CHANDIGARH: The memoir of India's first combat journalist, Flowers on a Kargil Cliff, will feature in a book discussion at the prestigious Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF) 2025. The Chandigarh-based author and journalist of 33 years experience, Vikram Jit Singh, has been invited to speak on the unique experiences and challenges he faced while in the front lines of fire with Rashtriya Rifles and regular Infantry battalions during Kashmir Counter-Insurgency Operations (CI-Ops) and with assault troops in the Kargil War at heights above 15, 000 feet.
Singh was the only mediaperson permitted twice by HQs 15 Corps, Srinagar, to climb to the Kargil heights and Pakistani bunkers with assault troops. Singh enjoys the unique distinction of staying the night at 15, 700 feet under Pakistani fire with the 12 Jammu & Kashmir Light Infantry troops on July 7-8, 1999, at Point 4812, Khalubar ridge, Batalik LoC.
Singh's session at the JLF titled, Writing War and Valour, will be held on February 3, 2025, from 3 pm to 3.50 pm in the Front Lawn pavilion at the Hotel Clarks Amer. It will be moderated by retired Indian Navy commander, Srikant Kesnur.
The book has been described by the respected defence portal, Bharatshakti (founded by Nitin Gokhale), as an "invaluable product for journalists on the defence beat". The Siachen legend and former Director-General, Infantry, at Army HQs, Lt. Gen. Sanjay Kulkarni (retd.), Shaurya Chakra, Sena Medal, has written in the book that "Vikram has been baptised under fire as a war correspondent, and has operated less as a correspondent and more as a soldier in Kashmir...Truthful reporting is his forte...An inspirational journalist".
Lt. Gen. Mohinder Puri, PVSM, UYSM (retd.), who led the 8 Mountain Division in the battles for Tololing and Tiger Hill during the Kargil War, has similarly written in the book: "Vikram Jit, a young war correspondent, unhesitatingly accompanied troops during some daring counter-insurgency operations in Jammu & Kashmir while I was commanding the 8 Mountain Division. Later, during the Kargil War, he even climbed to the high-altitude battlefields twice with the troops. He was perhaps our first war correspondent to have been baptised under fire."
Jaipur-based Col. VS Bhalothia (retd.), Sena Medal Gallantry, who commanded the 12 JAK Light Infantry in the Batalik LoC sector during the Kargil War, has written in the book: "When the going got tough and enemy artillery shells and bullets were flying all over the icy peaks of Batalik, Kargil War, there was a person in civies covering that unique battle for posterity. It was none other than the frontline, daredevil war correspondent, Vikram Jit Singh. He was the only non-combatant to have climbed the Batalik heights and stayed the night with troops under fire. His presence at Point 4812 was quite a morale booster for the men in olive greens --- to see a non-combatant in civies, rubbing shoulders with them and going through all those hardships for which he was never trained. A no-nonsense, die-hard professional that he is, his reporting of Batalik made him a household name in the country and even today war history writers refer to his jottings to complete their narration of that war in Batalik.