Place · high Himalayan pass · India
Sela Pass
Sela Pass at 13,700 feet is the only road pass between the Assam plain and the Tawang monastery, cutting through the Great Himalayan ridge between the Kameng and Tawang rivers. It is covered with snow from November to March, and the Sela Lake just below the summit — a sacred Monpa site believed to be one of 101 Buddhist lakes of the goddess Palden Lhamo — never freezes. The pass was the fulcrum of the 1962 Sino-Indian war on the eastern front: 4 Infantry Division under Major General Niranjan Prasad abandoned Sela on 17 November 1962 as the Chinese 55th Division turned the Jang defensive position, and Rifleman Jaswant Singh of 4 Garhwal Rifles held his post at Nuranang below the pass alone for 72 hours against repeated attacks, winning a Maha Vir Chakra posthumously.
- Function
- Military & resistance
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 27.500, 92.100
Connections (2)
- Site adjacencyTawang
Sela Pass at 13,700 feet is the only road pass between the Assam plain and Tawang monastery, which sits in the Tawang Chu basin thirty kilometres on the Tibetan side of the pass. The Tawang monastery's administrative district historically included the Monpa villages on both sides of Sela, and the pass was the fulcrum of the 1962 Sino-Indian war on the eastern front: 4 Infantry Division abandoned Sela on 17 November 1962 as the Chinese 55th Division turned the Jang defensive position below the pass, and the collapse of the Sela defence led directly to the Chinese occupation of Tawang.
- Site adjacencyWalong
Walong and Sela Pass are the easternmost and western-central strategic positions of the 1962 Sino-Indian war on the eastern front, and the two Indian defensive sectors whose fall or near-fall defined the war's outcome. Sela's abandonment on 17 November 1962 by 4 Infantry Division opened the Tawang-Bomdila road to the Chinese 55th Division; Walong's defence by 11 Brigade from 22 October to 16 November 1962 against the PLA 130th Division across the Lohit was the only sector where the Chinese advance was briefly reversed. Both lost positions were handed back under the unilateral Chinese ceasefire of 21 November 1962.
Sources
Standard reference.
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