From the Fear of Rangchang to National Hell 10: A Journey We Should Never Have Accepted

roshan adhikari

VIEWPOINT

When I was growing up, there was one place every child in our part of Sikkim feared. It was Rangchang. Today, I call it Hell Rangchang.

The Makha–Tumin–Dikchu stretch in East Sikkim forms a vital part of the Singtam–Mangan Road. It is the gateway to North Sikkim, carrying local residents, tourists, essential supplies, emergency services and Army convoys every single day. It is more than just a road—it is a lifeline.

Yet for many of us, it has always been a road of fear.

(A file photograph of the 6 June, 2026 incidentwherea person lost his life)

I still remember one tragic night when around ten people lost their lives on that stretch. I was just a child then, but I remember the fear it left behind. Every journey through Rangchang felt like a test of fate. Before every trip, I would silently pray that we would make it across safely and never have to travel that road again. It felt less like a journey and more like surviving something we had no choice but to face. Over time, that fear became a part of life. We didn't become fearless—we simply got used to living with it.

Then came another tragedy. A newly constructed bridge on the same stretch collapsed before it could become a symbol of progress, claiming around four lives instead. I was in Class XII then. I still remember helping carry one of the victims. It is a memory I have tried to forget, but some images stay with you forever.

After school, I left Sikkim for higher studies and work. Life moved on. Most of my visits home happened during Dashain and Tihar, when the monsoon had subsided and the roads were relatively safer. Perhaps that is why I never realised how much the situation had deteriorated.

This time, I returned because both my parents were unwell.

The journey brought back memories I thought I had left behind. As a child, I prayed to make it across safely. Today, I no longer pray. I simply hoped that I would survive long enough to see my parents one more time. No one should have to carry that thought while travelling on a public road.

People often say that when someone in your family falls sick, getting them to the hospital is already half the battle won. But what happens when there isn't even a safe road to reach the hospital? What can a family do when every minute matters, yet the journey itself becomes the greatest danger?

Many elderly people now hesitate to travel for treatment because they fear the road more than the illness. Alternate routes exist, but they are only marginally safer. With increasing traffic diverted onto them, even those roads are becoming dangerous.

The road is currently being upgraded by the Border Roads Organisation (BRO), with

Shivalik executing the project. The objective is important. Better connectivity to North Sikkim and stronger infrastructure for military movement are essential. But development should never come at the cost of human lives.

Before mountains are blasted or unstable slopes are cut, local communities must be consulted. The people who have lived in these hills for generations understand which slopes are fragile, which streams become destructive during the monsoon and which areas have repeatedly failed over the years. Their knowledge is not an obstacle to development; it is one of its greatest strengths.

A company may be among the finest road builders in the plains. But the Himalayas are different. Mountain engineering demands specialised expertise, detailed geological understanding and respect for nature. Winning a tender should not automatically qualify anyone to work in terrain where one wrong decision can cost lives.

To be fair, not everyone has remained silent.

The local panchayats have stood firmly with their communities, helping affected families, coordinating relief, raising concerns and ensuring that the voices of villagers continue to be heard. Their support during difficult times deserves recognition.

The MLA of Tumin–Lingee, Mr. Sandup Bhutia, has also consistently stood with the people. He has remained in constant touch with villagers, visited the affected areas, held meetings, listened to their concerns and repeatedly raised the issue with the concerned authorities. The District Administration, led by the Deputy Commissioner of East Sikkim, has also been monitoring the situation and trying to address the immediate concerns of the affected communities. Their efforts deserve recognition.

But this is also where the limits of the state become apparent.

The Singtam–Mangan Road is not an ordinary village road. It is a strategic road, with major stretches under the responsibility of the Border Roads Organisation (BRO). It connects North Sikkim, supports civilian life, tourism and supplies, and serves the Indian Army. Responsibility, therefore, cannot stop at the district or the state.

If this project was important enough to justify spending crores of taxpayers' money, then it was important enough to finish on time, build properly and ensure that every person travelling on it returns home safely. Delays, unfinished work and unsafe conditions should never become part of the cost that ordinary people are forced to bear.

