Major Bakhtawar Singh Brar, decorated WWII veteran and Delano farmer, dies at 109

Jul. 23—Major Bakhtawar Singh Brar, a former soldier in the Indian Army whose career spanned the vast, turbulent history of modern India, a world besieged by war and a second life as a successful farmer in Delano, Calif., died on July 3 at his home. He was 109.

His cause of death, as explained by his son, Dr. Harbinder Brar, was old age. The centenarian took great care of himself, and continued working in his Delano office until the age of 106.

The subject of documentaries, textbooks, magazine articles and television, Bakhtawar Brar led a life spanning two continents, two pandemics — the Spanish Flu and COVID-19 — and two world wars.

"He had an amazing 109 years around the sun," Dr. Harbinder Brar said. "I don't know a single person who he touched that didn't admire him."

Bakhtawar Brar was born Nov. 19, 1913, in a village in North Faridkot district, the South-western part of India's Punjab state. Though reared in a family of farmers, he went to school and in 1934 joined the Faridkot State Forces, who protected Indian monarchy under British India.

Following the start of the second world war, Bakhtawar Brar served as an officer in the British Indian army.

"He was born into a very poor farmer family in the Faridkot district of undivided Punjab and moved about bare feet," said N N Bhatia, a retired colonel who served alongside Bakhtawar Brar in India's Kumaon regiment, in an interview with the India Times. "After studying and struggling hard, he enrolled in the Army and took part in World War II."

In his line of duty, he fought in bloody battles against the Japanese in India, Pakistan and Myanmar, then the British-occupied Burma. He carried in his leg bullet fragments lodged inches from his artery that originated from gunfire amid the Battle of Kohima, a months-long campaign in spring and summer of 1944 known by historians as the "Stalingrad of the East" that resulted in 11,000 dead.

"There's a war memorial that he always talks about that says, 'when you go home, tell them about us ... for your tomorrow, we gave our today,'" Dr. Harbinder recalled. "He used to tell me that all the time. That war is about the sacrifice of one's life for the next generation."

After the end of the war in 1945, and the dissolution of the British Raj in 1947, Bakhtawar Brar, by now a decorated veteran, led a battalion amid a partitioned India that saw summary violence between Hindus and Muslims.

"He had never seen so much bloodshed," Dr. Harbinder said.

"He told us about a village that was encircled by Hindus," Dr. Harbinder continued. "His battalion was called on to save this village where the Muslims were being massacred. So he took his battalion there and one Muslim came to my dad and begged him, 'what did we do wrong? We were converted by force and now these Hindus are killing us... If we convert back to Hinduism, are they willing to accept us back?'"

In 1963, Bakhtawar Brar retired from military service. He stayed in India for several years, building a successful business in Jabalpur, in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. In 1980, at the insistence of his wife and children, he moved to Delano, Calif., where he built a successful farming business.