Sam Bahadur and his Sunbeam

My previous post was about Sam Bahadur’s motorcycle. This one is about his car. This picture was published in an auto magazine which interviewed Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw when he was 90 years young. You can read the full article in this link.

Sam Bahadur with his immaculately maintained Sunbeam Rapier in Coonoor, Tamil Nadu . . .

Image: Hormazd Sorabjee

On a related note, this is one of Chennai’s war memorials - the Victory War Memorial. There is a larger one (the Madras War Cemetery) located in another part of the city. This memorial was originally built to remember those who laid down their lives in the First World War between 1914 - 1918. The Victory War Memorial has the names of all the 1,039 men who died in the First World War inscribed on it. It honours 936 men from the forces of the United Kingdom and 103 from undivided India. Later, minor additions were made to remember those who laid down their lives in the other wars, including the 1971 Indo-Pak War . . .

(The second photograph was taken by me and is copylefted. You are welcome to use it.)

Related post:

The Motorcycle Diaries (Part 3) - Sam Bahadur’s motorcycle

The Motorcycle Diaries (Part 3) - Sam Bahadur’s motorcycle

Sam Hormusji Framji Jamshedji Manekshaw, popularly known as Sam Bahadur, was the first person to hold the highest rank of Field Marshal of the Indian Army. He served in the army for four decades and took part in five wars, including the Second World War. He led India to a decisive victory in the 1971 war with Pakistan that led to the creation of Bangladesh.

Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw - A soldier’s Field Marshal . . .

Image: www.tribuneindia.com

Sam Bahadur was a lover of motorcycles and cars. There is a very interesting anecdote about his James motorcycle.

This is a 1946 James 122ML - Sam Bahadur must have owned a similar motorcycle . . .

Image: www.motorbike-search-engine.co.uk

Specifications of the 1946 James 122ML:

Engine - Villiers 9D 122cc, two-stroke single cylinder
Gears - 3 speed hand shift on tank
Power - 3 1/2 hp
Weight - 150 lb (68 kg)
Top Speed - 40 mph (64 kmph)
Note: This model is shod with original 1945 Dunlop Universal tyres

I quote a part of an article written by an old friend of Sam Bahadur, Ardeshir Cowasjee, taken from the website of the Pakistani newspaper Dawn. You can read the full article here.

Another good friend of Manekshaw from this side of the border was our Rangila Raja Gen Agha Mohammed Yahya Khan. At the time of partition Major Manekshaw and Major Yahya Khan were together on the staff of Field Marshal Sir Claude Auchinleck. Sam owned a red James motorcycle which Yahya had always had an eye on. He offered to buy it, and did, for the princely sum of Rs.1,000 which he promised to send over from Pakistan. Yahya, being Yahya, let it lapse. After the 1971 victory, Sam was heard to quip, “Yahya never paid me the Rs.1,000 for my motorbike, but now he has paid with half his country.”

Contrary to what most of the Indian media have been reporting, Yahya did offer to repay the debt:

When I (Ardeshir Cowasjee) met the Field Marshal I told him that Yahya had never forgotten the debt, but had never got round to it. I offered to pay back the Rs.1,000 with interest, on his behalf. No, no, said the Field Marshal, Yahya was a good man and a good soldier, we served together. There was not one mean or corrupt bone in his body. Your politicians are as bad as ours. Yahya was condemned without being heard. After he was put under house arrest at the end of December 1971, up to his death in 1980, he clamoured unceasingly for an open trial. Why was he condemned unheard?

Sam was buried quietly in his home in Tamil Nadu, a modest affair rather than the grand funeral he should have had in the capital, Delhi. The Prime Minister, the Army, Navy and Air Force chiefs all stayed away from the Field Marshal’s funeral. Many were angered by this lack of respect shown to the nation’s brave soldier and one website is devoted to the comments of Indian citizens on the reaction of their politicians: http://churumuri.wordpress.com/2008/06/28/if-you-have-to-die-can-you-please-do-so-in-delhi.As the editor writes, “The death of the only Indian to be appointed Field Marshal when in active service has been remarkable for the warmth of the ordinary men and women who queued up to say ‘thank you’ . . . It was also remarkable for the complete lack of grace and gratitude, civility and courtesy, decency and decorum on the part of the bold-faced names rapaciously grazing the lawns of power in Delhi and elsewhere, for the brain behind India’s only decisive military victory.”And a sentence which would have made Sam Bahadur chuckle: As he [Manekshaw] rightly surmised once: ‘I wonder whether those of our political masters who have been put in charge of the defence of the country can distinguish a mortar from a motor, a gun from a howitzer, a guerrilla from a gorilla – although a great many of them in the past have resembled the latter’.

Field Marshal Manekshaw died of complications from pneumonia at the Military Hospital in Wellington, Tamil Nadu on 0030 hours, June 27, 2008 at the age of 94.

He was laid to rest in Udhagamandalam, Tamil Nadu, with military honours, adjacent to his wife’s grave. He is survived by his two daughters and three grandchildren.

Reportedly, his last words were “I’m okay!”

You may have left us, Sam Bahadur, but the people of India and Bangladesh will never forget you!

Related posts:

The Motorcycle Diaries (Part 1)
A green ride on the Greenfly!

