THAT India did not recognise the strategic importance of Tibet way back in 1954 and recognised the region as part of China just because it wanted to foster ties with China and stability in the bilateral relations, was already known to the nation for all these years. That fact of history now stands reiterated by Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan. Delivering a keynote address at the Bharat Himalayan Strategy Forum, he explained the approach of the Indian leadership to the Tibet issue in the early years after Independence -- that formed the background for the famous Panchsheel Agreement between India and China. General Chauhan also explained the difference between borders and frontiers between countries -- possibly indicating that between India and China, the concept of frontier appears to dominate the dispute. The Chief of Defence Staff stated that the border between nation-states is a legally marked line while the frontier is a hazy idea defined mostly by ruggedness of terrain, traditional understanding of the area, and cultural personae of the regions supposedly under the control of different countries.

 

He appeared to be making a sincere attempt to explain to the people of India how the dispute between India and China needs to be looked at. No matter the details of what the Indian leadership thought of way back in the 1950s or what General Chauhan wishes to explain to the common people of India, it is more than obvious that the India grossly misread the Chinese designs and therefore invited a near-permanent trouble along the India-China border (or frontier, if that definition is also to be used for discussion). In other words, Indian leadership did not even imagine that the Chinese would behave very aggressively and even try to expand the region held by them. The events around the ignominy of the crushing military defeat in 1962 show that the Indians were not just naive but also stupid in judging how nations such as China could behave.

 

For, it was just a few years earlier that China was settling down internally after what got called as Red Revolution. Its post-revolution leadership wanted to establish its credentials by also external expansion of its territory. And not just Tibet but also other parts of the Himalayan terrain were China’s targets then -- which India failed to understand. So juvenile was the understanding of the Indian leadership of the conduct of international relations. Their overall conduct was in that category in early years of Independence -- juvenile. Indian leadership applied only juvenile logic to dealings with China and hoped that Beijing (then Peking) would also consider as its ‘childhood’ friend (since both the nations were in their early years after their respective Independence and Liberation). Nothing of that sort happened and the Chinese kept pushing their claims on expanding territories under Indian control. The Indian leadership was so naive as to think that the country needed no Army since it had no intentions of invading any other country or go to war with anybody. All that stupidity came to haunt India -- and is still haunting the country. General Anil Chauhan’s explanations are all right and in tune with what the Government wishes to convey to the people. But fact of history is that India’s early leadership made certain mistakes for which the nation is still paying through its nose.