Great nations, and wise leaders of great nations, do not remain prisoners of the past. They resolve problems inherited from the past by finding enduring solutions that prevent the recurrence of those problems and march ahead to cross new horizons of greatness and glory.
Almost every nation has its share of moments of defeat and retreat and times of success and rejuvenation. Wise leaders do not go on ruminating on the past weaknesses of their nations, and they certainly do not waste their precious time villainising their predecessors in a bid to project their own superior strength. For they know that history, that impartial judge of leaders and nations, evaluates their own competence not on the basis of how viciously they malign their political opponents but on the yardstick of whether they succeeded in solving the problems that previous generations couldn’t.
When it comes to India’s relations with China, our largest neighbour, the current leaders of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party are sadly more past-obsessed than future-focused (‘The cost of weak leadership’, IE, November 20). They keep raking up the 1962 war with China in which India suffered defeat. But listen to what they say about the war, and you will quickly realise that they are more interested in showing Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister and a hero of the freedom struggle, as the khalnayak (villain) than in presenting their own clear and practical blueprint for solving the boundary dispute which had caused the war.
A combination of factors had pushed India and China into a war that neither wanted. The first was the inability of the two countries to amicably settle the border dispute, itself a knotty legacy from the colonial era. There were no fool-proof historical records to fully buttress the territorial claims and counterclaims. This factor was compounded by mutual suspicions engendered by two others — the developments in Tibet leading to the Dalai Lama seeking exile in India; and the global geopolitical situation in which the United States had stitched up anti-communist military alliances to contain both the Soviet Union and China.
With the benefit of hindsight, it can be said that the blame for not averting the war rests on the leaders of both countries — Mao Zedong’s militaristic outlook made worse by his lack of patience and Jawaharlal Nehru’s lack of firmness in leadership. Nehru is blamed for his war-time weakness, and the blame is partially well-placed. But his real weakness (which the BJP will never highlight, because of the fear of being seen as a weak party) was that he wavered, vacillated and ultimately rejected an eminently practical solution to the boundary dispute offered by his Chinese counterpart Zhou Enlai (obviously with Mao’s approval).
Since fact-based historical memory is woefully weak in India, I would like to draw BJP leaders’ attention to this solution, which I had discussed in some detail in my article in this newspaper four years ago (‘Biting the bullet’, IE, June 19, 2020). During his visit to New Delhi in April 1960, Zhou offered a “package deal” for a final settlement — China would accept India’s control over today’s Arunachal Pradesh, which meant its de facto recognition of India’s jurisdiction upto the McMahon Line, if India accepted China’s control over Aksai Chin. Had Nehru accepted this deal by ignoring criticism from both within his own party and the non-Congress opposition — and the
people of India would have backed him on this — there would have been no war in 1962 and no Galwan Valley military
stand-off in 2020.
Even six decades after the end of the war, this “package deal” remains the only solution that can eventually end the India-China boundary row on a satisfactory note. Those in the BJP who accuse Nehru of providing weak leadership in 1962, and of losing 38,000 sq km of Indian territory to China, should answer two questions. One: Has Prime Minister Narendra Modi shown strength and success by “retrieving” Aksai Chin? On August 6, 2019, Home Minister Amit Shah had thundered in Parliament — “Both PoK and Aksai Chin are integral part of India, and we will give our lives for this region.” Why has no minister in the Modi government repeated that statement lately? In the four years since he made the statement, has the Modi government taken back even a square km of PoK from Pakistan? Not to speak of a square inch of Aksai Chin from a far more militarily powerful China? Two: Can Modi succeed in doing so even if he remains in power for 10 more years?
Jingoistic bravado sounds good, especially if the aim is to bash China, trash Nehruvian legacy and garner votes in elections. But it hardly helps solve the boundary dispute. If anyone, either in India or in China, thinks there is a military solution to this dispute, they are living in a fool’s paradise, whose other name is hell. For in the event of a new war between India and China, both would face disastrous consequences, and neither would emerge a victor — that is, neither China can ever take possession of Arunachal Pradesh nor India can ever drive China out of Aksai Chin.
Since this is the unalterable reality, wise leaders on both sides should do two things. First, convert the LAC into a Line of Assured Control, so that there is never again a military conflict. Second, create popular and political consensus in their respective countries for an early and permanent resolution of the boundary dispute on a give-and-take basis as described above.
Therefore, the BJP must stop blaming Nehru for the loss of territory in 1962 and the Congress must stop blaming Modi for the same in 2020. It’s time for them to craft a bipartisan policy on how India and China can revive their civilisational wisdom to promote mutual trust, stop the costly arms race and military build-up along the LAC, become good neighbours, cooperate in mutually beneficial and people-oriented development, and act as partners in shaping a new and better world order.
The writer was an aide to former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee
It's time for them to craft a bipartisan approach to China policy
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23.11.2023
Great nations, and wise leaders of great nations, do not remain prisoners of the past. They resolve problems inherited from the past by finding enduring solutions that prevent the recurrence of those problems and march ahead to cross new horizons of greatness and glory.
Almost every nation has its share of moments of defeat and retreat and times of success and rejuvenation. Wise leaders do not go on ruminating on the past weaknesses of their nations, and they certainly do not waste their precious time villainising their predecessors in a bid to project their own superior strength. For they know that history, that impartial judge of leaders and nations, evaluates their own competence not on the basis of how viciously they malign their political opponents but on the yardstick of whether they succeeded in solving the problems that previous generations couldn’t.
When it comes to India’s relations with China, our largest neighbour, the current leaders of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party are sadly more past-obsessed than future-focused (‘The cost of weak leadership’, IE, November 20). They keep raking up the 1962 war with China in which India suffered defeat. But listen to what they say about the war, and you will quickly realise that they are more interested in showing Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister and a hero of the freedom struggle, as the khalnayak (villain) than in presenting their own clear and practical blueprint for solving the boundary dispute which had caused the war.
A........
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