Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Oct 23: Even as India is hoping to improve ties with both China and Nepal through border talks, build-ups initiated by China along the Line of Actual Control has convinced India that the People’s Liberation Army has no intention to step back, at least in this winter, irrespective of the outcome of the military-diplomatic disengagement talks.
The eighth round of the hitherto infructuous talks is scheduled to be held next fortnight.
On the Nepal front, which adopted a confrontational attitude believed to be at the probing by China, India hoped to mend relations with the visit next month by the chief of the army staff General M M Naravane to Nepal to help put bilateral ties back on an even keel after a bitter border row, especially by building on the traditionally strong ties between the two armies. Naravane is scheduled to be in Nepal on a three-day visit from November 4 when he will meet his Nepalese counterpart Gen Purna Chandra Thapa and top civilian leaders. Nepal’s President Vidya Devi Bhandari will also confer the honorary rank of general of the Nepali Army to Naravane at an investiture ceremony, a reciprocal gesture between the armies of the two countries for the last 70 years.
Top Indian army sources said the PLA had been spotted constructing new huge structures and relocating troops and equipment to occupied Aksai Chin in Tibet as well as Xinjiang showing it had no immediate intention of backing off from the 1,597 km LAC.
The army sources said one such new structure had been found to be spread across three lakh square feet – almost the size of four football fields – around 10 kilometres from the LAC in occupied Aksai Chin across Gogra-Hot Springs area. New deployment of vehicles and equipment under camouflage had been picked up in Xinjiang, 82 kilometres from the LAC.
The Indian side has also spotted relocation of troops and equipment around a PLA camp 92 kilometres inside Aksai Chin and movement of a large number of PLA vehicles in the Tibet region across Ladakh’s Demchok. It is also very clear that PLA intelligence is watching the Galwan region and the Kongka La area from positions 8 to 20 km from the LAC in Aksai Chin.
The PLA is building a new road between Hotan and Kanxiwar in Xinjiang, some 166 km from the India-China border to provide an alternative route to Aksai Chin for the troops and equipment. The Chinese air supplies for the LAC stand-off are getting dropped off at the Hotan air base, 320 km from LAC as the crow flies, through Y-20 planes, widely acknowledged to be a copy of Russian IL-76 transport aircraft.
The PLA activity is not limited to Ladakh. Local sources in Arunachal Pradesh said some 60 kms from the LAC in the north-eastern state counter-space jammers had been deployed to ensure that PLA activity was not picked up by anyone through satellites. It is understood that PLA has deployed Russian S-400 missile systems in depth areas around Nyingchi city across Arunachal Pradesh to cater to any aerial threat.
As a result of China’s reluctance to take a step back, the Indian Army has been on alert with its troops proactively patrolling within its limits and preparing to face the long winter braving heavy snow fall in contested points on Gorga-Hot Springs, North and South Pangong Tso.
As far as Nepal was concerned, army authorities point out that though the bilateral ties ostensibly were hit in May after defence minister Rajnath Singh inaugurated a key border road to Lipulekh region, which is claimed by Nepal, the Himalayan country apparently was acting at the probing by China which had initiated economic measures to try win over India’s close neighbours.
Ahead of Naravane’s trip, a senior official of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) paid a low-key visit to Nepal to prepare grounds for the army chief’s visit. During his trip to Kathmandu, the RAW officer had the Nepalese prime minister K P Sharma Oli. The Nepal PMO spokesman Surya Thapa was quoted by media as saying that the RAW officer’s discussions with Oli focussed on not allowing any “interruption in friendly relations between Nepal and India [and] resolving all outstanding issues through dialogue and continuing mutual cooperation.”
The two sides are yet to hold talks on the border issue but the visits by the RAW and Indian Army chief are expected to calm relations and prepare the ground for more substantive engagements. “The ties between the two militaries are very robust and there are 136,000 Indian Army pensioners in Nepal, who form part of the strong links between the two sides,” an army official said.
Oli’s decision to remove deputy prime minister and strong India-critic Ishwar Pokhrel from the defence ministry during a cabinet reshuffle last week was initially viewed as Nepal’s possible attempt to warm up ties with India but knowledgeable sources later pointed out that move was more an internal compromise between two groups in the Nepal government and might not have anything to do with Naravane’s impending visit to Kathmandu.
Despite China’s efforts to forge stronger economic links, Nepal’s access to the sea is via India, and it imports a large proportion of its requirements from and through India. Nepal imported goods worth $6.52 billion from India in 2017 and exported goods worth $420.18 million the same year. Besides, the two countries also have traditional trade, cultural, religious and social links and inter-marriages in the border districts to help maintain stronger relations than economic ties with China, knowledgeable sources said.
India’s security establishment also continues to have concerns about China’s activities along Nepal’s borders, including possible encroachment of territory, despite a recent denial issued by both Kathmandu and Beijing about the reported occupation of land by Chinese troops in the remote border district of Humla.
“There are reports that China has illegally occupied Nepal’s land in several places spread over the border districts of Dolakha, Gorkha, Darchula, Humla, Sindhupalchowk, Sankhuwasabha and Rasuwa, the sources said.