‘Batman, not bats’: Jibe at China in Army’s Bihar Regiment tribute

PATNA: Hours after PM Narendra Modi saluted the valour of the Bihar Regiment in the Galwan Valley skirmish with Chinese troops, a video tweeted by the Army’s Northern Command late Saturday to celebrate the unit’s battle history appeared to take a dig at China with the legend: “Born to fight. They do what they do. They are not the bats. They are the Batman.”

The 1-minute, 57-second clip begins with the line “Friends, Indians, countrymen, lend me your years” and harks back to the Kargil conflict 21 years ago before going on to illustrate how the Bihar Regiment has its name etched on every major milestone for the Army — 1857, 1948, 1965, 1971 and 1999.

The video makes no reference to Galwan Valley, where the 20 soldiers killed fighting the PLA were from the Bihar Regiment. Their story is told through pictures of three of the soldiers killed in action, including the 16th Battalion commander Col B Santosh Babu. The Batman tribute comes just before the voice-over ends with the Bihar Regiment’s war cry, “Bajrang Bali Ki Jai”, followed by a paean to the armed forces.


While there was no official word from the Army or the creator of the video, Maj Akhill Pratap, the comparison between “bats” and the caped crusader Batman had Twitter in a tizzy over the inferred China-coronavirus connection. Till 7.30pm on Sunday, the pinned tweet on the handle @NorthernComd.IA had received more than 11.4k likes and been shared 5.4k times.

On Saturday afternoon, PM Modi had lauded soldiers from the Bihar Regiment as being among the bravest in the armed forces. “Our country is always proud of our armed forces, but when I am talking today to people of Bihar, I want to proudly mention the valour of the Bihar Regiment. Every Bihari is proud of it,” he said at the launch of the Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan.

Officials at the Bihar Regimental Centre in Danapur said the PM’s words of praise couldn't have come at a better time. “We want moral support from the people of the country. Bihar Regiment has a glorious past and we will live up to that tradition,” Col Hemant Parmar of the Danapur sub-area headquarters told TOI.

In the first four days since the Galwan Valley conflict, internet users across the world looked up the word “Bihar” several million times, according to search engine data.