Valleys Of Vigil

The two sides of the Line of Actual Control are a study in contrast. While the Chinese have been constructing roads and rail lines on a war-footing, India has seen little or no infrastructure development along its border after the 1962 war. The Doklam standoff has brought an urgency to India’s building plans, but will it suffice?

- R. Prasannan/Dinjan, Walong & Kibithu

From atop the hills of Kibithu near Kahoo village in Anjaw district of Arunachal, Pesha Meyer can see the new Chinese camp at Tatu, across the line of actual control (LAC). At 71, his eyesight is not as good as it was in 1962 when he had spotted the Chinese coming through Dichu Pass, guns blazing. He had then fled the village with family.

Kibithu, the easternmost point on the undelineated LAC, 40km short of the tri-junction with Myanmar, was at the heart of the Sino-Indian war of 1962. The Chinese struck Kibithu and Walong with several thousand troops for a break-in battle into eastern Arunachal, then called NEFA (NorthEast Frontier Agency), but a few hundred men from 6 Kumaon, 4 Sikh and 2/8 Gurkhas put up such fierce resistance that the Chinese had to beat back, leaving 800 of their men dead. As a major in the Sikh Light Infantry battalion, who currently guards Meyer’s village of 11 homes and the Kibithu sector, said, “There were stories of guts, too, in 1962.”

Now, 56 years later, the Indian Army still relies largely on its troopers’ guts to defend Kahoo village, the Kibithu sector, the district of Anjaw, the state of Arunachal Pradesh and the republic of India. Kibithu is still connected to the rest of India with nothing more than mule tracks, a footbridge dangling over the cascading Lohit river which a company of troops will take 40 minutes to cross, a country road that gets blocked by landslides for more than 200 days a year and that can barely take a 130mm towed light cannon, and no phone line. Two recent attempts to move the heavier 155mm Bofors guns failed, as the bends on the road are too narrow.