20 years of research
With 1,100 photographs dating back to World War II and 20 years of research on the genesis and history of the National Defence Academy (NDA), which turns 75 next year, Dr Kishori Lal’s latest book National Defence Academy: A Timeline (1941-2022) captures the essence, ethos and the spirit of the premier tri-services academy of the country.
An author and retired professor of English from the NDA, Kishori Lal, 75, calls his 280-page coffee table book a “printed panorama of an eventful and fascinating history of the NDA”.
“The book has archival material from NDA’s earliest roots in 1941. The genesis of the joint military training in India is in the lessons from World War II that the three services had to be fully integrated to be effective in operations. While the British military leaders first mooted the idea, it was India’s visionary statesmen and far-sighted political leadership of that period, who gave full backing to the proposal, says Kishori Lal, who retired from the NDA in 2007.
As he enthusiastically talks about the book, Kishori Lal’s affection and respect towards the NDA are evident. “The book chronicles the formation of a high-powered committee to prepare a scheme for setting up a Military Academy. On the lines of US West Point, an experimental Inter-Service Wing of the already established Indian Military Academy, Dehradun, was set up in January 1949,” says Kishori Lal, who still spends the majority of his time researching future projects.
Dr Kishori Lal’s latest book National Defence Academy: A Timeline (1941-2022) captures the essence, ethos and the spirit of the premier tri-services academy of the country.
“As if a six-year sojourn at Dehradun’s Clement Town billets for Italian prisoners of war was not enough, the site chosen for the academy’s permanent home was located among yet another array of dilapidated barracks at Khadakwasla, where the British had run a Combined General Warfare School for training troops during World War II,” he adds.
“The journey from that time period to the present, when the NDA stands as one of the finest military academies in the world, is all depicted in the book, and that too with photographs. It was high time for the academy to tell a global story that the world would need to know,” says Kishori Lal.
The author has to his credit multiple publications that capture various personas of the NDA like A Bouquet of Cadets’ Poems (1993), National Defence Academy: Forty Years at Khadakwasla (1955-1995), Adventure in Uniform: Land, Water and Sky (2000), Humour in Uniform: A Potpourri from National Defence Academy (2005), National Defence Academy: A Monograph (2006), Lexicon for Indian Armed Forces: English for Specific Purpose (2016) etc.
Kishori Lal says that in addition to answering several key questions about the NDA’s genesis, the book will be a valuable resource for those who love and respect the academy, those who want to know more about it, and those who are interested in the military history of the country and the world.
