Pioneer of Navy’s aviation arm

Hailing from East Bengal,his early years were spent in Tamil Nadu where his father served as the Deputy Conservator of Forests in the Madras Presidency. The young Roy left for the UK for naval training in early 1946 and served on Royal Naval ships. He was later selected to join the fledgling fleet air arm of the Indian Navy and qualified as an observer and an anti-submarine warfare specialist.

In the 1971 war,Miki Roy was the Director Naval Intelligence and liaised with the Mukti Bahini in their maritime exploits. One of the lesser known tales is of a quiet mission and the helicopter he was embarked on crash-landing in East Pakistan with Admiral Nanda and Lt General Aurora on board.

His major commands included the aircraft carrier INS Vikrant and the Eastern Fleet before assuming office as the Commander-in-Chief of the Eastern Naval Command in Visakhapatnam.

Post retirement in 1983,Roy was appointed as the first DG of the Indian Navy’s nuclear submarine building project — an ambitious national effort which,despite setbacks,has now been realised as the Arihant. The nuclear reactor on this boat is soon to go critical and Miki Roy’s contribution in steering this project in the early stages was invaluable. Anecdote has it that his fluency in Tamil (which he spoke better than mother tongue Bengali) made it easier for him to garner support from the apex of the Indian nuclear establishment,which largely conversed in this language!

The first military officer to be awarded a Nehru Fellowship (1989-90),he was later a Ford Foundation visiting scholar at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign,US. Author of War in the Indian Ocean,Miki Roy spent the latter part of his life in maritime advocacy through his long association with the Society for Indian Ocean Studies and other think-tanks.

Admiral Arun Prakash,a former naval chief,aptly noted: “In the passing away of Admiral Roy,the Navy has lost a much-admired elder sailor — and the nation,an outstanding maritime visionary.”

(Bhaskar is former director,National Maritime Foundation)