Akshay Kumar’s upcoming movie “Airlift” is based on the real story of India’s biggest evacuation operation conducted in 1990. Aside from Akshay Khiladi Kumar, the movie also stars Nimrat Kaur in lead role and is directed by Raja Krishna Menon.
Kuwait was producing oil at a very high rate which was not acceptable to Iraq as it wanted to be the main oil producer in the area and wished to earn more money as it was under huge debt due to its ongoing war with Iran. Kuwait was also one of those nations from which Iraq had borrowed money.
As Iraq was not in a position to repay the debt, it asked Kuwait to give up the amount stating that Kuwait will also be benefitted from the war that Iraq is fighting; however it was unacceptable on the part of Kuwait and it demanded its money back.
As the talks with Kuwait failed, Saddam Hussein led Iraq in invading Kuwait charging Kuwait of stealing their oil through slant drilling. This was the first war on Persian land on which US decided to intervene against Iraq.
Iraq attacked Kuwait on 2nd August 1990 and within just few hours, the whole of Kuwait was under Iraq’s control. The royal family of Kuwait immediately fled to Saudi Arabia leaving the citizens of Kuwait on their own. Iraqi Army looted the whole city and showed their barbaric side to the people of Kuwait.
As per an estimate, there were 1,70,000 Indians living in Kuwait at that time and just within few hours they all were on roads without home and money, with a notion that they are on their own.
However, things were not as bad in reality as there was someone in India who wanted to save them all. As soon as I. K. Gujral, the external affair minister, came to know about the invasion, he made his program to meet Saddam Hussein and the meeting soon took place. They talked about trade and commerce also along with the evacuation of Indians from Kuwait, to which Iraq agreed and this all happened despite the opposition from Western countries.
K.P. Fabian, former Ambassador of India who was the head of the Gulf Division of the Ministry of External Affairs at that time, told, “We conveyed our official viewpoint and also our plans to evacuate our nationals. He listened to our views and repeated his known position, and agreed to facilitate the repatriation of our nationals.”
Indian embassy in Kuwait immediately got into action and started contacting Indians living there; however, they were hesitant in moving out as at first as they didn’t understand the seriousness of the situation. Besides, they were also well-settled there and starting again from scratch in India seemed a daunting task. Some of them didn’t have the documents as they were deposited with their employers who were either missing or dead. However, the good thing was that most of the Indians reached for evacuation.
Airlift was started and it was decided that elderly, women and kids will be sent back to India first. However, India soon realized that military transportation is not an easy task as taking air space clearances is a difficult task. And then the decision was made to use civilian aircraft which had to be Air India.
Amman was finalized as the location for the airlift and everyone from Kuwait was needed to reach Amman. The good thing was that Iraqi government helped Indians in reaching Amman through Basra, Baghdad, and the Jordanian border by buses. People arranged for their stay in hotel or camps after reaching Amman.
MP Mascarenhas, Air India’s regional director for the Gulf & Middle East, was the person who organized the whole operation and he told, “We started to see the refugees pouring in. Some managed to stay at hotels, but others were even camping at the airport. When we landed in Amman, there were already 5,000 to 7,000 Indians there and the numbers started swelling immediately.”
In the next 59 days, 488 Air India flights evacuated 1,11,711 Indians and it has been the biggest civilian evacuation till date and is registered in Guinness Book of World Records.
Once a Retired Air Vice Marshall said, “Whenever we talk of airlifts, the only thing that people talk of is the Berlin Airlift [during the Cold War]… Of course, the aircraft were primitive and the situation was different back then, yet airlifting one lakh people, as we did in Iraq, is unheard of.”
Let’s just hope the movie depicts the real spirit of the incident.
