The Government of India launched the Har Ghar Tiranga campaign recently, encouraging citizens to hoist the Indian flag at their houses to celebrate the 76th Independence Day of the country.

In the village of Gahmar, which is one of the largest villages of the country and where almost all the houses have at least one member who is serving or has served in the Army, the excitement was unmatched on the eve of the Independence Day with the tricolour hoisted at every house.

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In this village of soldiers it has always been a tradition to hoist the national flag on Independence Day and the Republic Day and the Har Ghar Tiranga campaign added to the patriotic spirit.

The villagers from Gahmar say with pride that the soldiers from there have fought in wars starting from World War 2 to the Kargil war. The houses of the villagers are filled with medals and pictures of soldiers. The village head Balawant Singh said that around 20 thousand soldiers of the country were from Gahmar and currently around 5,000 villagers are employed in different positions in the Indian Army. The population of the village is around 1.25 lakh.

Balawant Singh told PTI that the spirit of patriotism is present in the heart of every villager. “Ours is a village of soldiers. You will definitely find a soldier in almost every house here. Many members of most of the families are serving in the Army… .” He said that the entire village, this year, joined the Har Ghar Tiranga campaign with exuberance.

One of the families of the Village of Soldiers is that of Lt. Col Ram Bachan Singh (retd.) who was a part of the India-Pakistan war of 1971. Three generations of his family have served in the army.

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A social worker, Ishwar Chandra, said that the youth are inspired by the village elders and aspire to be a part of the Army and they get preference in Army recruitment, being the children of ex-servicemen. However, as the youngsters focus on training for military instead of higher education, “hardly a dozen people from the village have made it to officer ranks”.