New Delhi: In the first week of May when the first substantial Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) intrusion into the “grey area” (or the area that lies between “non-disputed areas of both the sides” sandwiched between finger 5 to finger 8 of the Pangong Tso lake, Ladakh) from the Chinese side was witnessed, a decision was taken at the highest office in Delhi not to let this intrusion go unchecked as this would have been construed as a sign of weakness and would have further led to more such incidents and steps which would change the facts on the ground, permanently.
The 135 km-long Pangong lake, situated at 14,000 feet, is spread over 600 sq km in the shape of a stretched boomerang and is 6 km wide at its broadest point. India, which claims that the Line of Actual Control (LAC) is till finger 8, on ground, controls territory till finger 4, while Chinese patrolling, generally, is limited till finger 8 (see illustration). The barren mountains on the lake’s northern bank, which are spread out like fingers of a palm, are used to demarcate territory on the ground due to the lack of any man-made demarcations.
Speaking to The Sunday Guardian, Defence ministry officials at South Block, when questioned about whether the Chinese troops had occupied “any part” of Indian territory, strongly refuted the claims, while adding that some of the new “points” on the ground that the Chinese have established their presence on were in the grey region, which earlier was neither permanently controlled by India or by China.
The same assessment was independently confirmed by Intelligence agencies who said that as per their latest information, the Chinese had increased their build-up near the LAC, but were still on “their side”.
The decision not to ignore the intrusion that took place in the first week of May (the first official “full-blown” scuffle broke out on 5 May), South Block officials told The Sunday Guardian, was taken after taking into consideration the substantial number of acclimatized India troops in the region and the speed at which the resources could further be increased in case the situation demanded.
“Small patrolling parties, from both the sides, routinely come face to face in the region and disputes occur over who is intruding and who is not and most of the time, it is resolved then and there by the troops involved or at the commander level. This time their numbers (Chinese soldiers) were more substantial than usual and they had come prepared with a goal in mind to establish their area dominance in the grey area, from which they could move further ahead, into the India dominated territory. Hence, it was decided to stand ground and in fact push them back, by increasing the resources and men at the crucial points,” an official with direct knowledge of the things as they moved, told The Sunday Guardian.
According to him, shortage of sufficient numbers of “acclimitized troops”, as was being reported by some media outlets, was not an issue.
“We are not going to follow the Chinese style of sharing with the media the nature and number of weapons and men that are stationed there and have been sent there. All I can say is that we have a sufficient number of capable men there. There was no lapse of intelligence or of foresight by our officers. Such comments are being made on social media by people who have absolutely no idea of how the terrain is in those areas and how there is no concrete separation of borders unlike in the LoC with Pakistan. And we are not using the difference of perception regarding the LAC as an excuse. I can categorically tell you that the Chinese troops have not erected any kind of structure or are squatting inside our territory, neither at Galwan valley nor at the area surrounding Pangong Tso lake”.
The official confirmed that “few” new temporary structures had come up on the disputed area where the Chinese troops, in low numbers, were squatting with a large number of troops (as a backup) in the near vicinity, but these temporary structures were at the mutually agreed disputed sites and not in the area which is dominated by India (till finger 4).
Another official said that there were multiple mutually agreed disputed patches in the region, but the region where the present dispute started is not one of them.
“There is no physical form of LAC on the ground, so most of the time, it is based on the perception that till here, it is my area and from there it is yours. Then, there are areas where even this mutual agreement too is not there and hence these areas witness regular flare-ups. The only way to permanently resolve such issues is to have a strict implementation of mutually agreed LAC,” the official said.
As per Nirupama Menon Rao, former India’s foreign secretary and a 1973 batch IFS officer, the India-China LAC is not mutually defined, delineated or demarcated. In the Chinese definition, the India-China border (their calculation of the length is East of the Karakoram Pass, but it has never been properly explained) is around 2,000 km long. While for India, the India-China border is 3,488 km long, not the LAC. The India-China border, as India defines it, extends eastward from the India-Afghanistan-China trijunction far west of the Karakoram pass to the India-Myanmar-China trijunction in the Eastern Sector.
China, which shares borders with 14 countries, including with India, has solved border issues with every country except India, which says a lot about how China has been using border issues as a soft weapon to create crises at the border and diverting India’s resources every few years.
“Defined” means point-to-point description on paper. “Delineated” means drawing lines on maps. “Demarcated” is fixing physical markers of line on ground.
While India has reinforced the region with enough men and machine, which is more than what the Chinese side has done, there is a rising concern that if the facts on the ground change from “incursion” to “invasion”, then India will have to retaliate, which is not something it wants to as then it would lead to a massive escalation considering the number of troops from both the sides were there at the present.
“It is not about whether India can or India will (retaliate). Both these questions can be answered with a resounding Yes. However, we don’t want a war, they don’t want a war. India will, however, be forced to act if the incursion turns into an intrusion. The moment that happens, India will retaliate without blinking twice. We have the resources to do that on the border. Secondly, the longer this goes on, the more the chances of the passion and anger from either side mothballing into an act like firing of a bullet which in moments will then lead to a crisis that will take a lot of effort to be resolved ,” an official said.
As per past recent facts, India acts on the belief that the LAC is near finger 8 while its troop “generally” patrol till finger 5. The mutually agreed working mechanism on the ground is that both the country can patrol till their claim line, as has been happening till now. And as part of the Confidence Building Measures (CBMs) in place, weapons are not allowed to be carried by any side while patrolling near the disputed areas which explains the fist fight and the use of stones and sticks that were used during the recent scuffle, videos of which were shared extensively on social media.
It is also agreed that no ambush can take place in these areas even if either of the troops enter such disputed area, which is the reason that not a single bullet has been fired so far in the last five decades in the region.
“Till now, the CBMs are intact. Three levels of talks involving military commanders have happened but they have failed to end the deadlock. As per the agreed process in case of any conflict, first the local Commanding Officers meet to end the dispute, then brigade commanders, then major generals as they know the situation of the ground. If this fails, then the diplomats step in. However, in an unprecedented move, this time, the Lieutenant Generals are meeting to resolve the dispute,” the official said.
The Lieutenant General talks between the Leh-based 14 Corps Commander Lt. Gen. Harinder Singh and his Chinese counterpart Major General Lin Lu, to resolve the border standoff, that happened on Saturday at Chushul-Moldo Border Personnel Meeting point in Eastern Ladakh, ended without any breakthrough.
However, officials said that they were confident that the issue will be resolved, simply because of two reasons. “The Dolam plateau was a much complex issue, but we solved it even if it took more than two months. Secondly, the decision to escalate is in the hands of mature and seasoned leaders in both the countries and none of them will bring misery for their people in these challenging times for a piece of land,” a senior defence ministry officer said.