‘It is time to remember that every person, no matter how humble he is and no matter where they can live, can shape all courses in history’. Photo Credit: Getty Images
Eighty years ago, on 8 May, 1945, World War II officially ended in Europe’s sovereignty of Nazi Germany’s surrender in the forces of the powers of the Allies in RIMS and Berlin. It is a day that is celebrated as a victory in Europe (VE) Day, but no one goes to attention in India where the years of war (1939–1945) are remembered as the conclusion of the struggle for large-scale freedom. Therefore, remembering that Indians never gave their responsibility towards the world, neither in war nor peace, because the life of two unheard Indians testifies.
Born in a poor family in Uyuru in Andhra Pradesh in 1899, Kolchala Sitaramaiah’s educational talent earned him a rare opportunity to study abroad. After paying its way to the United States as a coal stoker on a steamship, Sitaramayya also earned three patents along with a masters degree from Chicago and Yale Universities in Chemistry. However, the impact of Great Depression in 1929 questioned him the inequalities of capitalist society. In a bold step, he moved to the USSR in the 1930s and set to work in petrochemical research.
From frontline to laboratory
When Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, his life took a turn. Naked ambition and racism in Nazi propagation left Sitaramaiya behind. Assuming that the USSR was truly standing amidst fascism and their motherland, India’s rapid expansion, he voluntarily asked to go to the Soviet Frontlines. However, he was recognized and taken out of the recruitment line by an officer, which said that Sitaramayya’s brain “as a weapon, not as a goal,”.
In the early days of World War II, the Soviet tank faced serious technical problems. Sitaramayya threw himself into research and developed kerosene-based fuel and special lubricants for Soviet tanks, which improved their dynamics and performance in sub-zero situations. Due to his efforts, the battle-tank battle-tank battle in 1943-T-34 tank improved a lot of Nazis’ Penzers and Tiger tanks. For the first time in the war, an aggressive aggressive halt of the Nazi Jugrant was stalled.
Start a military career
At a distance of two hundred miles from Wuyyuru, a young man from a Yamani dynasty in Hyderabad gave up a life of privilege to join the Royal Indian Air Force in 1941. Indian pilots like Idris were initially entrusted by the British to fly the old biplales on patrolling patrol in the northwest. But after the UK battle attracted the Royal Air Force, Indian pilots, including Idris, were taken to UK to prepare for the final D-Day landing in counter aggressive-nominations. Until 1944, German Luftwaf lost control of Europe’s sky. Idris was then deployed in Burma. He blows the hawker storm in the humid sky under a ruthless sun to strain the Japanese army columns and shut down the deadly Japanese “zero” fighters. While exiting moist, dirty landing strips, in the mosquito-infected forests, he fell seriously ill, but does not leave his squadron.
At the end of the war, Sitaramaiya was awarded the Soviet Samman. His research in motor oils laid the foundation for chemotology or tribunalmistry – the field of science which is related to chemical changes induced in materials through mechanical energy. Based on his observation of the monks who set fire during World War II, they researched the fourth state substance, plasma properties in his later years, which were important to achieve controlled nuclear fusion. When he died in 1977, the then Indian Ambassador to the USSR (and later the Prime Minister of India) said, “We said goodbye to a great scientist. A great son of India … and a son of mankind.”
Mriduching Youth Pilot, Idris received the British appreciation at the VE Day celebrations in London in 1946. At the time of partition, his brother decided to go to Pakistan and asked Idris to join him. Idris denied the point blank, saying that he would always be in the land where his ancestors were buried. He separated the reasons for his brother to “What does religion have to do with nationality?”.
A completely professional, passionate flyer and a Patriot, Air Chief Marshal Idris Hasan Latif, PVSM became the 10th head of the Indian Air Force in 1978. He included me in the years when he visited a Normandi’s visit to one of the best memories of ACM Latif when he was the Ambassador of India for France (1985–88).
India-France Defense Relations, now celebrated with the Indian Air Force’s Rafale Fighter Jet, is not a small part of the Crucible of World War II.
Every man for the wheel
Victory in Europe Day is not a celebration for Europe only. It is an opportunity to pay tribute to millions of people around the world including India, in which there was a financial difficulty and even famine to enable that victory. This is a moment to remember the valor of soldiers like Idris Latif and the talent of scientists like Kolachala Sitaramaiah who fought a cruel war for freedom without expecting glory or recurrence. It is time to remember that every person, no matter how humble and no matter where they can live, can shape the course of all history. In the words of Srisri, a contemporary poet, which both heroes must have read, I also gave a insolent voice, which shakes the sky and roar! “
King Kartikeya is currently working on a book as to how individuals take personal decisions in front of communities with adverse effects. He is the grand nephew of Kolachala Sitaramaiya
Published – May 09, 2025 12:08 AM IST