Finally, some good news from the border region

Indian and Chinese armies last week began pulling their armoured units back from one of several points along the 3,500-kilometre-long Line of Actual Control where they have been involved in a face-off for about 10 months.

The “phased, coordinated and verifiable” withdrawal to earlier positions in the Pangong Lake sector was agreed upon by senior military commanders of the two sides in their ninth round of talks on January 24. Its implementation, which began on February 10, was the best piece of news to come out of the remote border region in a long time.

Last June patrol parties of the two armies, which were not carrying firearms in keeping with the practice at that time, had fought savagely with stones and clubs, resulting in casualties on both sides.

India said it had lost 20 soldiers, including an officer. China did not release its casualty figures. After early contacts at official and diplomatic levels failed, both sides moved more troops and equipment to the region. They also drew their air forces into their action plans.

There was speculation in the foreign media about the cause of the sudden flare-up on the border which was quiet for more than four decades.

Some analysts hinted at the possibility of either Prime Minister Narendra Modi or President Xi Jinping seeking to divert attention from their domestic problems.  

An Indian correspondent looked for clues for the Chinese conduct in a 2013 document of a Chinese military think tank, which an American university had recently translated into English.

While discounting the possibility of large-scale land invasion it envisaged “some border-area nibbling and counter-nibbling, and frictional and counter-frictional struggles”.

The Chinese document also foresaw the coming together of India, the US, Japan and Australia in the South China Sea.

The dispute over the long, undemarcated India-China border had led to a brief war in 1962. In the late 1970’s the two countries agreed to resolve the dispute through talks.

Official level talks have been proceeding at a snail’s pace since then, with little progress to show. The current troubles began after the Modi administration separated Ladakh, which has a long border with China’s Tibet  region, from Jammu and Kashmir and made it a separate Union Territory. At that time Home Minister Amit Shah had talked of steps to liberate the Aksai Chin area of Ladakh, which has been under Chinese occupation since the 1950’s.  

Presumably, the immediate cause of the flare-up was Indian attempts to develop infrastructure in Ladakh to match the Chinese build-up of recent years. When China tried to build a road near the Sikkim border India had raised objections.

The Pamgong Lake sector, where disengagement of frontline troops began, had seen a scramble by troops of the two countries to occupy higher positions.

China was the first to announce the start of the pull-out. The Chinese Defence Ministry’s website said in a statement on Wednesday  that frontline units of Chinese and Indian armed forces had begun to disengage at Pangong Lake in line with the consensus reached at the ninth round of military commander-level talks.

The Indian announcement came the next day in a statement by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh in Parliament. He said the Indian soldiers at Pangong Lake would move back to their “permanent” Dhan Singh Thapa post. He revealed that the two sides had also agreed to remove any construction done by them in the sector.

Both sides also agreed not to patrol the vacated area until an agreement is reached through military and diplomatic discussions.

Both China and India said that within 48 hours of completion of disengagement at Pangong Lake, commanders will meet to resolve other issues. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of surrendering Indian territory to China.

This comment was reminiscent of the immature responses of leaders of the Jana Sangh, predecessor of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, during the border flare-up in Jawaharlal Nehru’s time. The Army clarified that no territory had been ceded. The Opposition needs to maintain vigil to ensure that the government does not enter into an agreement that is not in the country’s best interests. But it must remember that settlement of disputes involves give-and-take.

What has just begun is a process of disengagement of forces. It is a necessary step to ensure peace on the border and create conditions conducive to amicable resolution of the border dispute.