Name: Pratham Pratap Mohanty

Roll no.: 1806

Semester: IV

Subject: History

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 ANSWER 2

1. Siachen or which was earlier known as no-man’s-land before the Indo-China war,
corresponds to the literal meaning “The land of wild roses”. Standing at an average
height of 6000ms, in today’s world, it is famously known as the highest and costliest
battlefield in the world, as the entire land is covered in snow, throughout the year, while
the temperatures soars down to as low of -40C during winter.
2. Geographically, NJ9852, is the last point where the Line of Control [“LoC”] ends and
on that point the Siachen glacier is located. In its dimension, it is 73 km long and 3 to
5 km wide. It is located on Karakoram range of the Himalayas. More specifically,
Soltoro Range is the range in Karokoram where Siachen is located.

The Background

To understand in detail as to why it is known as the costliest battlefield and is heavy on the
exchequer, one has to thoroughly understand its background.

3. The existence of the Siachen was first acknowledged by Moorcroft in the year 1821.
Many trekkers had visited the glacier to see its grandeur, from different parts of the
world.
4. However, post 1962, the eastern zone of the region was declared as a restricted area and
no one could go in, without a valid permission. The reason is linked to the fact that,
post the Indo-China war, China started to gain interest in the region considering its
strategic significance.
5. Further, between the years 1972 to 1983, Pakistan was sending a number of
mountaineering expeditions comprising international trekkers to Siachen. The primary
motive was to establish its claim on the region. However, when India noticed this, India
sent its first trekking mission in 1978. It was a civilian mission and school children
were also made a part of it. It was led by army commander but most of the people were
civilians.
6. However, the actions of Pakistan were against the Karachi Agreement of 1949 and
Shimla Agreement of 1972, where it has been mutually agreed that the region is not
feasible for human inhabitation.
7. In 1984, the conflict originated. India got some intelligence report by RAW and some
foreign agencies that Pakistan had ordered for some mountaineering equipments and
clothing. The reports suggested that Pakistan has illegally occupied some of the terrain.

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 8. Thousands of orders were made by Pakistan and India. Thus, alarmed by this, India
launched the Operation Meghdoot in the beginning in 1984. Mission of the operation
was to get rid of Pakistan’s acquisition of the post. Subedar Bana Singh led the
operation. Quaid post was occupied and was called the Bana post.
9. It is important to note that even today, India remains on the higher peaks with
occupation of 2/3rd of the glacier.

Strategic importance and cost factor

10. Considering its strategic importance, India has around 15000 troops or 7 battalions,
while Pakistan has around 3 battalions. Maintaining such a large fleet of skilled troops
in such high altitude, skyrockets the expenditure and thus it is considered as the
costliest.
11. Siachen is called as the highest and the costliest battlefield in the world. Costliest in the
sense that as per the estimate, every day we are investing more than 50 million rupees
for the maintenance of the troops in Siachen.
12. The biggest danger in the region is the ever freezing temperatures. On an average, it
has been reported that India is losing a soldier, every day, due to some accident or
natural factors.
13. Temperature dips to -50 degree Celsius and that’s why there are high energy
requirements for the soldiers. India has drilled a pipeline, which is 250 mitres long, to
supply kerosene to the troops in Siachen. Cost of making one chapatti in Siachen is
more than Rs. 1000. Also everything has to be airlifted, as there is no road or railway
connectivity and thus more are the costs.

The importance of the area lies on the fact that, if Pak acquires Siachen then it will gain control
over Leh and Ladakh and here lies the strategic importance of the region. This is why India is
spending so much on the region by stationing the troops.

The environmental impact

14. Another major issues linked to the stationing of troops is the environmental impact. As
the human interference in the region has increase, so has the pollution and the pace of
snow melting.
15. The melting of the glacier gives rise to Shyok river which falls into Indus river. All the
human waste and the chemicals resulting from shelling are contaminating the water.
This has caused serious issues from ecological point of view.

