Bowing Down to The Dragon

Kanwal Sibal, 

Dean, Centre for International Relations and Diplomacy, VIF

Our statements on the recent India-China face-off in Ladakh continue to confound. One would have thought that we would have analysed the incident in depth, tried to figure out China’s motivations in staging it just before External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid’s visit to China and that of Chinese Premier Le Keqiang’s to India and examined if it was another instance of Beijing’s increased assertiveness on territorial issues rather than a reaction to any specific activity by India.

The several flag meetings with the Chinese military, the diplomatic demarches made at foreign secretary/ambassadorial level and the close consultations between diplomats in charge of the newly set up joint border management mechanism would have normally given us some clues. The preparatory work for our Minister’s Beijing visit should have involved a comprehensive internal analysis of why the Ladakh face-off occurred and produced a brief for frank discussions with the Chinese leadership on the subject.

Intrusion

But the government’s handling of the issue has been curiously different. On arrival at Beijing Shri Khurshid, astonishingly, told the Indian journalists that it was not clear why the incident happened and that the Chinese “were not offering us that background and we were not looking for (it)”, adding gratuitously that “actually, we are not even ready with our own analysis”, suggesting he came unprepared on this vital agenda point.

In talking to Chinese journalists he implied that the need was not to end such incidents altogether but resolve them “much quicker”. Oddly, he thought it was “not very helpful at this stage to apportion blame between them and us (as) it will only take away from the sense of relief and satisfaction that it was resolved in time”. According to him, the apple cart of what is going on with China is far more important and should not be upset, which suggests China had not done any upsetting with the Ladakh incident.

On return, Shri Khurshid has reaffirmed that “we did not do any post-mortem or apportion blame” on the Chinese intrusion and that he was satisfied that the mechanisms worked well to resolve the stand-off. This timidity towards China, to the point of fearing to raise a contentious issue and implicitly accepting part of the blame for the incident, seems more a pathology than an execise in diplomacy.

For the government, the Chinese action in Ladakh seems to be of secondary importance; what is “more important is that the issue got resolved in a timely manner and within the laid down mechanism”. Why this reluctance to address the root of the problem and easy satisfaction that the immediate problem has gone away? In the context of premier Le Keqiang’s visit the Minister has added that “ there are no prickly issues, issues of major differences which can be seen as obstacles”. Is the border issue no longer a “prickly issue” or a “major difference” between the two countries?

All these statements imply that India can live with Chinese border intrusions, that they convey no political message to India, that the public anguish at home can be disregarded as exaggerated, and that such incursions will not be allowed to disrupt the growing relationship with China so long as they get resolved through established mechanisms in time for high level visits. Why we must bend so much before China is quite incomprehensible.

We forget that ever since it became our direct neighbour by militarily occupying Tibet, China poses an enormous strategic challenge to us. It already occupies large tracts of our territory. The issue is not any attempt by us to evict China from such territory, it is the legitimacy of our defensive measures to prevent China from advancing further south, either through additional territorial claims as in Arunachal Pradesh or by claiming control of terrain beyond its existing military positions over which India too claims control.

Unstable

There is no actual agreed line of actual control (LAC) on the ground; each side has its own perception of where it lies. Such a situation is inherently unstable. China prefers agreements to maintain peace and tranquility on the border without formally settling it because such agreements allow it to maintain its territorial demands on India and improve the military infrastructure on its side, even as they impose restraints on India to actively challenge China and open it to accusations of a provocative “forward policy” if it seeks to belatedly improve its defensive positions on the ground. India is being constrained to adjust itself to the realities on the ground that are to its disadvantage. The talk of a new “defence cooperation agreement” on the border serves this Chinese objective that it has apparently sought to advance by the Ladakh intrusion.

Strategy

While diplomatic niceties are part of political visits, one has to be careful about the import of statements and how they will be construed by our other partners. Shri Khurshid would have us believe that "Both in historical terms and in terms of potential that there is for collaboration between us, we cannot think of more important country at this point of time and we are pleased that this is recognised mutually". Really?

It seems China is no longer a strategic adversary. Even as China is raising the temperature of its relations with several of its other neighbours in the east, we seem to believe that China has altogether higher stakes in its relationship with us. This would explain why we believe that “China is willing to make concerted efforts with India... and promote the strategic cooperative partnership to a new level”. While cannot ignore China as a powerful reality that has to be engaged, we certainly can ignore such self-serving, empty Chinese rhetoric.

