War hero

India's ill-advised mission to keep the peace in Sri Lanka lasted for about 3 years, from 1987 to 1990. The major fallout of those years was an emboldened LTTE assasinating Rajiv Gandhi and then continuing to hold on to their cause for several long years. Fighting a proxy war for the Sri Lankan government was not what the IPKF had bargained for and they got it in the neck, being blamed for civilian casualities by both the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE. The Indian Army lost over 1,200 of its men in this war before better sense prevailed and the servicemen were brought back home.

Maj. Parameswaran was one of the 1,200 who never returned to India alive. Very early on in the life of the IPKF, Maj. Parameswaran was killed in an ambush, earning himself a posthumous Param Vir Chakra (PVC), the highest military honour in India, which has been awarded to only 21 servicemen since being instituted in 1950. In doing so, Maj. Parameswaran became the first alumnus of the OTA in Chennai to be awarded the PVC.

Today, 21 years to the day after he died, there is not much talk about this soldier. The offical machinery of the government has not had any celebration around the day; but he is remembered every day inside the OTA campus with this bust in his honour!