India-China Border dispute and Hindu jingoism

Anirban Biswas

The Government of India is at a loss over what to do about its relations with China. The call for boycott of Chinese goods by the Sangh Parivar and other measures adopted by the Government have not been able to do much harm to the Chinese. It may further be noted that the restrictions imposed by the Donald Trump administration on the entry of Chinese goods into the US market have not been taken advantage of by the Indian big bourgeoisie for the simple reason that they do not have the necessary technological competence to replace the Chinese in the US market. But the Indian moves to counter Chinese influence in Nepal, Bangladesh and Srilanka must have endeared Narendra Modi and his acolytes to the US ruling powers.

In both India and China, there are wide income disparities. Today’s China is a capitalist power with expansionist ambitions. India has so long nurtured such ambitions. But the stark fact is that in respect of the broad indicators of development, China is significantly ahead of India. The two countries have two ancient civilizations and it is desirable that border disputes between the two should be settled honourably. But this has not been achieved so far and still there is no clearly demarcated border; there are only actual lines of control. The border dispute is a legacy of history because the dispute remained even in the early twentieth century.

The Galwan episode has created a stir, but the border conflict of late 1962 was much bigger in scale. The Indian press and the Government of India branded it as Chinese aggression, while the Chinese called it Indian expansionism. The Chinese ‘aggression’, however, ended with the unilateral withdrawal of troops by the Chinese after inflicting a most humiliating defeat on the Indian troops. Three years prior to the outbreak of the bloody conflict, the Chinese Premier came to India in order to hold talks on the border dispute and offered a solution. According to the narrative of Pundit Sundarlal, published in 1965, the solution would have been both satisfactory and honourable. Sundarlal, thanks to his close personal connection with Nehru was more or less informed about the process of dialogue. But the Government of India’s insistence that the Chinese accepts the MacMahon line, originally a British imperial frontier, led to the stalemate, and Chou (Zhou) En-lai had to return a disappointed man.

On 12 October 1962, Jawaharlal Nehru publicly announced that the armed forces had been ordered to throw the Chinse ‘aggressors’ out of NEFA. Then, on 20 October, the full-scale conflict began, and news of disasters began to pour in, there spread a nationwide hysteria of official brand of ‘patriotism’, which was essentially trafficking in defeat. Three thousand Indian soldiers were captured by the Chinese, while the Indian troops could capture none. The conflict lasted for about a month and then the Chinese Prime Minister summoned the Indian ambassador to his residence and proposed a three-point formula for the cessation of conflict.

The principal among them was retreat of troops 20 kms behind from the spot of conflict. The Chinse army retreated, and the Indian army, already badly humiliated, had no option but to virtually, if not officially, to accept it. Observing the situation, Nirad C. Chaudhuri commented in his book ‘The Continent of Circe’, “when the news of the disasters began to pour in, no one asked the relevant questions about them in the light of Nehru’s statement. How was it that the Indian army was taken by surprise when it had been ordered to open an offensive? How could the Chinse be accused of treachery? Had the army acted on its instruction and begun an attack? If not, why not? And why had the Prime Minister of India divulged an operational order before it was acted upon? Instead there was an exhibition of undignified emotionalism inconceivable in any other country in the world….” (Ibid, Jaico edition, p-123). In 1966 was published the book The Untold Story, by B.M.Kaul, the officer who commanded the operations of the Indian army. The book for what it was worth, gave the lie to the notion of Chinese aggression. Over time, however, there was a thaw in the relations between the two countries, although no final settlement of the border dispute remained elusive. But the aggressive rise of Hindu jingoism has begun to embitter the relations. What is more intriguing is that this jingoism, while maintaining an atmosphere of hostility towards China, is being more and more inclined to cling to the coattails of the USA, hoping that this will benefit its ambitions. Given the present state of the U.S. economy, such a move will certainly have disastrous consequences for the Indian people, although not for the Ambanis and Adanis.