Lot of snow has fallen and melted away from Himalays since 1962 Sino-India border conflict when India was caught by surprise in an ill-prepared state of military operational readiness amidst a sagging political will to maintain a deterrent fighting force. The post independence idealism of Panchsheel and non-alignment were construed to relax guards up to an absurd extent when it was thought to protect the nation by ‘police’.
The gallant acts of individual bravery of Indian soldiers with allied forces as British Indian Army during the world wars were taken for granted without adequate war machine, equipment, weapons, clothing and above all backing of government and political leadership. At individual and sub-unit levels there was no dearth of brave sacrifices by the soldiers during 1962, but the nation failed them. The resultant debacle is all history.
Over half a century later in 2014, the equations are different. The Chow-Nehru era to the Modi-Xi talks therefore are to be understood in light of the global growth, development and changes that have pushed armed confrontations to last priority and replaced the warring barbarism with trade, cultural, educational, scientific advances and economic confrontations/co-operations.
The thinning out of PLA from Chumar after the summit has to be seen in the rationale of the growing world order of co-existence. Their return next day did cause flutter in news channels but political maturity of both ancient civilisations appears to have blown over those tense moments.
China termed as ‘wild guess’ the reports that President Xi Jinping’s comments asking the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to improve its ability to win a regional war were made in the context of the border standoff with India and said the leadership of the two countries have reached consensus to solve boundary dispute through friendly consultations. Meanwhile, MoS Union Home Ministry Kiren Rijiju downplayed the uproar saying “the war cry was not aimed at India”. Chinese also proposed a flag meeting to resolve the standoff.
Now as China hailed India’s Mars mission’s success calling it a ‘proud achievement for the country and Asia’ – it opens a new chapter of amicability. For Chumar, protests have been lodged through envoys…. so the drag-is on with the Dragon!
