Jayanto Nath Chaudhuri

General Jayanto Nath Chaudhuri OBE (10 June 1908 – 6 April 1983) was an Indian army general who served as the 5th Chief of Army Staff of the Indian Army from 1962 to 1966 and the Military Governor of Hyderabad State from 1948 to 1949. After his retirement from the Indian Army, he served as the Indian High Commissioner to Canada from 19 July 1966 until August 1969.

Chaudhuri was born into an aristocratic Bengali Brahmin of the Moitro gotra, a family which produced many lawyers and writers. His family were the Zamindars (landlords) of Haripur and the family was known as the Chaudhuris of Haripur in the province of Bengal, British India. Chaudhuri's paternal grandfather, Durgadas Chaudhuri, was the landlord of Chatmohar Upazila of Pabna district of present-day Bangladesh. His paternal grandmother, Sukumari Devi (wife of Durgadas Chaudhuri), was the sister of the Nobel laureate poet Rabindranath Tagore. Chaudhuri's mother, Pramila Chaudhuri, was the daughter of Womesh Chandra Bannerjee, who was the first president of the Indian National Congress.

Other members of Chaudhuri's family were also distinguished in their fields, mainly law, medicine and literature. All six of his father's elder brothers, namely Sir Ashutosh Chaudhuri (judge during the British Raj), Jogesh Chandra Chaudhuri(editor of the Calcutta high court journal and barrister), Kumudnath Chaudhuri (barrister), Pramathanath Chaudhuri (writer), Capt. Manmathanath Chaudhuri (first Indian surgeon-general of Madras Presidency) and Dr. Suhridnath Chaudhuri, were distinguished on their own right. Two of them (Sir Asutosh and Pramathanath) were married to their first cousins (mother's brother's daughters), the nieces of Rabindranath Tagore, and the others were married to women from Bengali families.

The Indian actress, Devika Rani, was Chaudhuri's first cousin, being the daughter of his father's brother, Manmathnath Chaudhuri. Among Chaudhuri's other close relatives were Barrister Kumud Nath Chaudhuri and Raisahib Babu Narendra Krishna Talukdar, Zamindar of Maligacha and honorary first class magistrate for Pabna District, Rajshahi Division. Writer Pramatha Chaudhuri, who married a niece of Rabindranath Tagore, was his uncle.

Chaudhuri completed his early education in Pataldanga Academy (Now known as Hare School) in Calcutta. Later, he studied at St. Xavier's College (University of Calcutta). He also studied at Highgate School in London, from May 1923 until July 1926, and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. At Sandhurst, he got his nickname, "Muchhu" (owing to his moustache). Ayub Khan, who became President of Pakistan in 1958, was one of his batchmates in Sandhurst. Both of them had trained in the same platoon.

He was commissioned from Sandhurst as a second lieutenant onto the Unattached List, Indian Army on 2 February 1928. Returning to India, he was attached to the 1st battalion North Staffordshire Regiment from 19 March 1928. He was accepted for the Indian Army and joined the 7th Light Cavalry on 19 March 1929. In 1934, he attended the course at the Equitation School, Saugor. He attended the Staff course at Command and Staff College, Quetta from December 1939 to June 1940.

In 1940, as an acting major, he went overseas on the staff of the 5th Infantry Division and saw service in Sudan, Eritrea, Abyssinia and the western deserts of Africa. For his services, he was Mentioned in Dispatches on 30 December 1941, for distinguished services in the Middle East Feb to July 1941, and again on 30 June 1942 for the same from July to October 1941. He was awarded the OBE on 18 February 1943 for gallant and distinguished services in the Middle East between May and Oct 1942. Recalled to India, he was appointed as a senior Instructor at the Command and Staff College, Quetta as a GSO-1 in 1943. In August 1944 he was transferred to the 16th Light Cavalry. Then a temporary Lt. Colonel, he commanded this unit from September 1944 to October 1945 in Burma for which he was twice more Mentioned in Dispatches, (London Gazette 9/5/46) for gallant and distinguished services in Burma (Temporary Lt-Col 16th Light Cavalry) and (London Gazette 17/9/46) for gallant and distinguished services in Burma (Temporary Lt-Col, Indian Armoured Corps). At the end of the Burma campaign, he saw service in French Indochina and in Java, Indonesia with his regiment.

In 1946, he was promoted to the temporary rank of Brigadier with the war-substantive rank of lieutenant-colonel, in Charge of Administration in British Malaya and in the same year was selected to command the Indian Victory Contingent to London.