It is time to put some facts on the table and not get trapped in pro-Congress or anti-BJP rhetoric, which is the way most debates seem to be going these days.
Wading into the debate of how much land has been taken by the Chinese PLA in the last decade is a tricky issue, especially since Congress leader Rahul Gandhi accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of having falsified facts about China’s incursion and occupation of the Indian territory in Ladakh.
On this contentious subject, it is best to get the experts aboard. Delhi University historian Dr VC Bhutani, a China expert of long-standing, has extensively researched official records at the National Archives of India, the Assam government, of which NEFA was a part, the Tibetan archives at Dharamsala, and the India Office Library in London. His recently published book on the ‘History and Politics of the Northern Frontiers of India’ highlights how China never ruled over Tibet so much so that, in 1913, the Tibetans ‘chased all Chinese out of Tibet, and the few that remained would have been butchered to a man but for the intervention of the British.’
Sadly, China occupied Tibet in 1950 and then laid claim to Aksai Chin. In 1960, Pandit Nehru should have made an agreement to settle these disputed boundaries, but he sent phlegmatic people like Morarji Desai and Govind Ballabh Pant, who were the last persons who could have helped towards a settlement, to talk with the then Chinese premier Chou En-lai. Chou En-lai also met RK Nehru, in 1960, 1961, and the early part of 1962. RK Nehru did warn the government that China was drifting towards war, but no one listened to him. Bhutani believes the Chinese claims on Arunachal Pradesh voiced in later years were an afterthought.
But other defence analysts take a different view. Dr Bharat Karnad, the national security expert who was earlier with the Centre for Policy Research, the New Delhi-based think tank, believes India’s desperation to initiate a peace process with the Chinese government has led ‘to a peace process of impermanent but linked de-escalation which Beijing may convert into an opportunity for annexing territory in small parcels.’
He believes India has ceded a great deal of its territory. ‘It has been lost or simply eased out of Indian control by the inattentiveness and laxity of the Indian forces … so that the actual territorial gains to China may be quite considerable over the 3,400 km length of the Line of Actual Control. “So 60 sq km here, 1,000 sq km there (in Depsang) could only be the proverbial tip of the iceberg!” Karnad asserts.
Till 2021, India was patrolling all eight fingers on the northern shore of the Pangong Lake, as these were on the Indian side. This has been reduced to the area between Fingers one and three.
Karnad emphasises, “India and its army seem to have no answer for this Chinese policy of creeping territorial aggrandisement. I fear that the manner in which India has accepted the process of, and the conditions for, the mutual ‘verifiable’ pullback by the forces, the Indian government may be preparing to accept the expansive Chinese claim line articulated by Premier Zhou En Lai in his November 7, 1959 letter, which Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru roundly rejected.”
China has never considered India as equal to itself in any manner. Beijing has never wavered in its conviction that the only Asian power that matters is China. India’s stance never challenged this assumption of Chinese supremacy but rather sought to buy peace with Beijing. “It was only when the viciousness of the Galwan incident surfaced in 2020 that some sense began to dawn on New Delhi,” Karnad said.
Karnad has been openly critical regarding India’s readiness to disengage in the Pangong Tso area. “The military advantage the Indian army had gained by the Special Frontier Force occupying the heights of the Rezang La-Rechin La ridge on the Kailash Range was lost without the PLA withdrawing to east of the Khurnak Fort line-where the Indian claims lie-rather than only some distance from Finger 8 on the northern shore of the Pangong Lake to the Sirijap Plain. And the Chinese continue to obstruct Indian patrols seeking legitimately to access Indian territory northwestwards of the Y-Junction that they continue to block.
Having achieved success at the negotiating table in getting Indian troops to climb down from the Kailash range hilltops and India to accept Finger 3 as the limit of its army’s presence in the Pangong area, India forsook its claims over the entire swathe of land stretching from Finger 4, past the Sirijap Plain, to way east of the Khurnak line. The Chinese then went on to cleverly stall talks when it came to discussing the steps to lift the blockade and allow Indian patrols to Hot Springs, Gogra and other points northwestwards,” Karnad further observed.
These observations are seconded by the people of Ladakh. Konchok Stanzin, a councillor of the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council, resigned from the BJP in 2023 because of the centre’s indifference in protecting the interests of the local people. “Look at the situation from a historical perspective. China took our land in 1952, then in 1962, then in 2020, and now in 2022. All our grazing lands are disappearing,” said Stanzin.
Stanzin represented the constituency of Chusul, which is located right on the LAC. For the last three years, he had been stressing that the villagers have lost access to vast grazing areas near Gogra owing to the growing Chinese presence. More importantly, he emphasises, traditional grazing areas have become buffer zones. “Till a few years ago, our villagers used to go up to Finger 4 and Finger 6, but today the Chinese are there. From April 2020, Chinese troops have blocked Indian troops from reaching at least ten patrolling points running from the Depsang plains in the north to Pangong Tso lake in the south,” he said.
Similarly, the villagers of Lukung, Phobrang and Yourgo had decided on their own initiative to take their cattle up to the Kiu La Pass, which was a traditional grazing ground. But the Indian Army refused them access.
Stonzin supported his observations with a paper presented by the SP Leh before the Ministry of Home Affairs in January 2023, in which she informed Home Minister Amit Shah that India had lost its presence in 26 of 65 patrolling points in eastern Ladakh. When Stonzin raised this question before senior army officials, the ministry of defence issued a statement saying that due to the “present operational situation in Ladakh, grazers have been asked to restrict their movement.”
The ground fact, whatever the army may claim, is that all the buffer zones are now in India. Earlier, grazers were allowed to go up to Finger 6. This is no longer the case. “I should know. I am a representative of that area. Everything is there in the revenue records. The centre just needs to check them,” he said.
He believes the government needs to erect permanent observation structures, as is being done on the Chinese side. “We have lost out in both symbolic and substantive terms. How can the negotiations with the Chinese be termed a success for India?” Stonzin asks, as do the other Ladakhis in this sensitively placed Union Territory.