This is the story of two fighter pilots.
Squadron Leader Shivangi Singh. Part of the second batch of Indian women fighter pilots and the first to fly the new Rafale fighter jets, and the pilot Pakistan wanted India to think it had captured.
Group Captain Abhinandan Varthaman. The MiG-21 hero of the Balakot airstrikes, and a bonafide ‘top gun’ in the Indian Air Force, and also the pilot Pak actually captured (but couldn’t hold on to).
The Shivangi Singh Story
Born in Varanasi and assigned now to the 17 Squadron, the ‘Golden Arrows’ stationed in Ambala, Squadron Leader Singh is not just a path-breaking fighter pilot.
She will also go down in history as the pilot Pak lied about capturing, after propaganda claimed her Rafale had been shot down during Operation Sindoor and she taken prisoner.
The Indian government said as much on May 10, hours after Pak media claimed her capture, but it wasn’t till she posed with President Droupadi Murmu Wednesday afternoon, with her Rafale in the background, that those claims were put to rest.
Who is Squadron Leader Singh?
Singh’s journey to the Rafale cockpit began in 2017, when she was commissioned into the Air Force.
READ | Who Is Shivangi Singh, Rafale Pilot Pakistan Lied About Capturing
But it really began much earlier.
At the Air Force Museum in Delhi’s Palam when she was a little girl. “This is where my adventure began,” she told news agency AFP on May 6, four days before Pakistan’s claim of ‘capturing’ her.
Sporting the same grin she wore this afternoon, while standing next to President Murmu, Singh recalled ‘gawking’ at the wealth of combat aviation history at the museum and said she “immediately knew” – she would grow up to become a fighter jet pilot. And she did.
Squadron Leader Shivangi Singh with President Droupadi Murmu.
It was tough, as it should be. The military is India’s last line of defence in an increasingly polarised and unstable world, where everyone, it seems, has nuclear weapons and wants war.
The MiG-21 years
Undeterred, Singh finally accomplished what her inner child wanted.
She became a fighter pilot. After her commissioning in 2017, the young woman took the controls of her first plane – an upgraded Soviet-era MiG, specifically a MiG-21 Bison.
Of course, those MiGs, her MiG, are no longer an active part of the Air Force.
READ | ‘So Long, Farewell’: India Bids Adieu To The MiG-21, A Beloved Warhorse
In September they were retired, after having served India for over six decades, and replaced by the Rafale. But in those years of her career there is a link to Pak and a captured Air Force pilot.
Only it wasn’t her. It was Group Captain (then Wing Commander) Abhinandan Varthaman.
The Abhinandan Varthaman link
Back in 2017, when Singh was posted to a border base in Rajasthan and was still learning the ropes, she flew alongside Varthaman, now a national hero after his exploits in 2019.
In a remarkable display, the Group Captain shot down a Pak fighter jet – a United States-made F-16, in a generation-older MiG 21 – in aerial combat on February 27. This was during the Balakot airstrikes, India’s military response to the Pulwama terrorist attack 13 days earlier.
A photo of Group Captain Abhinandan Varthaman after his release by Pakistan.
Unfortunately, during the dogfight he flew over parts of Kashmir illegally occupied by Pakistan, and his plane was hit, forcing his ejection over territory controlled by the enemy.
He was captured and spent nearly 60 hours in enemy hands. Eventually Pak was forced to release him due to extensive pressure exerted by India and the global community.
Singh or Varthaman? A confused Pak?
For three years, then, Singh flew alongside and learned from Varthaman till, in a fitting conclusion to that relationship (because life loves full circles), she too strapped into a fighter jet and she too flew against Pakistan, firing precision missile strikes in response to a terror attack.
Only, she wasn’t captured.
Maybe Pakistan social media handles just had a bad case of deja vu; maybe they were thinking about Varthaman when they declared an Indian fighter jet pilot had been captured.
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