One has to study recent events from a twin perspective. First, there is the worry of internal instability – as we saw in Tibet and are continuing to see in Xinjiang. And therefore, troop movement and training exercises are a natural method to ensure that internal instability does not flare up beyond a point. The external factor remains South Asia and more particularly India. With this in mind, sending out military signals from time to time makes sense.
The issue is how does one respond to this graduated incursion across the LAC? We have seen from the 1959–62 experience of gradual encroachment. What if China tries it again? Or is this too unrealistic a model? Let us then approach the issue from another angle. What happens if in a year, the Chinese intrude a small distance and withdraw? The next year they go another mile inside Indian territory and then withdraw. The year thereafter they will move further. How would India respond? This assumes that they come and occupy posts or areas vacated by Indian troops in winter.
What happens if in a year, the Chinese intrude a small distance and withdraw? The next year they go another mile inside Indian territory and then withdraw. The year thereafter they will move further. How would India respond?
On the LAC would we occupy the area vacated by the Chinese? And then the question arises, how does India handle a series of continuing incursions in the same area and in increasing depth over a period of time. These and other questions need to be addressed and answers found. Because at the root of this lies the answer to reading Chinese intentions.
Part of this narrative can be looked at by revisiting Operation Chequerboard in 1986–87. With the PLA troops coming into Wangdung and establishing themselves in mid-1986, the situation became tense. On June 26, 1986, India lodged a formal protest with Beijing against intrusions in the Sumrodong Chu valley by Chinese troops that had occurred beginning on June 16. Beijing denied any such intrusions and maintained that its troops were in a location north of the McMahon Line, while the official Indian stance was that the Chinese troops had intruded south of the McMahon Line. By August, the Chinese had constructed a helipad and began supplying their troops by air.
What India did in response was to airlift an entire brigade of 5 Mountain Division to Zimithang, very close to the Sumdrodong Chu valley in an operation codenamed ‘Falcon’. This in return led China to reinforce its troops in Tibet and concentrated them in the region. From the media reports of the time, it is clear that both sides were being aggressive and intended to test each other’s endurance capacities.
By May 1987, however, diplomacy had managed to mend the problem and things cooled down and both sides withdrew. But the operations spoke of a lesson of how to handle a situation like this. India’s reactions may have been hyped by the then Army chief, General K. Sundarji. The operation involved ten divisions of the Army and several squadrons of the Indian Air Force and a redeployment of troops at several places in North East India. Three divisions were moved to positions around Wangdung and were supplied and maintained solely by air. This sort of an Indian military response had never been tried before and it is possible that the Chinese did not expect it.
This is one perspective; the other is that diplomacy can resolve the border question and we can live peacefully with the LAC for the time being. Lest it be mistaken that this article is advocating a forward posture or aggressive military posture versus China, it is stated here that India’s posture has to be one based on a realistic reading of Chinese intentions. If one goes to the beginning of this piece, it was said that one of the main lessons to be learnt from the recent Chinese incursions was to gain the ability to read Chinese intentions. How and why we accomplish this task in the short, medium and long term is a matter for the Indian establishment to work out.
This is a slow and tedious process, one in which every sinew of national power has to be engaged.
But in the larger strategic sense, it is clear that Beijing wants to ensure that India remains tied down in South Asia and more importantly within itself. The fact is that China views India as a rival for power. Lest we forget, it was precisely because we were so well known around the world in the 1950s and 1960s that China thought of teaching Nehru a lesson. Not that such a simplistic formulation can help explain the inscrutable Chinese mind, but it is an indication of the direction in which Beijing has gone and will continue to go, if present indicators are any sign.
The result of inactivity along the LAC since 1962 has led India to recently begin work on building road and air networks in the north-east. This is a slow and tedious process, one in which every sinew of national power has to be engaged. Perhaps we can take a leaf out of the Chinese book and turn geography to our advantage and work towards making the LAC an area of strategic troop deployment suited to quick reaction. One has to only look at the experience of Kargil in 1999 which led to India raising a new Corps to look after Ladakh. A more detailed analysis of border troop deployment in terms of manpower, equipment and weapons is necessitated if the Indian Armed Forces are to be prepared for the future.
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