No matter what the fallout from the Chinese President’s visit is, there is a great deal of certainty over one issue.
The border dispute that has plagued relations between India and China will not be resolved. Oh yes, there will be talk of even more talks, of mechanisms to resolve the issue etc. But essentially, all the two countries will do is fudge and delay.
And yet, until the dispute is settled, the suspicion that Indians feel towards the Chinese will never dissipate. Each week, we will hear about new incursions on the border. And every month or so, there will be calls for a strong Indian response to what we see as China’s complete lack of respect for our sovereignty.
So why is this dispute so difficult to resolve?
Basically, it boils down to the actions of two men: Chou En-lai and Jawaharlal Nehru.
The dispute itself is complicated. And neither side is absolutely in the right. The McMahon Line was roughly drawn by British colonialists by dragging a pen across a map and is neither historically accurate nor is it even clear. In some areas, the map scribble takes into account vast swathes of territory – which is what happens when you simply draw a thick line on a map.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, there were those in India who believed that because the dispute was so complicated, both sides should accept a compromise. The Chinese asked for parts of Aksai Chin in return for territorial concessions on their part. Though there were elements within the government who wanted this solution (Krishna Menon mainly, who thought it would be disastrous for India if the two sides went to war), Jawaharlal Nehru refused to entertain any talk of compromise because of the hard anti-concessions line adopted by Congress hawks such as GB Pant.
As the dispute festered, India initiated what it called a Forward Policy of laying claim to those parts of the disputed territory that China had a presence in. When the Chinese followed the same sort of policy, Nehru was goaded about India’s lack of response.
| "There will be more such visits. But until the Chinese make the first move to resolve the border dispute, we will never really be friends." |
Eventually, he made a foolish and intemperate remark to the effect that he had given orders to the army that the Chinese were to be thrown out.
The onus then fell on China’s leader, Chou En-lai, with whom Nehru had enjoyed good relations in the Fifties. Chou could have chosen to ignore the outburst or to have engaged in further negotiations. Instead, he ordered a full-scale military response which led to the defeat of the Indian army and a huge psychological wound that set India back by at least a decade.
Since then, the major part of the dispute has not been resolved because a) the Chinese see India as a “second-rate power” (Chou En-lai’s phrase) that dared challenge China’s legitimate claims and b) because that 1962 defeat is never far from the surface in the Indian consciousness. We are programmed to think of the Chinese as our enemy. And the complexity of the dispute has been forgotten. As far as we are concerned, it is our territory and the Chinese are shameless aggressors.
This means that no Indian Prime Minister can ever agree to a solution that the Chinese would find acceptable. There is simply no room for manoeuvre given the depth of public sentiment. So no matter how many Chinese leaders visit the banks of the Sabarmati, relations will never really improve on matters of substance.
Our inflexibility and our complex about China after the 1962 defeat is Jawaharlal Nehru’s legacy. But the wound inflicted on India is Chou En-lai’s legacy. If the Chinese had not attacked in 1962, there is every possibility that the dispute would have been peacefully resolved. After all, China and India have both resolved many such disputes with other countries.
So, what happens next is really up to the Chinese. If, as a gesture of good faith, they make some significant concessions that an Indian Prime Minister can claim as a victory for India then domestic public opinion will soften to the extent that India can also make the concessions needed to settle the issue.
But will the Chinese make those concessions? My guess is that they won’t. They are just too close to Pakistan and they see India as their only real rival in this region. So it suits them to keep us on edge, still reliving memories of our 1962 humiliation.
So yes, there will be more such visits. But until the Chinese make the first move to resolve the border dispute, we will never really be friends.
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