Landslides threaten to wipe out 1962 war hero’s bunkers

“You people are from the national media. Why don’t you write about it so that the concerned authorities repair and protect these bunkers?” asked one of the six jawans of 19 Garhwal posted here to look after the memorial to Rifleman Number 4039009.

Incidentally, Jaswantgarh was given a comprehensive facelift two years after a bronze bust of the soldier was installed in 1987. It has since come to be known as an essential stopover for every vehicle travelling between Bomdila and Tawang, with a small canteen set up by the 19 Garhwal detachment offering tea and samosas.

Jaswant Singh had fought for three days against the invading Chinese during the final stages of the war, with two Monpa girls, Nura and Nang, assisting him in firing from different bunkers with just one weapon. The Chinese, however, overpowered him and chopped off his head on November 17, and it was only after a lot of insistence after the war ended that they returned it, said another jawan of the detachment.

Jaswant Singh, who was among 2,420 Indian soldiers to have been killed in the Kameng-Tawang sector in the 1962 war, is also the lone jawan of that war to have been decorated with a Mahavir Chakra.

“One bunker is already crumbling, and if landslides take away all the remaining ones, then nothing would be left of the lone historic battle that Baba Jaswant fought,” said another jawan.

“These bunkers do have a lot of sentimental significance for the Army. While the Army has been maintaining them especially at Jaswantgarh, rains and snow play havoc all over the eastern Himalayas,” said Colonel Rajesh Kalia, public relations officer at the Four Corps headquarters at Tezpur. The appropriate authorities have been already alerted to carry out the repairs, he added.

“Jaswantgarh is an important tourist attraction on the Tezpur-Bomdila-Tawang route, and we cannot afford to lose these historic bunkers,” said Tsering Wange, a tour operator whose Himalayan Holidays brings the highest number of foreign tourists to the Tawang sector. He points out that the plaque at the entrance to Jaswantgarh memorial says, “A nation that does not honour its dead warriors will perish”.