Visiting Walong - Some noteworthy noting!

During the 1962 Indo China war, as a 10 year old but avid newspaper reader, I recall Battles of Bomdi La and Walong as brave heart efforts of Indian soldiers! Later, during the 1965 Indo Pak war, our social studies school teacher replaced classroom teaching with assignments to recall the previous Indian wars. We the young VII std students collected information, stories about the army which fought such battles, about the weapons and ammunition used etc. And once again, in 1975, as a fresh doctor in his first job seeking exercise, I had applied for MO, PHCs posts in Arunachal Pradesh – and Walong was one of them! So, once a happenstance, twice, a coincidence but thrice being a conspiracy, I had to go there. 

The Battle of Walong:

Just to recall my context, here is a brief narration of the Battle of Walong. 

Walong is situated about 20 km south from Indo China border on the west bank of Lohit river, a tributary to Brahmaputra River. 

During the 1962 India-China War, The Battle of Walong, was the only counterattack India could manage in the war, it is said. Though outnumbered and in short of weapons, ammunition food, the 6th Kumaon infantry battalion  counterattacked the PLA between 14 and 16 November 1962. The site where the brave soldiers fought lies at a place which is around 3000 ft down from the hill's ridge on the west from where PLA was descending. (If you have seen Haqeeqat - a Chetan Anand's film, you would recall some such shots.) Attack started from south of Sama, our force bravely fought them. But by next 5 am PLA was reinforced. Brig.(Retd.) Kuldip Singh, who was from 4 Dogra was sent to reinforce in extremely difficult conditions in which these soldiers could hold for 20 days and China had to move a reserve division to Walong from Tawang! However, due to control its escalation, no further support could be provided and we could not hold Kibhutu the northern most border post. 

Now, the absurdity of the Indo China War or war in general is clear but the old memories remain. So in January this year I went to Walong. The results of my investigations are here in form of an e-book! 

Purpose of my visit

Arunachal Pradesh – the Land of the Rising Sun is the largest state of the North East region where the dawn breaks. Literally speaking, it has the sunrise point of India – at Dong village. The state is twice as large as Kerala. The diversity of the land and rivers, of grass, plants and trees, of birds and animals, of neighbourhoods, of crops and of the people residing there is such that it would not be wrong to call it a miniature India.

Public Private Partnership has taken roots after the NRHM was launched. Several governments announced and tried to hand over the PHCs to voluntary organizations for managing it. The purpose was that they can apply innovative methods to make services more accessible and user friendly. States like Karnataka tried it quite successfully earlier. Arunachal Pradesh being a remote state it was a challenging field to provide Primary Health Care. Karuna Trust , a renowned NGO from Karnataka accepted this challenge and the Government handed over 9 PHCs covering approximately 2 lakh population. In January 2009, I visited one of the PHC to learn the good practices applied at the PHCs by Karuna Trust. See the presentation as a film.