Developing Chushul: A Border Village
by Simar, Program Manager
I remember Mr. Tsetan Dorjay (now 67 years old) sharing his faint memories of the Chushul war which occurred in 1962 when he was just 14 years old. His father used to work as a porter for the Indian Army and used to carry supplies for them in the high-altitude mountain bunkers. As he narrates — One morning on 18th November 1962 the villagers woke up to the deafening sound of bombardment. Around a thousand (1000) soldiers of the Chinese — People’s Republic Army had opened an attack on the Rezang La Hill (A high-altitude pass between India and China) early in the morning. The Chinese army split into a set of different troops and consecutively attacked Gurung Hill and Spanggur Gap and Rezang La.
The sound of continuous shelling on the Indian posts started a distressful commotion in the village and all the elders, women, and kids were rushed to trenches made behind the village temples to protect themselves.
He adds, ‘I can still hear those noises when I close my eyes and remember the time when everyone was praying for the war to stop. It was a matter of few hours when the shelling and roar of brave hearts settled down but the battle felt like an eternity!’
Chushul, a border village nestled in Chushul Valley in the Changthang Region is the easternmost village of Ladakh. The line of actual control with China runs 5 km east of Chushul Valley and shares the border with China. A total of 5 mohallas (Area of a village) house over 800 inhabitants residing permanently at Chushul.
Upon asking the villagers, if they ever felt terrified living on the border? The villagers, especially the females smiled and replied, ‘Fear? We have lived here all our lives, this is our home, and if someday anything like 1962 takes place again we will be ready with our bare hands to fight the enemy’.
Our aim to visit Chushul village was intended towards setting up homestays at the border village within existing village houses. Tourism has been very prevalent in the village with a footfall of one lakh (100,000) travelers in 2022 but only a few people stopped at the village due to lack of accommodation. The objective behind setting up the homestay is to encash the huge inflow of tourism and use it as a means to generate livelihood opportunities for the locals in turn stopping them from migrating towards cities like Leh. After a detailed survey with our on-ground coordinators, the team identified five homestays and converted them into an Eco friendly boutique homestays at this border village of India.
Each homestay has been curated and designed by exhibiting 14 Real Life Photo frames in chronological order of occurrence of incidences that occurred during the 1962 Indo-Sino War. Each frame states a story of the Rezang La War, pre and post-war incidents, along with pictires of real handwritten letters and telegrams of soldiers sent to their families.
Whenever I encounter people asking me what the border village opposite China looks like, I just recall the beautiful things I came across during our visit;
The RezangLa Memorial and Maj Shaitan Singh, MVC — To commemorate the valor of 114 martyred soldiers at the Battle of RezangLa, a memorial was built at Chushul Valley opposite the RezangLa Hill. It was earlier named after Maj. Shaitan Singh, MVC who lead 13 Kumaon at RezangLa and lost his life on the battlefield with his last words being ‘Last man, last round’. Months after the war, his frozen body was found near the boulder displayed at the memorial along with scores of bodies of his troops who fought the battle.
Astonishingly, Maj. SD Goswami who was posted at Gurung Hill, fell unconscious after he got injured during heavy shelling and was considered martyred by his fellow soldiers. It was only after a few days when he came down to Chushul village from the battlefield, did everyone realize, that Maj. Goswami survived the battle. As per the account “Fire till eternity” were his last words spoken before he fell on the ground.
The Pangong Access — Chushul Village is the major village that travelers cross while traveling from Pangong Lake to Tso Moriri. With recent infrastructure upgrades, Chushul has all-weather road access from all fronts including, Pangong Lake, Sato Kargyam region, and Tso Moriri. While traversing this road the four-finger mountain point (A major area of the stand-off between India and China) and the point where Pangong turns into Chinese territory can be seen by travelers.
The Nomads of Changthang — Changthang hamlets were established when Tibetan nomads, mostly from western Tibet, came and settled down in the adjoining places of Ladakh in the past. In the current era, more than 3,500 nomads reside in the Changthang region and depend primarily on livestock, along with basic agricultural produce enough to feed their population. The ‘Changpas’ of Ladakh are high-altitude pastoralists, raising mainly yaks and goats. They are semi-nomadic people who now are settled in different parts of the Changthang plateau and have made few permanent settlements
Gateway to Nyoma and Hanle — On crossing the Tsaga La (pass), another world of Changthang opens up where one would find the real nomads (people migrating from one place to another in search of pasture lands and food) of the Changthang plateau. Their permanent source of livelihood is pashmina wool herding from the Pashmina Goats and they usually live in the far-stretched pasture lands of Changthang Valley.
Hanle a village in Changthang is the center point for travelers traveling from Chushul to Tso-Moriri or visiting the newly formed dark-sky observatory situated at Hanle village. The landscapes are mesmerizeing and the spending a night with nomads in their tents is worth experiencing.
The Vibrant Village Chushul — Interestingly, Chushul has also been identified as a vibrant village under Govt of India’s Vibrant villages scheme. There are in total over 660 border villages across Northern India that will be developed as Vibrant villages under a Government scheme that aims to reverse the out-migration of people from border villages. The development of the villages endeavors to improve the quality of life of people living in identified border villages. Incidentally, the team without realizing about any such government scheme is in progress, had already started working towards elevating the status of people of the border village of Chushul
Our border villages have years of history, culture, and heritage hidden inside them and there is a strong need of the development and preservation of these border regions. Being the sentinels of our country, these regions must be developed to prevent the migration of the population from these village areas due to harsh conditions.
Tourism can act as a Tremendous Force of development in upgrading the infrastructure of the region along with providing opportunities to the locals especially the youth in their village region.
