Come clean on Arunachal situation

Response to Chinese aggression has been denial, confusion

More concerns are emerging for India along its disputed border with China. Even as tensions along the LAC in the western sector continue to simmer, with the last round of talks between the Indian Army and China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) ending in recriminations, China has upped the ante with India in the LAC’s eastern sector. According to a recent US Department of Defence report, China has “built a 100-home civilian village inside disputed territory between PRC’s Tibet Autonomous Region and India’s Arunachal Pradesh state.” Other reports too have drawn attention to such Chinese activity, albeit on a much larger scale. Drawing on satellite images, an American scholar said last year that the Chinese have built some 680 'Xiaokang' (prosperous or thriving villages) along its border with India. As worrying as the alleged Chinese attempts to unilaterally change the situation on the ground is the utter confusion that defines India’s response to these reports. While the Ministry of External Affairs has said that it has “taken note of the [Pentagon] report and that “India has never accepted occupation of territory by China and its unjustified claims,” Chief of Defence Staff Gen Bipin Rawat has categorically stated that “no such village development has taken place on our side of the LAC.” The Chinese “have not transgressed anywhere on our perception of the LAC,” he claims. Is the CDS speaking after looking into the situation on the ground? Or is this ‘all is well’ report a bid to yet again ensure that the Modi government does not look weak in the eyes of the people?

Just four days after the bloody face off at Galwan Valley, Prime Minister Narendra Modi proclaimed on television: “No one has intruded, nor is anyone intruding, nor has any post been captured by someone.” Such statements by the Indian political and military leadership are wrong for multiple reasons. Not only are they disingenuous but also, they are aimed at deliberately misleading the Indian public. In effect, such statements that endorsed Chinese claims weakened India’s hand at negotiations.

Gen Rawat seems to be repeating the strategy of denial that Modi adopted last year. One would have thought that India’s security establishment would have learnt some lessons from the mistakes it made last year. In their effort to look good before the Indian public, India’s leaders—political and military—have either denied or have been parsimonious in admitting to the magnitude of the crisis at the LAC. But denial will not make the problem go away. The Modi government must come forth and tell the people clearly what is happening at the LAC in Arunachal Pradesh.