Hukam Singh

(1938-1998)

I first met Hukam Singh when he was already a well-known mountaineer. We exchanged several letters, notes and ideas about expeditions. Whenever I planned an expedition he was helpful. One thing that struck me most was that he was well- loved by all his team-mates. Though they were his juniors in rank, he treated them as equals and that earned him respect.

After the I. T. B. Police climbed Everest, under Hukam Singh’s leadership, the team members were invited by several Police organisations all over the country to give talks. One day the entire team landed in Bombay but on a festival day. The Bombay police force was busy for the next two days and all functions were postponed. Hukam Singh phoned me with his predicament. I suggested he should come over, may be with one or two of his team members to my home and we can spend an evening together. Immediately he said that if he was to come anywhere the entire team will come with him. He was not to leave behind his members in a hotel to feast himself, even with a friend. This trip he treated like his duty.

So almost 20 persons crammed into my small flat. But it was an evening to remember. Many of the leading climbers in India were there with him and like true mountaineers they made themselves at home — they dined, shared jokes and we all had a wonderful time. But I could see that all of them adored ‘Sir’, as they called Hukam Singh. And reasons were not far to seek. If someone was sick he had looked after him, if a climber had died on the expedition Hukam Singh saw to it that his family had received full benefits soon, and in more ways than one he had selected them, helped them and put them on path to greater climbing. They were leading names in the Indian mountaineering field today and they owed it to Hukam Singh in some ways.

I met him several times during my visits to Delhi. Either smartly dressed in his office, informally at a hotel or relaxed in his house, he talked only one thing — mountains. We shared many topics about mountains, differed on some subjects and helped each other in several projects. When I met him last time he was sick and looked pale. But that glimmer of hope was still there. I said if he needed any help from Bombay just let me know. He smiled and said ‘Of course I will contact you, who else ?’

To comfort him I mentioned that he had come back from several expeditions successful despite adverse conditions. This sickness is one such ‘trip’ from which he will recover and it will be one more success against odds. But it was not to be. His health deteriorated too fast and he departed for the last trip.
I shall always miss him, Hukam Singh, a leading mountaineer of India.

Harish Kapadia

On 4 April 1998 a Hukam Singh[I] passed away in New Delhi. As per his wish, his ashes immersed in the Ganga at Haridwar. A large number of his near and dear ones were present at the cremation ground. His body was consigned to flames with full I.T.B. Police honours. Sadashige Inada, President of the Himalayan

Association of Japan was at the cremation ground. After collecting the ashes he drove with us to Haridwar. He also took an urn containing ashes to be dispersed over Fujiyama in Japan.

Hukam Singh was close to me as a friend and a relation. This was also because his wife Pushpa, my elder sister’s daughter was born and brought up in our household. My wife knew him from childhood as they both were class mates in Vth standard in the Primary School at Milam (in summers) and Bhainskhal (in winters), the mobile school shifted each year with the migratory population till the Chinese War of 1962 and the closure of Indo- Tibet border trade. Hukam’s father died when he was only 4 years old, leaving behind a son and widowed wife with no permanent source of livelihood. Her mother’s will to survive was well known in the entire valley and also for carrying the heaviest load of her household belongings during to and fro migration each year. Both he and her mother did hard work in fields at Milam to grow potatoes and other coarse grain. Hukam at times helped to sell milk and helped her in spining wool so that mother could weave woollen articles for their needs and cash balance to be sold in the Uttarayani fair at Bageshwar held in the month of January. Despite poverty, she was keen that her son should be educated in the newly opened Government High School at Tiksen, Munsiary. Each summer she could save and spare some cash, a small sack of rice and few other dry edibles for his schooling. Hukam Singh on her return from Milam in October provided her with the last helping of rice- meal, such was the bond of love and affection between the mother and the son. It was God’s kindness that she passed away a few years back and not be a witness to death of her son.

Hukam passed 10th class (Matric) from Munsiary where school teachers and principal remembered him as an exceptionally bright student who also excelled in sports, dramatics, other school and village cultural activities like ‘Ram Lila’. Amongst his school mates he was their natural leader who gave necessary help and tuition to needy students and also voluntered to be a cook for the group of students staying together in the village. He performed as a lead singer in the morning prayers in the Primary School. He always appeared active, smart and cheerful. As he had no means to continue his studies, he joined Army as a ‘Jawan’ and later qualified as an Emergency Commissioned Officer. Thereafter, he like a Karma Yogi never looked back and availed of all opportunities which came his way. Apart from being a professional soldier — Addl. Dy. Inspector General of I.T.B. Police — he summitted nine peaks in India and abroad, planned 29 expeditions including the latest successful expedition to Aconcagua (22834 ft) in the Andes, South America around the end of January 1998, under the auspices of his newly formed ‘Indian Adventure and Mountaineering Association’. To the ITB Police he was mountaineering advisor before his death, he was many times national Ski Champion and was father of skiing in ITBP especially at Auli, near Joshimath. He was a member of the Indian Mountaineering Foundation. He held the unique distinction of successfully leading expeditions to Everest and Kangchenjunga. He was the Secretary Winter Games Federation of India.

A recipient of Indian Police Medal for meritorious service, President’s Police Medal for distinguished service, IMF Gold Medal for distinguished mountaineering, and Padmashri (1992), he was honoured in 1994 by Government of UP with award of Rs. 1 lakh and commendation. In the same year, he received the National Adventure Award from Government of India..

At 59, Hukam defied age — born (1938) in remote Darkot village Munsiary (Pithoragarh) — he was a self made man in real sense. He held positive views, always vigorous, cheerful and busy planning new ventures to achieve higher goals. To an untiring man like him ‘life itself was an expedition’. Apart from leading an Everest expedition from the North Face (Tibet side), his heartfelt desire was to promote tourism, skiing and mountaineer¬ing especially in the proposed hill state of Uttarakhand. He had formed a trust in the name of his mother to help financially weaker boys and girls to undergo mountaineering and other adventure courses. His hobbies were photography, reading and writing. Apart from many articles, he wrote two books, Kangchenjunga, published in 1994 and Indo-Japanese Kangchenjunga Expedition 1991 co-authored by him and Yoshio Ogata in Japanese, published by the Himalayan Association of Japan.

He was everready to oblige anyone in need. He was willing to take up any assignment. He was a great talent spotter of world class mountaineers like Santosh Yadav, only woman to climb Everest twice and she respectfully admits Hukam as her ‘Guru’. To name few others whom he spotted: S. D. Sharma, Kanhaya Lal and T. Smanla.

On the penultimate day of his death he was in full senses. He even dictated a letter addressed to one of his Japanese friend and appeared calm and peaceful. We felt that he was quiet and not talking probably to conserve energies. Despite the fact that he must be having acute pain, he did not express it which explains his keen desire and bold character to reach ‘summit of life’ and was struggling hard with single minded devotion, for he had many unfinished tasks in hand. But the cruel hands of destiny did not permit him to do so.

We can now only pray to Almighty God to rest his noble soul peace. He is survived by wife Pushpa, elder son Yogesh, daughter Arpana and younger son Raju.

H. C. S. Rawat