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 16. There is also a lot of threat to biodiversity of the region. Flora and fauna is getting
negatively affected by human settlements in the region.
17. The rise in temperature has also resulted in increasing frequency of avalanches, which
claims a number of lives each year. Further, the cargo airlifted for the troops, leaves
behind tonnes of dumped waste, which never comes back to the main land. Locals have
reported that wastes are piling up, due to increased troop activities around the region.
18. However, to resolve the issue, many talks have been conducted between the parties but
with no conclusion. While both nations acknowledged the impacts of the militarizing
the region, none would agree to voluntarily withdraw from the same.
19. Recently, there were talks to open up an ecological park in the region so as to allow
tourism to bloom. This would pave way for demilitarization of the grand glacier. This
was also mentioned in World Conservation Union, in 2000, where it was mentioned
that both India and Pakistan should set up a peace park as a confidence build up
measure.
20. It is observed by many experts that if the military isn’t withdrawn from the region, it
will pose grave danger to other adjoining glaciers like Gangotri, which was inter
connected. Heavy military traffic in the region is another growing concern.
21. Even the UNESCO has once planned to convert the area into a World Heritage Site as
it was part of the ancient Silk Route.
22. The only PM who has gone to Siachen is Manmohan Singh. He went there in 2005 and
said that we want to declare the area as a region of peace. There are also proposals by
international organizations to open the area for trekkers to relax the tensions.
23. It very important to note that cost of sending Kerosene for the troops is Rs. 800/litre. A
soldier consumes an average of 250 ml of kerosene every day. Going by that, a post
where 15 soldiers are stationed will require 112.5 litres of kerosene in a month or 1,350
litres in a year.
24. There are over 150 posts of the Indian army at Siachen, the porters said. If every post
has an average of 15 men, it means the posts would consume 202,500 litres of kerosene
in a year. This adds upto around Rs. 40-50 million of expenditure per day.
25. The added costs of the equipment, clothing and food would add up to tremendous
amount, which finally burdens the Indian exchequer.

Therefore, though once known as the land of wild roses, the Siachen glacier has been caught
up in a decades old conflict between two nuclear armed nations, which has turned it to the

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costliest battleground in the world. The militarization not only poses danger to the life of the
troops but also to the life of the region too, as the pace of environmental degradation is
increasing with each passing day.

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 ANSWER 3

Post the division of Bengal, a refugee crisis arose in the region, as people were displaced in
numbers and many of whom wanted to shift to India, for better future of their coming
generations. This resulted in an influx of lakhs of migrants or refugees in the West Bengal,
whose administration was not prepared to adjust and accommodate them.

1. The major differences in the migration between Eastern and western India are that the
exodus from East Pakistan continued during the 1950s to the l960s and even after the
creation of Bangladesh in 1971, and the influx from East Pakistan to India had not been
balanced by a corresponding influx from India into Pakistan.
2. It is important to note that the displaced persons from West Pakistan were absorbed
much more rapidly as, to some extent, a vacuum had been created by the departure of
Muslims, which was needed to be filled. In the eastern region, the government had been
faced with a monumental task of absorbing these displaced persons into an area which
was almost saturated, both from the point of view of demography and employment.
3. The exodus from East Bengal started even before the actual partition. The first batch of
refugees arrived after the riot in Noakhali and Tripura in 1946 in the wake of direct
action stirred by the Muslim League of M. A. Jinnah.
4. One of the first communities to leave East Bengal were the Hindu upper middle-class
people. They left due to fear of violent riots and a general sense of persecution and
insecurity.
5. When the passport system was introduced for travel from Pakistan to India on October
15, 1952, more people started to arrive. It was a "now or never kind of situation", which
scared many people during this phase. In the 1950s, millions of displaced Peasants and
agricultural laborers arrived who possessed almost nothing. Most of them belong to the
lower caste.
6. The refugee situation in the East remained grave throughout the l950s. As a result of
the Nehru-Liaquat Pact of 1950, a large number of Muslims who had left west Bengal
before March 31, 1951, came back to west Bengal, and reclaimed their land already
occupied by the Bengali Hindu refugees from East Pakistan.
7. While the Muslim evacuees returned to West Bengal, there was hardly any reverse
population flow of the Hindus from west Bengal to East Pakistan. Refugees who lived
near the border districts moved across the border into both the eastern and northern
parts of west Bengal.

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The initial phase of settlement

1. In the early or initial phase of settlement, the Indian Government was primarily
concerned about the resettlement of the refugees from West Pakistan, and the national
leadership was ambivalent regarding its responsibilities towards the Bengali Hindu
refugees from East Pakistan.
2. In the initial stage of settlement, the government, in order to provide relief and
rehabilitation to the waves of refugee on a war scale, set up a Ministry of Relief and
Rehabilitation in early September of 1947.
3. Isolated pockets of refugees were organized into camps and were given rations and
military protection against harassment. Unlike the displaced persons of West Pakistan,
the refugees coming from East Pakistan were reluctant to move to different states other
than West Bengal, Tripura and Assam.
4. It is important to note that the rehabilitation schemes were broadly divided into two
sections, rural and urban. For the agriculturist, the scheme was of allotment of
agricultural land or financial help for the purchase of tools, etc. and the allotment of a
household plot or a loan for the purchase of such plot. Non-agriculturists were given a
loan to start their business or for purchasing homestead plot and house-building along
with a grant for three months.
5. A number of camps in West Bengal were converted into townships, so that the transition
from relief to rehabilitation was accomplished with little disturbance to the lives of the
refugees. The refugees were divided into two groups. Those who were classified as
refugees were given identity cards and placed in one of the two types of housing refugee
colonies or refugee camps. Those in the former received some level of resettlement and
rehabilitation assistance, while those in the latter were less privileged.
6. Experts have noted that the rehabilitation measures in West Bengal until 1950, the
government aimed at providing the incoming refugees relief on a temporary basis,
rather than creating conditions for their long-term rehabilitation. Its main response
consisted of setting up of relief camps in key areas where shelter and other basic
amenities essential for survival were provided.

