Recollections of a Communicator:- Battle of Rezang La stopped Chinese advance to Chushul

The battle was fought in 1962, when India had to face the Chinese Army in what was then known as the North East Frontier Agency (NEFA), and is now known as Arunachal Pradesh, and in Ladakh. Fresh in our mind those days was the dismal performance of the Indian Army in the Eastern Sector.

In contrast, the country felt proud of the jawans of the Kumaon Regiment who held their ground at Rezang La, and stopped the progress of the Chinese towards Chushul.

The Chinese Army carried out a massive assault on November 18 at Rezang La, which is located at a height of 5,180 meters after an artillery barrage. The Kumaon Regiment only had mortars to respond. They decided to attack the Chinese Army with their rifles and with their war cry "Dada Kishan Ki Jai'.

Only nine jawans of the Company of 118 survived. Maj Shaitan Singh was awarded the Parm Vir Chakra posthumously.

Asked to cover the function, I flew to Leh from Jammu where I was posted, and proceeded by road to Chushul. It took me two days to reach Chushul by jeep from Leh. I had to travel along the banks of the River Indus and turn westwards from Dungti towards the Pangong Lake.

After resting the night at Chushul, I reached the site of the memorial an hour earlier to cover the inaugural ceremony. Going round, I noticed the cover of a candy box with the picture of Lord Krishna on the barbed wire of the memorial.

The Junior Commissioned Officer, who was in charge of the location mentioned to me that all the soldiers of the company were Ahirs, who worshipped Lord Krishna. He told me that when he went to collect the bodies of the Jawans, each one of them had either a rifle or mortar. The cover of the candy box was in the hand of a soldier. He said the jawan must have taken the candy cover from his haversack, in his last moments.

I took a picture of the candy cover with the memorial at the back with my Rolliflex camera. The memorial was inaugurated early in the morning by Major General Budh Singh, GOC of the 3rd Division.

Following the inauguration, I requested General Budh Singh whether I can accompany him in his helicopter to Leh, as I wanted to go to Delhi to release the picture. He agreed.

In an hour we reached Leh, and boarded a C-130 cargo aircraft operated by the US Air Force between Delhi and Leh. By noon, I was at Delhi airport.

Those days we had to get the photographs taken in forward areas cleared by the military intelligence directorate before releasing them. The Military Intelligence Officer refused to clear the picture, even though I told him that the site of the memorial was visible to the Chinese through their binoculars from their location near Rezang La.

I was relieved when the Director of Public Relations, G.G. Mirchandani, gave me the clearance to release it.

Next morning, the photograph got a front page display in almost all the Delhi newspapers.

And the next time I visited Leh, General Budh Singh invited me into his office, offered me a cup of tea, a rare honour for a Captain.

I.Ramamohan Rao was the former Principal Information Officer of the Government of India. He can be reached on his e-mail: raoramamohan@hotmail.com. By I.