Now, army fights for a forest on Tibet border

Tension between the Army and the forest department, that had been simmering for several years, came out in the open earlier this year when a Army unit posted near the holy Gurudongma lake at about 17,000 feet built a small gurdwara near it.

“Local people who are Buddhists had always known it as one of their holy places associated with Guru Padmasambhava’s journey toTibet. So they resented the Army building a gurdwara by the lake,” says Sikkim’s forest secretary T R Sharma, “besides, the Army didn’t take permission from the forest department to which the land belongs.” Following protests by the department and the local people, the Army recently demolished some structures it had built by the lake. “They told us in writing that the gurdwara had been demolished. But on inspection we found that they had only demolished the toilet built alongside the gurdwara, but not the gurdwara itself,” adds T R Bhutia, divisional forest officer (north).

With the issue assuming emotive overtones, the State Government set up a committee to inquire into it. Four members of the committee visited Gurudongma last week. But the forest department is more hassled with the Army “illegally occupying” 1,590 hectares of forest land in the Tsungthang range. The largest area 1,146 hectares happens to be in the Lachen block. The occupation was in clear violation of the Forest ConservationAct, 1980, complains the DFO (North) in a recent letter to the forest secretary.

The acrimony between the Army and the forest department reached flashpoint last July when the latter seized an Army truck carrying “illegally felled” timber at Tsungthang. Although the Army claimed that the timber had been purchased from the local people to build a bridge over the Ritchu and the Mayang Chu, two mountain streams, they failed to show valid documents for the purchase. “We forced them to pay Rs 43,740 as penalty,” the DFO told The Indian Express.

Forest officials are also sore that their field staff are not allowed by the Army to enter. The Army has its own reasons both for acquiring forest land and keeping away forest officials and locals from some forests. “We’ve to do it for security reasons, all of which we can’t explain either to the officials or to the local people,” argues an Army spokesman. Grazing is not allowed in forests close to the border because the Chinese often try to engage spiesamong the grazers.

There is however another explanation that neither the Army nor the forest department will officially talk about. Since its deployment in north Sikkim areas in 1987, the Army’s presence has made things somewhat difficult for the traditional timber smuggler-bureaucrat-politician nexus in Sikkim.

Vested interests acting at the behest of this nexus is now “trying to work up the local people against the Army,” alleges a senior bureaucrat in Gangtok.

Sikim Chief Minister Pawan Kumar Chamling told The Indian Express that inquiries were on against at least 10 senior forest officials. Admitting the problems with the Army over the Gurudongma issue and the occupation of forest land, he, however, said: “The issues are not as big as some people are making them out to be.” The two sides are meeting in Gangtok this week to try and thrash them out.