Rehabilitation policy from the year 1958

1. On the 31st March of the year 1958, the government of West Bengal decided to close
the work of relief and rehabilitation in the transit camps in West Bengal and not to

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 recognize any immigrant as a 'displaced' in need of relief and rehabilitation beyond that
date.
2. There was strong opposition to the official class for the attempt to send the refugees
away from West Bengal. It was claimed that no proper categorizations were made
before sending them to different states and by that way the refugees would not be able
to preserve their language and culture.
3. ln 1958, Dandakaranya Development Authority [“DDA”] was established. The
DDA scheme was meant to develop the 78000 sq miles of area situated in Koraput and
Kalahandi district of Odisha and Bastar district of Madhya Pradesh. The topography of
the area was hilly and tribal were the indigenous population.
4. The external and internal accessibility to this area is quite poor. Having a hot humid
climate, uneven rainfall, the seasonal nature of the streams, lack of groundwater, porous
soil and soil with little plant nutrient made the irrigation work extremely difficult.
5. While some of the refugees moved to this region, each family was provided with seven
acres of land, Loans were provided for house construction, purchase of agricultural
tools and equipment, etc.
6. A maintenance grant for 12 months was also provided. By 1965, over 2.75 lakh acres
of forest had been cleared for refugee settlement, over 12000 families were moved into
the region and were settled in 184 villages that were built by that year. But soon a
backlash began due to the sense of alienation, unfamiliar tribal population, fear of wild
animals and no hope for paddy cultivation without irrigation.
7. Thus, by the year 1973, approximately 25,000 families moved there and out of that only
17,000 stayed there, and the rest of them returned back. And by 1978, a large number
of refugees sold off their property land and belongings to return to West Bengal. They
moved to the Sunderbans delta, parts of Tripura and the Assam valley where without
any government aid or planning they cleared forests, colonized agricultural tracts and
created their own settlement.
8. Many experts have noted that the Dandakaranya scheme was formulated as a long-term
solution for the resettlement of the East Bengal refugees. However, the Dandakaranya
project for rehabilitation of the East Bengal refugees and the civilization of a local tribal
group through enforced contact with the newcomers was an abject failure, with conflicts
arising between tribal and refugees and the inability of many of these Bengalis from
agricultural backgrounds to adjust to cultivation in a very different environment and
resource base.
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Reasons for failure of the government policy for settlement of the refugees

1. In the year 1948, the provincial government of West Bengal issued a press note stating
that they would discontinue registering East Bengalis coming to the state as refugees
because whatever might have been the cause of the exodus in the past, similar
conditions do not now prevail. The govt. noted that there is hardly any communal
disturbance in Eastern Pakistan. Therefore, the present exodus is due to economic
causes.
2. However, this assumption was challenged by the refugees by stating that, these
economic distress were the direct consequence of partition on a communal basis. In
December 1948, when government made pubic its decision to shut down registration
offices by January 15, 1949, it justified the decision arguing that refugees who were
genuinely interested had been given time to register. If he did not, then that itself was
the proof that the person claiming refugee status could not have been sufficiently
desperate to require relief. ln this way, government at a stroke cut down a huge problem
to a size it felt it could handle.
3. Thus, while the refugees survived on the barest rations' government was able to
represent its relief to the refugees as ‘Charity’ and attempted to make them realize that
charity is not a matter of right.
4. One of the objectives of the government was to categorize the refugees into different
categorizes like, able-bodied males, handicapped, medical practitioners etc. In order to
allot each group a refugee package, but the refugees blamed the government for
adopting the divide and rule policy by dividing them into the haves and haves-not.
5. Further, the refugees voiced the demand for certain basic economic rights, such as the
provision of relief to all refugees, full rehabilitation, and entitlement to relief grants
until full rehabilitation had been achieved.
6. They demanded free education, medical care, clothing etc. These demands were in
direct contrast with the government policy, since its purpose was to encourage the
refugees to become self-employed.
7. Additionally, the treatment that many refugees from East Pakistan received at the hands
of the state and central government in India during the 1950s and l960s was
questionable. This was because, they were denied the access for adequate aid,
resources, and opportunities and their settlements were outlawed.

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8. Adding to this, a large numbers of East Bengali refugees were transported to distant
regions of India such as Andaman and Nicobar Islands and the Dandakaranya district
of Madhya Pradesh. It was decided that largely the refugees belonging to the lower
castes such as Namasudras, Ichatriyas, Poundra Kshatriyas, who took shelter in the
refugee camps and received aid from the Government' had to go to Dandakaranya.
However, these original inhabitants of the Indo-Gangetic plains were reluctant to move.

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