Last Friday, former Indian Army chief General MM Naravane had said that for the first time the Indian Army has got an edge over the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) on the Line of Actual Control (LAC). This statement needs to be carefully analyzed for its timing and content.
First, General Naravane was speaking at a forum releasing a new report titled ‘Resetting India’s Tibet Policy’. Tibet is a touchy issue for Indian policy makers past and present, with a sense that much more could and has been done, even if little real progress has actually been made. As such, public events on Tibet are always opportunities to iterate and enhance the credibility of key actors within the Indian government.
Second, General Naravane’s public comments followed revelations from a conference of senior Indian police officers a week earlier, which criticized the military for an overly cautious approach on the LAC, and claimed that India had conducted dozens of patrols. Lost access to the doers. point in eastern Ladakh since the outbreak of the conflict in 2020. Given that General Naravane was the Chief of the Army Staff during this period, he must have felt compelled to respond in some fashion.
However, General Naravane, in his remarks, reaffirmed the argument that the Army played it safe and revealed some fundamental misunderstandings about China’s actions and intentions.
He argued that “It does not matter whether four Chinese soldiers were killed or 40. What is material is that we stood up for the PLA and suffered casualties.” troops in Galwan, the general also set a somewhat lower bar in terms of expectations from the conflict with the Chinese.
Only the Chinese standing on the LAC may indeed be a big deal given the difference in physical capabilities between the two sides, but it also belies the contention that Indian soldiers are more battle-hardened than the Chinese . It has been pointed out earlier that the Indian Army’s experience in terrorism and counter-insurgency operations over the past few decades does not necessarily prepare its men or leadership for the conventional conflict now expected at the LAC.
Gen Naravane’s argument is also not helped much by the fact that the sustained effort since Galwan has been on diplomacy and retaliating in kind, rather than to get the Chinese to withdraw from their occupied territories. The maneuver to capture the heights of the Kailash range in August 2020 soon backfired, as the Chinese agreed to retreat from Pangong Tso a few months later, even as other points of friction remained.
General Naravane argues that the PLA’s lines of communication along the LAC with India were about 4,000 km long, while India’s communication lines were much shorter at about 400–500 km, the Chinese were under pressure to normalize the situation. as soon as possible. This, he said, should allow India to negotiate with China from a “position of advantage”.
However, this line of reasoning ignores several factors. One, the Chinese had fought at Galwan with far greater odds. Those constraints are increasingly being eased along the LAC with Chinese infrastructure build-up and troop build-up.
Two, if the talks between the military commanders of the two sides over the past two years are anything to go by, the Chinese have not succumbed to the pressure of the long lines of communication that the former Indian Army chief talks about.
Three, comments like those of General Naravane misunderstand the nature and objectives of the Chinese leadership. When the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is engaged in an existential struggle with the US-led West, countries like India, which Beijing considers allied with the West, are fair game. The Chinese leadership does not believe India’s claims of ‘strategic autonomy’.
Thus, for China, the current situation with India along the LAC is not a “stalemate” in which it sees no benefit and incentive for dialogue, but rather a way to bind the Indians and strengthen the CCP’s resolve to both the US and There is an opportunity to signal. In fact, since assuming power, CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping has repeatedly called on the PLA to develop its capabilities and experience in actual combat situations, and indeed saw situations like the LAC as welcome opportunities. goes.
The message to the PLA and the Chinese leadership, therefore, was as General Naravane believed – that any further aggression would be “costly” or even “overwhelming” – but that the Indians could be pushed right back. It is because they both misunderstand the reality and are very eager to reach a negotiated settlement.
catch all business News, market news, today’s fresh news events and Breaking News Update on Live Mint. download mint news app To get daily market updates.