 30 minutes to decide. Niazi accepted the conditions.
A strong supporter of India-Israel ties, the General joined the BJP in the 1990s and served as a security advisor to the party.
“I’ve never experienced any anti-Semitism in India, none whatsoever. When everyone asked me why I did not go to Israel, I told them I was born in India, India gave me everything, I will die in India,” Lt General Jacob had said in an interview.
The great legend had always and will continue to inspire the generations of soldiers and leaders to come.
