JOIN USReflected decisiveness of Centre: President on India's response to China
India’s response to China’s belligerence along the Line of Actual Control reflected the decisiveness of the government, President Droupadi Murmu said on Tuesday, notwithstanding the criticism from the opposition parties over the purported loss of access to 26 of the 65 patrolling points along the disputed boundary since April-May 2020.
Murmu, who addressed the members of both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, not only referred to India’s responses to “misadventures” along the Line of Control with Pakistan and the Line of Actual Control with Pakistan, but also cited other examples of the decisiveness of the government. She referred to India’s “surgical strikes” on terrorist facilities in territories under control of Pakistan, stripping Jammu and Kashmir of its special status and bifurcation of the state into two Union Territories and the abolition of ‘Triple Talaq’.
“My decisive government has always kept the country's interest paramount and shown the will-power to completely transform the policies and strategies when required,” the president said, delivering a speech at a joint sitting of both Houses on the first day of the Budget Session of Parliament.
Her comment came even as P D Nitya, the Superintendent of Police of Leh in the Union Territory of Ladakh, recently wrote in a paper presented at the annual meeting of the top cops that India had lost access to 26 of the 65 patrolling points along the LAC in eastern Ladakh due to aggressive moves by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has been drawing flak from the Congress and other opposition parties for allegedly trying to hide loss of territory along the India-China LAC since 2020.
Beijing in April-May 2020 made an aggressive move to unilaterally change the status quo along the LAC – the de facto boundary between China and India – in eastern Ladakh, by deploying a large number of troops of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA). The Indian Army too had to deploy additional troops to resist the Chinese PLA’s move to push the LAC westward. This resulted in a military stand-off.
Though protracted negotiations led to mutual withdrawal of troops by both the Indian Army and the Chinese PLA from some of the face-off points along the LAC, the stand-off could not be resolved completely so far. Beijing has of late been claiming that the mutual withdrawal of troops by the Chinese PLA and the Indian Army from Patrolling Point 15 (Gogra-Hotsprings area) in September 2022 marked the restoration of normalcy along the LAC in eastern Ladakh. China’s claim appears to be an attempt to subtly build up pressure on India to accept the “new normal” in Depsang and Demchok areas where the Chinese PLA continues to block the Indian Army’s access to several patrolling points along the LAC.
The president also referred to India’s G20 presidency. “With the mantra of One Earth, One Family, One Future, India is attempting to find collective solutions to the current global challenges in collaboration with the G20 member countries,” she said.
“This is the best phase of India's global relations. We have strengthened our cooperation and friendship with various countries of the world.”
“On the one hand,” she said, “we are chairing the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) this year, and on the other, being a member of the Quad, we are working for peace, stability and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific.”
“We have expanded our role keeping our national interests paramount. Whether it was the earthquake in Afghanistan or the crisis in Sri Lanka, we were the first to provide humanitarian aid.”