Let’s send out a stronger message
7 May 2013 1:30 AM GMT
The intrusion into Indian territories by China, after nearly two weeks of uncertainties, raises quite a few questions. Most people believe that India needs to understand China and the Confucius theory but the truth is that India first needs to understand its own self. India is setting a wrong precedence and the signal that is going out to the world is that intrusions by China are acceptable. By conveying such a message, is India under estimating itself?
A strong China has always been assertive and the very fact that the government of India has allowed China to intrude into Indian territories has by itself shown India’s inability to deal with the situation.
The Indian government now wants the nation to believe that it is a local issue. If the issue is local it should leave it on the local commanders to resolve and if they are unable to do so let them revert back to the next in the chain of command!
Diplomacy has always been the starting point of any dialogue in India. At first, it should have threatened the visit of the Chinese prime minister.
The Army, over a period of time, has been trying to explain about the gaps in its battle worthiness and the Chinese after 50 years are just testing whether the Indian local commander can stomach a platoon inside his territory.
The Chinese have done their homework well and the answer that they have got will now decide their future course of events. If the Chinese have come to the conclusion after due deliberations that the Indian response is muted, then there will be other more intrusions and all of them will have an ulterior motive.
The Chinese chose Daulat Beg Oldie because it threatens the Karakoram Pass which Pakistan wants to settle with India. It is quite surprising that Prachand visited China a few days back and is due to visit India shortly. He is now issuing statements from Nepal threatening India. Is this mere coincidence or a diplomatic pressure being built on a weak government reeling under various scams? What if this acne as stated by the government is repeated in a number of other areas?
This acne is not going to die down slowly and may have already led to poor morale amongst the Indian soldier. The Indian nation did not have alarm bells ringing when 600 border violations were reported.
The soldier at the local level must react the way soldiers react. He should not be micro manage-d from Delhi the way mothers manage their children on mobiles these days. For this he must have the nation’s blessings in the form of hardware, leadership and confidence in his weapons. But well all of it seems like yester years.
If this acne is sorted out diplomatically the lesson that the political bureaucratic will draw is that the forces are redundant and not that India lacks a higher defence direction of war and that its soldiers are unprepared for war and India needs to spend more than three per cent GDP on defence.
India needs to send a strong message better late than never. India needs to build up her forces and ensure that the supplies for these people are cut off, and get ready to assert its self whereever the chances of other such intrusions are possible. The Chinese will show down the Indian nation they believe in face, but required to test the Indian Army, which stood up to them at Nathu La and Sumdrong Chu, if they see a chink in the armour than they will like a bully exploit it fully. What a better way to show down a nation with a platoon worth of soldiers. India therefore, needs to react or else it will get too late. The Indian prime minister recently stated that other nations will think poorly of India considering what is happening in the parliament. Well the other nations seem to have got used to it.
What they would now be observing is how does India tackle China which has expansionist designs. India must take a hard decision by keeping the local situations.
The author is a retired brigadier
A strong China has always been assertive and the very fact that the government of India has allowed China to intrude into Indian territories has by itself shown India’s inability to deal with the situation.
The Indian government now wants the nation to believe that it is a local issue. If the issue is local it should leave it on the local commanders to resolve and if they are unable to do so let them revert back to the next in the chain of command!
Diplomacy has always been the starting point of any dialogue in India. At first, it should have threatened the visit of the Chinese prime minister.
The Army, over a period of time, has been trying to explain about the gaps in its battle worthiness and the Chinese after 50 years are just testing whether the Indian local commander can stomach a platoon inside his territory.
The Chinese have done their homework well and the answer that they have got will now decide their future course of events. If the Chinese have come to the conclusion after due deliberations that the Indian response is muted, then there will be other more intrusions and all of them will have an ulterior motive.
The Chinese chose Daulat Beg Oldie because it threatens the Karakoram Pass which Pakistan wants to settle with India. It is quite surprising that Prachand visited China a few days back and is due to visit India shortly. He is now issuing statements from Nepal threatening India. Is this mere coincidence or a diplomatic pressure being built on a weak government reeling under various scams? What if this acne as stated by the government is repeated in a number of other areas?
This acne is not going to die down slowly and may have already led to poor morale amongst the Indian soldier. The Indian nation did not have alarm bells ringing when 600 border violations were reported.
The soldier at the local level must react the way soldiers react. He should not be micro manage-d from Delhi the way mothers manage their children on mobiles these days. For this he must have the nation’s blessings in the form of hardware, leadership and confidence in his weapons. But well all of it seems like yester years.
If this acne is sorted out diplomatically the lesson that the political bureaucratic will draw is that the forces are redundant and not that India lacks a higher defence direction of war and that its soldiers are unprepared for war and India needs to spend more than three per cent GDP on defence.
India needs to send a strong message better late than never. India needs to build up her forces and ensure that the supplies for these people are cut off, and get ready to assert its self whereever the chances of other such intrusions are possible. The Chinese will show down the Indian nation they believe in face, but required to test the Indian Army, which stood up to them at Nathu La and Sumdrong Chu, if they see a chink in the armour than they will like a bully exploit it fully. What a better way to show down a nation with a platoon worth of soldiers. India therefore, needs to react or else it will get too late. The Indian prime minister recently stated that other nations will think poorly of India considering what is happening in the parliament. Well the other nations seem to have got used to it.
What they would now be observing is how does India tackle China which has expansionist designs. India must take a hard decision by keeping the local situations.
The author is a retired brigadier
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