Tsering Dorjay & Sonam Angmo
The latest paradigm in the developmental approach is sustainability where concern about future generation is considered to also embody ethics in human civilization. On the other hand, competitive market is a strong driving force, and in many cases, human beings have trespassed basic norms and morality in achieving their set goals and greed in pursuit of success. The symbol of the “Green Boots Cave” of Mount Everest stands testimony to the devaluation of human ethics.The Green Boots saga emerged nearly a decade back in the year 2006 which garnered international fame. The real story however dates back a decade earlier to the year 1996 which foretells a little known story of a Ladakhi mountaineer whose unrecovered corpse near Mt. Everest has been lying since 1996. Ever since, 10th of May is commemorated as the day of the “Green Boots heroes”.
10th of May in Mount Everest records the story of Tsewang Paljor of Ladakh, an Indian Tibetan Border Police mountain climber famous for his unidentified death body with green boots near Mt. Everest Summit, later named as Green Boots Cave. Paljor and his two Ladakhi partners was the first Indian team to reach the Summit of the Mount Everest from the North Col. In the modern competitive world, Mt. Everest has become one of the epic destinations to prove bravery, happiness, spirit of adventure, hard work, dedication and success etc. since climbing Everest is a Herculean task. It is said that in Mt Everest, there are two hundred plus dead bodies which have never been recovered, because it is challenging task to bring back any corpse from the Everest.Mount Everest housing several corpses imbued with the tag of dehumanization has been subject of scathing criticisms from academia to social movements.
One of the famous issues of dehumanization is the “Green Boot Cave” of Mount Everest. In 2006, the tragic death of David Sharp of England in the Green Boot’s Cave raised an ethical question for mountain climbers at high altitude. Although there are many mountaineers who want to revel in the climax of mountain expeditions without concern about its challenges, yet there are also many cases of those who have lost their lives in this rough terrain. The mountain expedition undertaken by David Sharp who climbed the Everest without any oxygen mask is considered to be one of the few bold men who didn’t need any help to climb mountain ranges even in adverse condition. However, the issue of ethics arose when the story of Mark Inglis from the New Zealand team was highlighted in the media when he succeeded in climbing Everest with an artificial leg.
However, Edmund Hillary the first Everest climber criticized Mark Inglis for not offering help to distressed David. Sharp was in a grave condition and eventually died in 2006. Tsewang Paljor was another mountaineer who died in the same cave a decade ago. The unidentified ten year old corpse of Tsewang Paljor with green Koflach (boot) eventually became a landmark on the main northeast ridge route of Mt Everest. This landmark also raisesthe question of human ethics athigh altitude. In the year 1996 on 10th May, Tsewang Paljor was wearing green Koflach boots on the day when he and his two Ladakhi Indian Tibetan Border Police partners Tsewang Smanla and Dorje Morup successfully climbed the Summit of Mt Everest. On the Summit as a Buddhist practice they offered Tarchok (prayer flag), Khataks (white scarf used for welcoming people), and Pitons (incense). While descending the Everest, an avalanche cost them their lives and Tsewang Paljor body was declared missing near the summit of Mt Everest. Later, the origin of the Green Boots from the green mountaineering boots worn by the unidentified corpse was identified as to be belonging to Tsewang Paljor.
It is a sad fact that despite the projection of this issue in international media, Tsewang Paljor’s deceased body has still not been recovered by any agency. No real initiatives have been taken to bring the corpse of the Late Tsewang Paljor’s to his home, neither from the ITBP and respective governments nor from Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council Leh.
In 2014, the body of Tsewang Paljor eventually disappeared. Some sources speculated that Chinese agency had removed the body from the Green Boots’ Cave. Although the western media claims to understand the depth of human ethics and the story of the Green Boots, their efforts are far from gladdening.
The BBC did cover the story of Tsewang Paljor and the other two Ladakhis by visiting Tsewang’s home in Serthi. It explored the native home of Tsewang Paljor and dug numerous anecdotes pertaining to this unsung hero. The Ethical question brewing from the Green Boot saga not only involves Mt Everest but also pans out to the Government Administration, civil society as it puts the question of humanity and its practices to the litmus test.
On close examination, it is surprising to see how the Ladakh autonomous Hill Development Council Leh and Leh’s civil society forgot to recover the body of their brave soul. This puts serious question to self-autonomous governance,administration and their stakeholders in Ladakh. State’s stupor aids in the dehumanization. The civil societies and self- help groups in Ladakh which championed the issue of self-governance, also failed in this task. The state government’s apathy towards the recovery of Tsewang Paljor’s body furthers the erosion of human ethics. The recent BBC interview with Tsewang Paljor’s mother Tashi Angmo reflected the non-seriousness of ITBP team where Paljor’s mother couldn’t understand whether ITBP men were telling her the truth about her son’s body or merely cooking stories about the search operation. There was no news about recovery of her son’s body even after it became the buzzword in international media. After the avalanche of 10 May 1996, serious debates and arguments emerged in order to accentuate failures in recovery of dead corpses at Everest. Talks about the accountability of such mountaineering expeditions have marshaled into heated exchange of words between various stakeholders. In Captain M.S Kohli’s press conference, Japanese commercial mountaineering group was jettisoned off for not following ethics. Debate about commercialization of the Everest has also emerged in recent years. Consequently, neither the expedition companies nor the state agencies claim responsibility in recovering the corpses at Mt. Everest.
Issues revolving around ethical concern have become quite common. Some consider these concerns to be stale bread. Today in the contemporary neo-liberal setting, market based profit maximization appears everywhere by displacing morality. In many cases, human rights have been violated in this thirsty competitiveness. In the struggle for achieving “ends” many of us have devalued the “means”, and have forgotten basic values and ethics. A modern empirical thinker Immanuel Kant emphasized the “means” as an important consideration for determining the “ends” which has essentially included the role of ethics and civilization. The “Green Boots” has become a symbol and lesson that stands to question and at the same time serves to educate about ethics and humanity at large.In the fast developmental approach, human civilization many a time has neglected the motives of human existence. In every time and space of development the onus of ethic shouldbe maintained for the real progress of human civilization.
(The authors are research scholars at Central University of Jammu)
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