South Asia and Beyond

Along The Burma Border In Arunachal Pradesh: Pangsau Pass To Vijaynagar

A ground report from along the Burma border in Arunachal Pradesh: Pangsau Pass To Vijaynagar. Defence & security along the Burma border in Arunachal Pradesh is the focus of this documentary, from the Burma border in Arunachal Pradesh. StratNews Global travels along the Myanmar border in eastern Arunachal Pradesh from Pangsau Pass to Vijaynagar. In the third and last in our series, ‘East Of The Northeast’, we fly on board the lifeline provided by the Chinooks of the Indian Air Force’s Mighty Talons 124 Helicopter Unit to one of the easternmost inhabited areas and Advanced Landing Grounds of the country. En route and on location, Lt Gen P.C. Nair, Director General, Assam Rifles, Brig Swarn Singh, DIG, 25 Sector and Col Mohit Verma, Commandant, 19 Assam Rifles explain India’s defence & security along the Burma border in Arunachal Pradesh and the strategic significance of how India discovered, secured and settled the critical Vijaynagar bowl.

Our team of Amitabh P. Revi and Rohit Pandita travels to Dibrugarh, Lekhapani, Jairampur, Pangsau Pass, Jorhat, Chabua and Vijaynagar, connecting the dots of history to explain the critical importance of these little-known border areas. We document the path-breaking Ledo or Stilwell road, the Pangsau Pass, and how NSCN and ULFA insurgents attacked the post there in the run-up to Independence Day in 2022 and re-visit the Vijaynagar Bowl and the history of how two Assam Rifles expeditions, the second led by Brig (later) Major General) A.S.Guraya changed how history and geography are now, and how they fit into India’s ‘Act East’ policy. The series of documentaries looks at defence & security along the Burma border in Arunachal Pradesh.

Video from May 26, 2023, hit 600,000 views in Feb, 2024

Watch our series, ‘North of the Northeast’ as we also speak exclusively to Lt. Gen P. C. Nair, the Director General. Assam Rifles. the head of the oldest paramilitary organisation in the country flies on board an IAF Chinook helicopter with the SNG team of Amitabh P. Revi and Rohit Pandita to Vijaynagar, and explains the strategic significance of the salient on the India-Myanmar border, pointing out, “Everyone knows what happened in Siachen where we preempted the Pakistanis by twenty-four hours (with later) General Sanjay Kulkarni, then company commander. Here (later) General Guraya’s party preempted the Chinese by about a week. So a week later, if we were not here, not only the Chinese but also Kachin rebels, who are being tutored by the Chinese, or a mix of both would have been here. Today, we wouldn’t have been here if Gen Guraya’s party hadn’t reached here in December 1961.” Lt Gen Nair adds, “Why this 730 square kilometer is very important is, from this, you get an approach to the southern banks of Brahmaputra. What that means is from here, you would head straight to Dibrugarh, Jorhat, and onwards to Guwahati. There is no need to cross the Brahmaputra. So just imagine a scene where you have troops deployed along the northern borders, along the higher reaches of Arunachal. But, what if, right behind on the southern bank, somebody just comes in, so there lies the significance of this.”

Also See:

https://stratnewsglobal.com/articles/what-army-chief-has-told-his-troops-deployed-along-lac/

https://stratnewsglobal.com/india/continuing-china-talks-but-maintaining-robust-lac-posture-army-chief/

https://youtu.be/WKlqHkZ3ct0?si=M5Pp_lFNnSB1R6rS

https://youtu.be/-1aIE–FTr0?si=RkV2yfdJaniaymjj

https://youtu.be/2Wm_Xy10328?si=mt_1dLPv_VVWZUbK

https://youtu.be/4gii-ZzUORY?si=SZvKFnWah4-0F42n

Amitabh P. Revi

Russian language speaker and conflict journalist. Amitabh Revi has been there, done that—from the battlefields of Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan to sublime Russia, Australia and the United States. Along the way he's picked up the Dag Hammarskjöld Distinguished Journalist Fellowship, the Ramnath Goenka award for coverage of the Iraq War and RT's Khaled Alkhateb Award for his reporting from Palmyra, Syria.

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