Indian Defence Review

Reports are coming out that China has built a village in the territory of India, Arunachal Pradesh is once again the victim of Chinese encroachment. It’s a big concern but the Government of India had said that there is nothing to worry about, China had built these types of structures in the past so has India.

The images telecast in a TV report by a news channel came from Planet Lab, an American company from San Francisco that used an earth imaging satellite. They had taken images of Arunachal Pradesh and found that an area beside a river is inhabited between August 2019 and August 2020, China had astonishingly constructed more than 100  houses in a matter of few months. The village is constructed in Longju on the banks of the river Tsari Chu, which lies in the upper Subansiri district, an area which has been illegally occupied China by armed conflict in June 1959.  Though this area is Indian territory, according to official Government maps, it has been in effective Chinese control since 1959. Earlier only a Chinese military post existed in this area, but recently a full-fledged village that can house thousands has been built.

It’s an omnious sign for India, it seems obvious as the tension between India and China raised after Galwan valley, the central CCP leadership  had decided to construct villages, buildings, and settlements around the border area so they can encroach more area of India.

The surprise is that even the foreign ministry is not criticizing this encroachment and downplaying it by saying “China has undertaken such infrastructure construction activity in the past several years. In response, our government too stepped up border infrastructure including the construction of roads, bridges, etc, which has provided much-needed connectivity to the local population along the border.” Though the statement is correct but foreign ministry should criticize China, Indian government should not forget that they faced huge criticism from China whenever they try to build a simple road on the borders.  What the Chinese are doing is very important to their security and India need to do the same.

In 2017, China started a campaign called ‘Plan for the construction of well-off villages in the Border Areas of the Tibet Autonomous Region’ under which China made a budget of 5-6 billion dollars. China said that they are going to make well-planned villages with top-notch facilities and with the high-quality road on their borders, China promised that the houses will be cheap for the retired soldiers and local people so they can settle the population fast.

Why China will do this? Why one will settle villages at borders?

This is the best way of defence. Indo- China border is long and in very difficult terrain. Even though both countries have a huge army and border patrolling forces but one cannot deploy soldiers everywhere and every time. So what China is doing is making many villages so whenever there is a movement from the Indian side immediately the people of that village will inform to Chinese Army, the people of the villages are the eyes of the army. China in a much planned way by investing billions of dollars is making villages on the Indian border. The same types of villages have been constructed along the China-Nepal border, and the Bhutan border and now we are seeing it is made on Indian Border. In comparison to China, India’s development in the border regions is poor, India is doing just the opposite, our facilities are so poor, no proper connectivity, no employment, no tourism at borders, so local peoples are leaving villages instead of inhabiting it. In the future, if China captures a small area or makes a camp or constructs villages then once again the process of negotiations, an Army Standoff and a long unfruitful wait for years will take place.

China is moving with a well-planned agenda, need is India should issue a plan to inhibit people on border areas, it’s a time for India to spend on border areas. States are doing their bit, Uttarakhand plans ‘border tourism’ to populate the abandoned villages so that people from the country can go on the border, visit the local villages, and contribute to the local economy. But this is a long-term plan and we are not doing anything concrete in this. China is almost fully subsidizing village construction, so there is a need to copy what China is doing on the border, and it’s time we should construct good quality villages at a rapid pace in Uttrakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim, and Arunachal Pradesh and provide this to people so that population settles there and these people became the eyes of Indian Defence Forces.

We should not forget that it was a village shepherd who informed of intrusion in the Kargil War.