AFTER voting in favour of the United General Assembly resolution aimed at correcting the world map, India has reiterated that it would not accept any alteration to anything that does not depict its sovereign territory including Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh. India’s position on backing the resolution aligns with the long-standing thought of backing equitable landmass representation and correcting historical geographic biases affecting developing nations. Though India has done well to back the much-needed correction, it will have to put its foot down if this exercise leads to cartographical politics in the future. The Ministry of External Affairs has already warned that any inaccurate or misleading representation in the new map would be unacceptable to India.

 

There is reason to believe that the new map would be used as a political text by countries sharing geographical disputes with India after the latest map released by the United Nations left Arunachal Pradesh and Aksai Chin of Jammu & Kashmir caught between Indian and Chinese lines. It shows Arunachal’s southern State border with Assam as the Chinese line and eliminates the border with Nagaland. The document also depicts Jammu & Kashmir with a dotted line indicating the Line of Control between India and Pakistan. This misrepresentation calls for a larger diplomatic exercise by India to keep its stated position on the resolution and at the same time maintain its sovereignty and territorial integrity. The cartographical changes force one to ask whether New Delhi was right in backing the “Correct The Map” resolution. Given the current condition of the United Nations and its inability to handle major international issues and conflicts, the resolution to change global landmasses and bring about equal-area representations might turn only as an academic exercise sans a meaningful weight. Yet, India was among the 164 countries to back the resolution as it believed in correcting the flawed 16th century map design which distorts the true size of India. The traditional Mercator map enlarges regions near the poles and shrinks equatorial landmasses, which unfairly diminishes the size of South Asia, Latin America, and Africa.

 

The map was built for sea navigation therefore it keeps straight compass directions but badly distorts true surface area. India sits relatively close to the equator so it appears close to its actual size on the map. However, nations such as Greenland, Russia and North America which are closer to the poles look massively exaggerated. This makes India look drastically smaller than Europe or Russia thus minimising its true geographic scale and distorting the perception of its actual physical footprint on the globe. India’s support to the resolution was based on equal-area map principles that will correct this historical wrong. Though the UN map will not be legally binding, the changes and deliberate ambiguity on some of Indian territories can be easily exploited by India’s neighbours claiming their rights in these regions. India is already fighting cartographical battles with China, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal. The new map can become a handy weapon to some of them to keep the dispute festering. For, historically maps have hardly been used as objective representations of geography.

 

They have always functioned as a political text to build a narrative. The noise China is making about some villages in Arunachal and the cartographical audacity Nepal did by including Limpyadhura, Lipulekh and Kalapani regions of Uttarakhand in their national map can be a recurring headache after the UN stamp on ambiguity. India has drawn the red line with New Delhi making it clear that its support did not mean it had endorsed any particular world map or agreed to any change in depiction of its territories. This will remain India’s steadfast position in the future too, yet, there is a growing feeling among the common people that support to the UN resolution was unnecessary when the corrected map was not legally binding to any country. The step has now added another front for the government to fight the onging narrative war in the country.