Gallantry Awards: Param Vir Chakra to Shaurya Chakra, with MCQs

India's gallantry decorations are among the most dependable topics in the awards chapter, because the list is short, the rules were fixed in the first years after Independence and nothing about them changes from one year to the next. The whole subject rests on one distinction: some medals are given for bravery in the face of the enemy and others for bravery away from the field of battle. Once that division is clear, the six main awards fall into two neat columns of three, and every question in the paper is drawn from those columns.

The two families of gallantry awards

The wartime decorations, the Param Vir Chakra, Maha Vir Chakra and Vir Chakra, were instituted on 26 January 1950 with effect from 15 August 1947, so that acts of bravery from the very first days of the Republic could be recognised. The peacetime decorations, the Ashoka Chakra, Kirti Chakra and Shaurya Chakra, were instituted in January 1952, also with retrospective effect from 15 August 1947. They were first called Ashoka Chakra Class I, Class II and Class III, and were given their present names in January 1967. All six are conferred by the President of India and are ordinarily announced on Republic Day and Independence Day.

The order of precedence

Examiners like this list because it interleaves the two families instead of placing one after the other. The order is Param Vir Chakra, Ashoka Chakra, Maha Vir Chakra, Kirti Chakra, Vir Chakra and Shaurya Chakra. Reading it aloud a few times is the simplest way to remember that the Ashoka Chakra stands above the Maha Vir Chakra, which is the single point most often got wrong. An important rule follows from the peacetime family: the Ashoka Chakra, Kirti Chakra and Shaurya Chakra may be given to civilians as well as to members of the armed forces, while the three wartime chakras are for acts in the presence of the enemy.

The Param Vir Chakra in detail

The Param Vir Chakra, whose name means the wheel of the ultimate brave, is the highest military decoration of India and is awarded for the most conspicuous act of bravery in the presence of the enemy, on land, at sea or in the air. It was designed by Savitri Khanolkar, a woman of Swiss and Hungarian parentage who married an Indian army officer, took Indian citizenship and drew deeply on Indian tradition for the design. The medal is circular and made of bronze, and around the state emblem at its centre are four replicas of the vajra, the thunderbolt of Indra, which in the old story was fashioned from the bones of the sage Dadhichi, who gave up his body so that the weapon could be made. The name of the award is inscribed in Hindi and in English on the reverse.

The first Param Vir Chakra was awarded posthumously to Major Somnath Sharma of the 4th Kumaon for the action at Badgam near Srinagar in November 1947, where his company held off a far larger force of raiders and kept the airfield out of their hands. Among later recipients, the four of the Kargil conflict of 1999 are the most asked: Captain Vikram Batra and Lieutenant Manoj Kumar Pandey, both posthumously, and Grenadier Yogendra Singh Yadav and Rifleman Sanjay Kumar, who survived.

Other decorations worth knowing

Beyond the six chakras, three service specific gallantry medals are awarded, the Sena Medal in the Army, the Nao Sena Medal in the Navy and the Vayu Sena Medal in the Air Force. Distinguished service, as distinct from gallantry, is recognised by the Param Vishisht Seva Medal, the Ati Vishisht Seva Medal and the Vishisht Seva Medal, and in wartime by the Sarvottam Yudh Seva Medal, the Uttam Yudh Seva Medal and the Yudh Seva Medal. For civilians who risk their own lives to save another, there is the Jeevan Raksha Padak series, with the Sarvottam Jeevan Raksha Padak at its head, and for the police there is the President's Police Medal for Gallantry. One fact from this group is asked often: Neerja Bhanot, the flight purser killed while protecting passengers on a hijacked aircraft in 1986, was the first woman to receive the Ashoka Chakra.

How to revise

Learn three things and the chapter is secure. First, the two columns of three, wartime against peacetime. Second, the order of precedence with the Ashoka Chakra in second place. Third, the small set of names: Savitri Khanolkar for the design, Major Somnath Sharma for the first Param Vir Chakra, Neerja Bhanot for the first woman awarded the Ashoka Chakra, and the Kargil four. Avoid memorising how many Param Vir Chakras have been awarded in all, since that figure moves and a paper set in an earlier year may carry a different one.