Surgery and Healing in the Developing World - Dartmouth-Hitchcock

Field Notes on a Typical Day in a Himalayan Medical Mission
467
of our group and one professional that came to visit the following day described as
“ecstatic,” and a highlight of his life as a spiritual experience.
Current Events Background in International World Affairs
I will describe the details of what is in the background in Ladakh where we now
are, and in Himachal, to which we are going. There is a curfew in effect, due to some
recent events in which there have been several deaths, determined to be murders.
This would hardly be news if our group were visiting Detroit, but since we are in the
pacific and tourist-friendly environment of Ladakh, it has caused quite a stir.
On “Purity”
We are in a highly militarized piece of India along the “LOC” = “Line of Control,”
with India wedged in to this very remote and isolated high ground amid occasionally
openly hostile enemy neighbors. To one side is Pakistan “Land of the Pure”,
an Islamic state created when the division of the Raj occurred (see “Freedom at
Midnight.”) “Paki” means “Pure” in Urdu, as “Amrit” means “pure” in Hindi (compare
the Sikh’s Golden Temple over the Pool of Healing Waters at “Amritsar.”).
Near the other borders is the nation of Afghanistan—”under new management.”
Following the Russian invasion of Afghanistan and their subsequent withdrawal
from their own version of Vietnam, the Taliban, a religious reactionary faction of
militant Islam took over Afghanistan. They are regularly using rather archaic concepts
of divinely inspired authority—particularly as related to the role of women in
a Koranic society—and want to enforce their idea of “purity” across the mountain
borders. They have made incursions regularly into the area of Himachal above Manali,
and they target particularly European or American tourists or adventure trekker/
climbers, knowing that this is the second source of considerable income to the province
of Himachal that they are interested in disrupting economically. There are many
posters all over Manali about persons “Gone Missing” (to use the fine Briticism
phrase) while on trek in the Pir Punjal. When I was climbing through the Vayas
Kundh two years ago, I had encountered some rather well-armed “shepherds” who
were attempting to stay just out of sight of us, but were obviously shadowing us to
make sure that nothing untoward happened to their prized tourist guests with the
possibility of the Taliban creeping around in the mountains who operate under their
own direct revelation from Allah, and know of only one form of Koranic punishment
for the Infidels. So, although diminished until recent fears were fanned to life
again, there has been less high altitude terrorism against foreign nationals along our
trek route inspired by outside forces.
On another side is the occupied territory of Tibet under the control of the Peoples’
Republic of China—a subject of occasional wars over the past half century, and a
still active dispute with “Free Tibet” posters all around Leh, referring, of course, only
to the Chinese-occupied area of the former Tibet, never to the equally occupied area
of Indian control of the pieces of Tibet along the high Tibetan Plateau this side of the
Himalayas. Military exercises are held here with regularity to claim sovereignty and
to serve notice on the near neighbors that India has the military strength and the
high numbers of expendable troops to engage in any conflict at great cost (estimated
at over a million dollars US per day.) There is an overwhelming superiority in numbers
if one compares the billion Indians and the size of their potential army they
could recruit against the Pakistani military, which may be better equipped, but with
a nation of about 80 million to draw from. But, this military manpower advantage
46