Patents versus Patients! (Part 2)

I am writing the second part of one of my previous posts titled Patents versus Patients! after a long time. The Indian courtrooms are witnessing a series of battles that are going to determine the fate of millions of Earthlings around the world. It is a war between those who want to kill millions of people by denying them life-saving medicines and those who want to save millions of lives. It is a war between the greed of a few and the lives of millions of Earthlings. In short, it is a war between evil and good! Let there be no doubt in anyone’s mind about which side I support in this war that may lead to more deaths than the Second World War if the killers win.

The right to life is a fundamental Human Right . . . so is the right to access life-saving medicines . . .

Image: www.sciencemuseum.org.uk

First, I shall include a press release from the team of noble international life-savers, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF or Doctors without Borders) below:

The Indian Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS (INP+), the Manipur Network of Positive People (MNP+), and the Lawyers’ Collective HIV/AIDS Unit officially submitted their opposition to a patent application filed in the Kolkata patent office by Glaxo Group Limited for Combivir, a fixed-dose combination of two AIDS drugs (zidovudine/lamivudine, or AZT/3TC). The opposition is based on technical and health grounds. If India grants a patent on this AIDS drug, it will set a precedent that will hamper access to affordable AIDS medicines worldwide.

“Affordable generic AIDS medicines have been one of the cornerstones of our ability to keep more people alive, including here in India where we began treating people with AIDS this year,” said Dr. Pehrolov Pehrson, of MSF’s treatment project in Manipur, where all patients on antiretrovirals receive generics produced in India. “Without a reliable supply of low cost AIDS drugs – made possible because medicines patents did not exist in India for many years – national governments and treatment providers alike will be faced with an uphill battle, and patients risk having vital treatment interrupted or priced out of their reach.”

Of the over 60,000 patients in nearly 30 countries in MSF projects, 84% receive generic AIDS medicines made in India. Over 90% of all patients using AZT/3TC in MSF projects are on generic versions of the drug. National treatment programmes in India, Burkina Faso, Mongolia, Central African Republic, Malawi, Peru, the Republic of Kyrgizstan, Cambodia, Ukraine and Swaziland heavily rely on generic AZT/3TC. The availability of affordable quality generic versions of Combivir (AZT/3TC) and other anti-retroviral medicines has allowed developing countries to put more people on treatment and thus extend their lives.

The Indian groups opposing the patent are arguing that Glaxo’s Combivir (AZT/3TC) is not a new invention but simply the combination of two existing drugs. They say the granting of such a patent risks increasing the cost of anti-retroviral treatment for many people living with HIV/AIDS, thereby further increasing the burden on developing countries already struggling to treat patients.

“Universal Access to AIDS medicines will remain an elusive goal if there isn’t a steady supply of affordable medicines. Decisions made by Indian patent offices are a question of life or death for people living with HIV/AIDS worldwide who rely on the availability of these drugs made in India,” said Ellen ‘t Hoen, Director of Policy Advocacy at MSF’s Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines.

Last year, India changed its patent law to comply with the World Trade Organization’s patent rules. Three weeks ago, India granted its first ever patent to Roche for a hepatitis C treatment.

However, the Indian Patent law allows oppositions to a patent application before it is granted. Indian cancer patients and generic drug manufacturers recently opposed a Novartis patent application for Gleevec (Imatinib Mesylate), an anti-cancer drug, on the grounds that the application claimed a new form of an old drug. The patent was subsequently rejected by the patent office. Petitioners are now demanding that the Combivir patent application be rejected on similar grounds.

Here is a part of another press release that shows how people are being blinded by denying them access to affordable medicines:

Many patients with advanced HIV/AIDS can fall prey to the infection, cytomegalovirus (CMV) which will if untreated, lead to total and irreversible blindness in a very short space of time – sometimes just weeks.Blindness caused by CMV is preventable, but the most available treatments are invasive and far from ideal – injections directly into the affected eye or intravenous, twice-daily treatment requiring a long stay in hospital.There is a better medicine available – an oral medication, valganciclovir, produced by Roche. This drug is patented in China and the company charges US$ 10,000 for a four-month supply – simply too expensive for the vast majority of people most at risk of going blind. It’s a similar situation in both India and Thailand – both middle- income countries where the product is patented. While the manufacturer offers discounts to the poorest countries – mainly in sub-Saharan Africa – middle-income countries including China are offered no such discount and are charged the same as wealthy countries.Dr. Peter Saranchuk has worked in China in both of MSF’s HIV projects – in Nanning and the recently closed XiangFan project treating patients with HIV/AIDS. He describes his experiences in treating CMV and the frustration of seeing patients suffer because the best medicines are unaffordable.

My previous post Patients versus Patients! focussed on one Swiss company Novartis. Here is another Swiss company, F Hoffman-La Roche that seems to have been involved in a shady deal to obtain a patent in India. A case is going to be filed in the Madras(Chennai) High Court against the violation of fundamental rights as well as the weakened patent law.

Here is the link to another battle that is taking place in the Indian courtrooms, this time between the Brazilian AIDS advocacy group ABIA (Brazilian Interdisciplinary AIDS Association) and the Indian NGO SAHARA (Centre for Residential Care & Rehabilitation) on one side and the American firm Gilead Sciences on the other.

Also, take a look at this link to an interesting discussion from the XVI International AIDS Conference.

It is clear from all these links that the Indian courts have become the battleground in a war which will determine the fate of millions of humans around the world. The evil forces will use the dirtiest tricks to succeed in their nefarious designs of killing people by denying them access to life-saving medicines and deriving pleasure in watching them suffer and die. They are true sadists! Shame on them!

(To be continued)

Related post:

Patents versus Patients! (Part 1)