SHIFT IN INDIA'S BORDER DEFENCE WIKIPEDIA PROVOKES CHINA

Explaining how China is systematically grabbing land in Ladakh by exploiting its topographical features, P STOBDAN suggests the way forward

- P STOBDAN

Ever since India has changed the rules of the game in handling border post-2014, China's response has become different.

In the past decades, Chinese were used to India’s lax attitude. However, a shift in India under the BJP government has adopted a more “assertive posturing” to “interdict” Chinese troops came after 2014. This led to increased frequency of face-offs from once or twice a month to almost daily. Having been used to browbeat the Indian army in the past, the PLA is perhaps surprised by India's swift counter build-up and firmness at the commander’s flag meetings.

The current border stand-off in Eastern Ladakh has a long history though recurrently erupted to make news headlines. The issue has not been about clarity of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) along the long-disputed border but about China’s pervasive encroachment over a large tract of land that had remained under dispute since the 1960s. Not only did the Chinese troops frequently enter through land and air, but they also regularly entered through the water in boats along with vehicular patrols across the Pangong Lake.

New Delhi’s prolonged neglect of Ladakh and leaving the region under the administrative control of J&K was among the key factors that weakened Ladakh’s border defence. New Delhi outsourcing it to Kashmir and Srinagar being too preoccupied with its own mess for decades meant that the protection of Ladakh land suffered.

While the past governments also cared less about the defence and building infrastructure of the area the vacuum was exploited by China and Beijing found it easy to grab Ladakh land through multitudes of tactics.