On a cool December morning in 1981, a Norwegian ship quietly left the Goan port of Mormugao. Aboard the MV Polar Circle were twenty-one Indians- scientists, engineers, technicians, and naval officers- all bound for a place they could not even name. They were under orders not to tell their families, not even their wives, where they were going. Their mission had a code name: Operation Gangotri.
It was India’s first independent voyage to Antarctica. Conceived, approved, and executed in under four months, it was one of the most ambitious scientific and logistical undertakings of its time. It would also go on to rewrite India’s role in the global scientific order.
“We couldn’t tell our wives. It felt like being in a James Bond movie,” remembers Dr Amitava Sen Gupta, then a young physicist from the National Physical Laboratory who handled the expedition’s communications and timing.
The Politics of Ice
By the late 1970s, the frozen continent had become a new theatre of international prestige. Nations raced to build permanent stations and carve out symbolic space under the 1959 Antarctic Treaty, which declared the landmass a scientific preserve free from military or commercial exploitation. India, though a signatory, had never set foot there.
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi changed that. She had already backed deep-sea mining and the creation of the Department of Ocean Development (DOD), and wanted India to take its rightful place in the club of polar nations. The mandate was clear: plan an expedition that was safe, scientific, and sovereign — and do it fast.
Leading the charge was Dr Syed Zahoor Qasim (1926–2015), Director of the National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) and one of India’s most respected marine biologists. Qasim’s reputation for turning impossible ideas into reality was legendary. Under him, Operation Gangotri became not just a research mission, but a national statement.
“Antarctica was a dream,” Qasim later said. “But dreams are meant to be chased- even if they are frozen.”
Recruiting the Team
Dr Qasim assembled a multidisciplinary team from across India: oceanographers, glaciologists, meteorologists, geologists, biologists, engineers, and radio experts. Among them were names that would later shape India’s polar and ocean science infrastructure:
- Dr S. Z. Qasim — Expedition Leader and architect of India’s Antarctic programme; later Secretary of DOD and Planning Commission member.
- Dr H. N. Siddiquie (1934–1986) — Deputy Leader and marine geologist, known for pioneering seabed exploration.
- Dr B. N. Desai — Senior oceanographer at NIO, responsible for linking the expedition’s data to Indian Ocean research.
- Dr C. P. Vohra, geologist and 1965 Everest summiteer, who brought critical high-altitude survival expertise.
- Dr Amitava Sen Gupta, radiophysicist, in charge of radio communication and time calibration.
- A small but vital contingent from the Indian Navy, providing seamanship, navigation and operational discipline.
Recruitment was followed by training that bordered on surreal. The scientists, most of whom had never been at sea, were sent to Gulmarg for cold acclimatisation and then to the Bay of Bengal for shipboard drills. The instructors themselves were not told what the trainees were preparing for, some believed it was a classified military mission.
Into the Roaring Forties
On 6 December 1981, the MV Polar Circle sailed out of Goa. Once the ship crossed into the roaring forties- the latitude where westerly winds roar across the open sea, reality began to set in. The Southern Ocean tested every bolt of the vessel and every nerve of its passengers. Seasickness was rampant, equipment malfunctioned, and temperatures plummeted.
Every evening, Dr Qasim briefed the crew and reminded them that the world did not yet know India was coming. They would be on their own- cut off from regular communication and operating in near-isolation.
After nearly five weeks, on 9 January 1982, the expedition made landfall at Princess Astrid Coast, Queen Maud Land. The Indian flag was hoisted on the ice, and the tricolour fluttered under the midnight sun.
The photograph taken that day- a group of bundled men standing before the flag, snow stretching endlessly behind them, would become a symbol of India’s arrival in Antarctica.
Science and Survival at the Edge of the World
For all the heroism, life on the ice was brutally simple. The team melted ice for water, ate dehydrated food, and slept in tents that creaked under katabatic winds. Instruments for meteorology, geology and oceanography were deployed in makeshift labs. Penguins often wandered into camp; one even snatched a researcher’s glove before waddling off triumphantly.
There were moments of real danger. On one occasion, the ice shelf they were camping on began to drift, forcing a hurried evacuation by the ship’s helicopter. Yet, as they later recalled, morale stayed high- “the more hostile the surroundings, the warmer our camaraderie,” as one member put it.
When the Polar Circle finally sailed back into Goa on 21 February 1982, the 77-day odyssey had covered more than 21,000 kilometres. The men returned to headlines and honours. The mission’s scientific yield- temperature profiles, ice-core samples, and sea-water salinity data- would later feed into oceanographic models still used by the NIO.
From Gangotri to Dakshin Gangotri
The success of Operation Gangotri transformed India’s polar ambitions overnight. Within a year, the government approved the construction of a permanent base. In 1983–84, during the Third Indian Expedition, a larger team of 81 scientists and engineers established Dakshin Gangotri, India’s first Antarctic research station.
Dr Harsh K. Gupta, who led that mission, remembered a phone call from Prime Minister Indira Gandhi after a helicopter crash injured two members. “Her first question was, ‘Are they safe?’ Then she said, ‘Can you still do it?’ I told her, ‘If I don’t, I won’t come back.’ She paused and said, ‘Then go ahead.’”
Dakshin Gangotri would operate until it was buried under ice in the early 1990s. By then, India had already built Maitri (1989) and later Bharati (2012)- two stations that continue to support world-class research in glaciology, meteorology, biology, and atmospheric sciences.
The Legacy of the Twenty-One
The men of Operation Gangotri were not adventurers; they were bureaucrats, scientists, and sailors who learned to be explorers. Their mission changed how India saw itself – not as a passive observer in global science, but as an active contributor.
The expedition also marked the start of India’s consultative membership in the Antarctic Treaty System (1983), giving the country a voice in the governance of the last unclaimed continent. Today, all polar research under the National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research (NCPOR) in Goa traces its lineage back to that first voyage.
Of the original team, several went on to shape Indian science:
- Dr Qasim became the architect of India’s ocean and polar policies.
- Dr Siddiquie directed the NIO before his early death in 1986.
- Dr Desai and Dr Vohra continued Antarctic work, mentoring later expeditions.
- Dr Sen Gupta rose to senior roles at NPL and remained an outspoken advocate of open scientific collaboration.
Their combined work established a continuity of leadership and courage that still defines India’s polar programme.
A Frozen Testament
Operation Gangotri was a mission of firsts- the first voyage, the first flag, the first data, the first belief that India could stand shoulder to shoulder with older powers in uncharted realms. But more than anything, it was an act of faith: faith in science, in preparation, and in the human spirit.
Forty-plus years later, as India continues to expand its presence in Antarctica with new research, environmental diplomacy, and logistical infrastructure, the echoes of that 1981 ship departure still ring.
