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China-India border dispute
This Week in AsiaPolitics

Hundreds of workers flock to ‘roof of the world’ as India pushes infrastructure near China border

  • More workers are arriving in the region as India works to build and improve strategic roads leading to the LAC, the disputed border with China
  • They are kept busy as temperatures dip to freezing even in the height of summer, with bridges, airports and helipads all being constructed

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Nepalese construction workers build roads with their babies tied to their backs. Photo: Kamran Yousuf
Aakash Hassan
Amid a drizzle and gusts of chilly wind, Anika pulls taut a rope tied to a shovel held by Chandrika as they mix a pile of cement with sand by the side of the road. The women, both in their early 20s, have their babies fastened to their backs by a sheet of cloth while they work near the mountain pass of Khardung La – which at an elevation of more than 17,000 feet is one of the world’s highest motorable passes – in India’s Ladakh region.
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Hailing from neighbouring Nepal, they are among the hundreds of workers employed by the Border Roads Organisation (BRO), the road-construction wing of the Indian army, to work on the strategic arteries leading to the Line of Actual Control (LAC), the poorly demarcated, disputed 3,488km border between India and China.

Workers such as Anika and Chandrika, who were born and brought up in Himalayan villages, are in demand by the BRO because they are already acclimatised to the high altitude. As the Indian army steps up the building of infrastructure in the region, they are kept at work for more than eight hours a day as temperatures dip to freezing and below, even during summer.

India is not just looking to build roads – new army bases, helipads, and bridges are all part of the push that has come after its troops clashed with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in the Galwan Valley in June last year. The most deadly face-off between the two countries in the past five decades claimed the lives of 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers.

Since then, tens of thousands of additional troops and additional weaponry have been sent to the border by both sides in a massive military build-up. However, Beijing and New Delhi earlier this month agreed to disengage from Gogra Post, a key patrol point in eastern Ladakh, ending a border-talks stalemate that lasted close to six months.

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“Work has started on all the strategic roads and this is the first time the government seems serious about building infrastructure in the region,” said Konchonk Stanzin, an elected councillor from Chushul village, which is close to the border.

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