Fighting to the Muzzle at Rezangla

Gurmeet Kanwal
Visiting Fellow, VIF

Fifty years ago, India suffered the ignominy of a military debacle at the hands of the People’s Liberation Army of communist China. Perceptive strategic analysts now attribute the Himalayan blunder to the untenable ‘Forward Policy’ and Pandit Nehru’s diktat to a fund-starved, ill-equipped, ill-clad and unprepared army to ‘throw out the Chinese’. Painful memories of that defeat still linger in the national psyche. However, what is not so well known is that there were many instances of raw courage and indomitable spirit even during the embarrassing course of the 1962 campaign – for example Brig (later Lt Gen) N C Rawley’s brigade held out for 22 days against the Chinese despite overwhelming odds at Walong along the Lohit River in eastern Arunachal Pradesh. In the West, one such battle was fought at Rezangla, a pass at 16,000 feet on the South-Eastern approach to the Chushul Valley in Ladakh.

In a battle without parallel in the annals of modern military history, 123 bravehearts of Charlie company, 13 Kumaon fought to the ‘last man, last round’ on November 18, 1962. Employing their famous ‘human wave’ tactics, the Chinese launched determined, multi-directional attacks against the isolated forward post. Surrounded and heavily outnumbered, the men fought back with rare determination and beat back wave after wave of attack. The gallant company commander, Major Shaitan Singh, crawled from trench to trench, personally motivating his men under withering fire even though he was himself wounded. The company suffered 114 casualties and finally ran out of ammunition, but these gallant warriors neither retreated nor surrendered.

It was only when the Chinese permitted the Indian army to collect the bodies in February 1963 that the nation learnt the truth about the heroic fight put up by these valiant warriors. The body of Major Shaitan Singh, honoured posthumously with the Param Vir Chakra, lay in the open field where he had fallen while personally leading a charge to relieve a besieged platoon post. The bodies of 23 men lay around him, riddled with bullet and splinter wounds. Maj Gen Ian Cardozo (Retd) has written in his book Param Vir: Our heroes in Battle, “The 2-inch mortar man died with a bomb still in his hand. The medical orderly had a syringe and bandage in his hands when the Chinese bullet hit him... Of the thousand mortar bombs with the defenders all but seven had been fired and the rest were ready to be fired when the (mortar) section was overrun."

All over the Rezangla defences, brave young men lay dead in their bunkers and trenches. There were multiple shell, shrapnel, bullet and bayonet wounds on their bodies. They were still clutching their cold weapons in their stiff hands. Ammunition ‘empties’ were strewn all around them. Some had even charged the attacking Chinese in a last inspired burst of raw courage. In Lest We Forget Capt Amarindra Singh has written: “In an unusual mark of respect for which the Chinese are not usually noted, their bodies had been covered with blankets, pegged down with bayonets. There could have been no greater tribute to their courage than this acknowledgement by their enemy.”

In all, 96 bodies were recovered from the Rezangla battlefield. Subsequently, in 1965, almost three years later, a shepherd recovered two bodies, at a light machine gun (LMG) position on a flank. Ten men of Charlie Company remained unaccounted for. The Chinese took six severely wounded men POW. Of these, two escaped miraculously and rejoined the battalion. In its desperate fight back, Major Shaitan Singh’s outstanding outfit had killed over 500 Chinese.

Indeed, on that cold November day, Charlie Company, 13 Kumaon, added a new chapter of unflinching devotion to duty and supreme courage under the most adverse circumstances to the Indian army’s glorious traditions of valour and sacrifice in the service of the nation. No nation could have expected more from the young keepers of its frontiers; no trained body of spirited young soldiers could have possibly fought to the muzzle as these men did.

Inscribed on the war memorial at Chushul is the following:

How can Man die Better than facing Fearful Odds,
For the Ashes of His Fathers and the Temples of His Gods.

To the sacred memory of the Heroes of Rezang La, 114 Martyrs of 13 Kumaon who fought to the Last Man, Last Round, Against Hordes of Chinese on 18 November 1962. Built by All Ranks 13th Battalion, The Kumaon Regiment.

The supreme sacrifice made by the bravehearts of Charlie Company, 13 Kumaon, deserves greater recognition than it has received. Sadly, India has not yet learnt how to honour its armed forces martyrs in a befitting manner worthy of their sacrifices. The country has so far failed to build a war memorial in its capital despite the untiring efforts of the Services HQ.