Maroof Raza, Indian strategic affairs commentator and author of Contested Lands: India, China and the Boundary Dispute, speaks with Col Anil Bhat (retd.) | SAM Conversation
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00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:03 Welcome to Slam Conversation, a program of South Asia Monitor.
00:12 Today, we have the pleasure of welcoming
00:20 Mehtamaruf Raza, the author of Contested Lands,
00:27 a book which I've had the pleasure of reading
00:30 and reviewing, Contested Lands, India, China,
00:38 and the Boundary Dispute.
00:53 Mehtamaruf and I have enjoyed an old association
01:00 with the Salute magazine, which is the publisher.
01:03 And I'm an editorial consultant.
01:17 As far as-- and he's written a lot on China.
01:23 He's had a lot of comment on China.
01:26 So have I. Now, one thing we have to--
01:36 if we just go from 1962, that was history.
01:45 The next step was 1967, when we had some skirmishes
01:49 in Nathula and Chola, Sikkim.
01:53 And when China lost almost about 400 personnel, we lost 67.
02:04 And after that, China pressed very hard
02:09 that let's not fire at each other.
02:13 And they have taken such great advantage of this agreement,
02:23 which we have followed.
02:27 And they broke it once in Tulungla in 1975,
02:34 when they killed four personnel of five Sam rifles,
02:40 not by bullets, but by torture.
02:41 Then they broke it again in 2020,
02:46 when they committed what can be loosely referred
02:54 to as a second aggression, an aggression that too
02:59 after polluting the world with their experiment
03:05 in biological warfare.
03:07 Was it an experiment, or was it deliberate?
03:09 I mean, they've been experimenting for very long.
03:13 But was it a leak which was accidental or deliberate?
03:17 I think there's a lot of indication
03:20 that it's the latter.
03:21 Right from Aksai Chin, which they took,
03:30 they've not returned.
03:33 They've broken every agreement.
03:36 And every agreement on peace and tranquility
03:42 has been broken between May and June of 2020,
03:49 and remains broken till date.
03:51 This book has a preface by Ambassador Stobdan,
04:02 Munjuk Stobdan, who's again a very good authority
04:07 on the subject.
04:09 And its introduction is by Iqbal-chan Malhotra,
04:15 who I classify as a history hound.
04:22 He's someone who's known for going deep into history
04:30 and coming out with a lot of facts which
04:40 have not been known much.
04:43 Maruf, please tell us what your latest
04:51 edition of The Contested lands--
04:54 what is its importance?
05:04 Because a lot of everything about China is important.
05:09 And what all has--
05:14 I leave it to you.
05:15 Let's start from there.
05:18 OK.
05:19 Karam Bhatt, good evening.
05:22 You've been very kind with such a detailed introduction.
05:25 Obviously, you're very knowledgeable.
05:27 You've read so much.
05:29 It's often very hard to reduce it to a few crisp sentences.
05:35 But let me take the reader or the viewer
05:39 through three, four phases of this book.
05:43 The first thing to note is that this book is not
05:47 from 1962 onwards.
05:49 '62 is a scar in our psyche.
05:52 This book is from 1842 onwards.
05:56 And from then on, the armies of Maharaja Ranjit Singh,
06:03 and then Zoravar Singh, and others
06:06 tried to make forays into Aksai Chin, which
06:11 is an extended part of Ladakh, east of Ladakh,
06:15 which China regards as its own territory
06:17 and we regard as our own.
06:20 So the book explains that what was this thing about these maps
06:26 and these lines.
06:27 You know, the new book that's come out,
06:30 they had reached out to me, the publishers.
06:33 They wanted to do another book because it sold so well.
06:36 It was a bestseller.
06:37 So I told them, I said, OK, but then make it paperback
06:42 because it's more easily accessible to people
06:44 in airports and other things.
06:46 And we will give a new afterword,
06:50 just like the afterword I wrote for Karan Bhatt's book
06:53 on bulletless borders.
06:55 So afterword explained that what really
06:58 went on behind the scenes in Ladakh
07:01 when the Chinese intruded and there was panic
07:03 buttons pushed in Delhi.
07:06 Historically, even Chinese planting
07:09 a few tents on the disputed boundary line
07:12 would cause confusion right up to army airport level.
07:16 And there are many levels of command.
07:19 So this was something much bigger.
07:22 And therefore, I feel, yes, the deaths of those 16 Bihar
07:30 martyrs should not go unacknowledged.
07:34 But also the fact is that they have
07:36 managed to define a new phase in Sino-Indian relations
07:44 because Chinese are good at wait and watch.
07:48 There's a book by Ambassador Gokhale called The Waiting
07:52 Game, and in which what they do is they just
07:56 keep making you wait, and they keep talking to you,
07:59 keep talking to you, and they look
08:01 for soft spots in your armor.
08:04 The second thing about this book is
08:06 that it explains in a fairly brutal, honest way
08:12 all the faux pas that we have created.
08:17 '62 was something that happened in 1962.
08:21 It was building up from the '50s,
08:23 and the Chinese were getting very edgy about India's
08:27 ongoing relationship with the US.