The painful truth is that many people feel we were, in some ways, safer before the road expansion began than we are today. Development should leave people feeling more secure, not more afraid. A wider road means little if every journey feels more dangerous than it did before.

Length of a road does not define the success of a project. The lives protected because of it do.

There is also a growing feeling among many people in Sikkim that our voices simply do not travel far enough. If a similar tragedy were to happen in Noida, Mumbai or Bengaluru, it would dominate national headlines. Here, we often feel forgotten. We are told that we are one nation, that every Indian matters equally, and we believe that. Yet moments like these make many of us wonder whether some voices are heard more loudly than others.

The people of Sikkim are not asking for special treatment.

They are simply asking for equal attention.

For equal urgency.

And for the same value to be placed on a life lost in the Himalayas as one lost anywhere else in India.

BRO has built some of the toughest roads in the country, often under extraordinary conditions, and its contribution to national infrastructure is undeniable. But with that responsibility also comes accountability. The people who travel this road every day deserve to know that their safety matters just as much as the completion of the project itself.

As I was writing this article, another tragedy unfolded.

On 6th June, another life was lost on the same stretch. This time, it was a truck driver.

The photograph is heartbreaking. A human being lies partially buried beneath the landslide, trapped by the very road he was trying to travel. He is not just another number in an accident report. He was someone's son, someone's husband, someone's father, someone's friend. Somewhere, a family is still waiting for him to return home.

This is what troubles me the most. We have become so accustomed to these incidents that we often discuss them as though they are inevitable. We count landslides, road closures and casualties almost the way we count rainy days.

But every life lost is an entire world lost.

The mountains did not wake up one morning and decide to become our enemy. We chose to build through them, cut them and reshape them. That responsibility comes with an equally important duty—to understand them, respect them and build in a way that protects human life.

The truck driver who lost his life on 6th June deserved to return home after a day's work.

Instead, he became another reminder that, for too many people in Sikkim, the journey itself has become the greatest danger.

What worries me the most is that we have slowly normalised living with danger.

Every monsoon, we expect roads to close. We expect landslides. We expect people to get stranded. We expect ambulances to be delayed. We expect travellers to spend nights inside their vehicles. Above all, we expect that someone, somewhere, will lose their life.

That should never become normal.

Infrastructure is meaningful only when it protects the people it was built to serve.

And finally, I hope Rangchang, whatever the true origin of its beautiful name may be, is remembered for what it was always meant to be—not for the fear it came to represent.

A place blessed with breathtaking mountains, rivers and forests deserved better. It deserved respect. It deserved thoughtful development. It deserved infrastructure that worked with nature rather than against it.

Instead, somewhere along the way, we failed it.

We failed the mountains.

We failed the people who call them home.

We failed every traveller who trusted that road.

Perhaps the saddest part is not that we came to call it Hell Rangchang, but that such a beautiful place earned that name through our own actions.

I only hope that one day, future generations will know Rangchang not as a place of fear, but as the beautiful land it was always meant to be.

And somehow, we survive all this.

Somehow, we make it through the Dikchu–Tumin–Makha stretch. We breathe a sigh of relief, believing the worst is finally behind us. We return home. We visit our parents. We spend time with our loved ones.

And then, when it is time to leave for Siliguri, another nightmare awaits us.

NH-10.

I hope you have read Dinesh Adhikari's powerful article, "National Hell 10." If you haven't, I sincerely hope you will. His article captures the pain, frustration and helplessness that every Sikkimese traveller has felt while travelling on NH-10.

People talk about bullet trains, the Mumbai–Delhi Expressway and world-class infrastructure. Meanwhile, here in Sikkim, we still struggle to travel barely a hundred kilometres, often taking eight hours or more during the monsoon, never knowing whether we will reach our destination safely.

In many parts of the country, road fatalities are caused by rash driving, drunken driving or speeding.

Here, too many people are dying because of poor infrastructure.

And that is perhaps the greatest tragedy of all.

In a state where too many young lives are already being lost to drugs, we need development that gives people hope—not more reasons to feel disheartened.

We need roads that connect lives instead of taking them.

Because surviving Hell Rangchang should not mean having to face National Hell 10 next.

(Views are personal. Email: hamrosanskriti.official@gmail.com. Phone: 9958555893)