DZULUK (East Sikkim): With Prime Minister Narendra Modi likely to discuss the Doka La crisis with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping at the BRICS meet in Beijing on Sunday, victims of the 1967 Chinese aggression at Nathu La and Cho La have a simple message for him—don’t trust the Chinese.
They base this clean judgement on the trauma they underwent during the 1967 Sino-India skirmish in East Sikkim at Nathu La from September 11-15 and at Cho La, a few kilometres north of Nathu La, on October 1.
“Chinese loudspeakers at Nathu La blared the ‘Hindi-Chini bhai bhai’ slogan and played Bollywood songs from 6 am till 10 am on September 11, 1967. Then, there was a pin drop silence for two hours. From noon, they suddenly started shelling Nathu La. Each artillery shell landed a little farther inside Sikkim territory. Indian Army began responding with counter-bombardment.
The villages of Dzuluk, Gnathang and Kupup were evacuated by the Indian Army. The Chinese shelling continued till 4 am. Since then, we can never trust what the Chinese say,” recalls Nar Bahadur Mukhia, 74, of Dzuluk village. He is supervisor of over 200 workers who built the motorable Silk Route from Kalimpong to Nathu La after the 1962 Sino-India war.
According to political analysts, the 1967 skirmish was one of the major reasons for the integration of the Kingdom of Sikkim into the Indian Union in 1975. Though Sikkim was less affected in the 1962 war, India under Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had started building strong defences along the Sikkim frontier and revamping border road networks since her ascendance to power in 1965.
Pemba Dorje, a 1967 skirmish victim at Serathang near Nathu La, recalls, “I was sipping tea when I heard a shrill sound in the air and then a bomb fell on the hill to the west of our village. Another bomb fell right in our street. My younger son, who was an infant, was sleeping on a cot. I grabbed the arms of my wife, my elder son, and picked up what I thought was my younger son from the cot and fled towards Gangtok.
As I reached the check-post at 15th Mile near Gangtok, I realised that I had picked up a bag of flour and my infant son was still stuck among the Chinese bombardment. I told my elder son to take care of his mother and returned for my son. It was dark but the Chinese were still pounding bombs. I found him under the cot. We still celebrate September 11 as his second birthday,” he says.