08:29 They were getting very edgy about India
08:32 supporting the Tibetans, both logistically
08:36 and through military weapon systems.
08:39 And one of the consignments of weapon systems
08:42 was signed by Lieutenant Colonel Sam Manekshaw,
08:45 and that also reached the Tibetans.
08:48 So these were being given.
08:50 Now, Nehru claimed that he did not
08:54 have much knowledge of it.
08:55 So I don't know what kind of a ministry he was--
09:01 or cabinet he was running that was partly
09:03 keeping him in the dark.
09:05 Just like when the Dalai Lama walked across from Tibet
09:11 into India, there was an officer of the foreign office, Mr.
09:16 Menon, who was there to receive him.
09:19 He was the uncle of the former foreign secretary, Shiv
09:21 Shankar Menon.
09:23 And if a senior officer of the foreign office
09:25 is there to receive him, then how
09:27 is it that the Nehru government didn't know about him?
09:31 So there were a lot of things that
09:33 was left unsaid in a confusing way.
09:38 The Chinese definitely--
09:39 Not only that, the five SAM rifles escorted him in.
09:44 Yeah.
09:46 In fact, in salute we did a cover
09:49 of the Dalai Lama being given a guard of honor.
09:52 Guard of honor.
09:53 Five SAM rifles.
09:54 So the fact is that this book really--
09:59 initially, I began to read about China
10:03 because so much of China was happening on television,
10:06 and I needed to keep myself informed.
10:08 But the more I read, the more I researched,
10:10 the more I realized there is so much information,
10:13 and I know so little.
10:15 So at least let me put together a simple page
10:19 turner of a 200-page book, which will give you
10:24 from the history the various maps.
10:28 A diplomat asked me in the IIC a year ago,
10:32 have you shown the 1959-60 line?
10:35 I said, yes, I've shown a map which
10:37 has the '59-60 line, which is where the Chinese claims were
10:41 after the fighting that took place in Ladakh.
10:49 So they said, OK, we're ready to settle our claims there.
10:52 But there's an old Chinese claim on it
10:55 because the Chinese have historically, again and again,
10:59 gone back that you're not going to get everything you ask for.
11:03 We're not going to get everything we ask for.
11:05 So let's have a swap agreement.
11:08 So the swap agreement was something
11:10 that Nehru was against, but certainly there
11:15 were many in the foreign office who were open to it.
11:18 A senior diplomat confided to me that the swap agreement nearly
11:25 got implemented after Nehru's death,
11:27 except one senior diplomat said that we shouldn't be
11:30 disloyal to Nehru's memory, so let's set it aside.
11:35 So the Chinese have also been rubbed the wrong way.
11:39 And the fact of the matter is, as far as Aksai Chin goes
11:44 and Mechmohan line goes, there are two areas of dispute.
11:47 Aksai Chin, as you all know, is right,
11:51 as you look at the map of India, of Ladakh, or east of Ladakh,
11:56 is that whole territory.
11:59 It was not really under anybody's control
12:03 till the 1950s, so the law of international land acquisition
12:12 and borders is what you grab is you hold.
12:16 If it's not yours, it will become yours
12:18 over a period of time.
12:20 So the Chinese were there.
12:21 Krishnamenon sent a reconnaissance mission
12:24 there, led by Captain Rajendra Nath, who later became
12:27 General Rajendra Nath.
12:29 And he came back with very, very insightful findings.
12:33 But their report was put in the locker,
12:40 and it still lies closed in the locker.
12:43 But basically, they said that the Chinese are already there,
12:46 and we must prepare for getting back at them,
12:50 or at least prepare to stall further incursions.
12:54 Then on the McMahon line side, you
12:58 see the whole conference in Shimla, 1913,
13:01 1914 that took place, that tried to define
13:06 the southern boundaries of Tibet.
13:08 The problem with the Britishers were the northern boundaries
13:14 of Tibet, China would take care.
13:16 The southern boundaries of Tibet, where did they end?
13:19 Where did India begin?
13:20 So they came up after much debate
13:23 with the Tibetan representatives of the Dalai Lama,
13:26 and they finally created something
13:30 called the McMahon line.
13:32 Henry McMahon was a man who had a reputation for drawing lines.
13:37 He had earlier in the time of the British Raj
13:41 drawn the Durand line, which separates
13:44 Pakistan with Afghanistan.
13:46 So he got frustrated, finally, after six or seven meetings,
13:50 and pulled out a big map and put it on the table.
13:53 And he said, gentlemen, here it is.
13:55 And he drew a line.
13:57 And it was a thick felt pen.
13:59 Now, a thick felt pen on a quarter inch map
14:02 can be translated into kilometers on a metric map
14:06 or a one inch map.
14:07 So confusion still exists that what is your defined boundary?
14:14 Is it on that side of the black line
14:16 or this side of the black line, which McMahon drew?
14:19 So there's that problem.
14:20 And then China decided--
14:22 the biggest problem for China was two other things.
14:25 One was Indian Air Force reconnaissance missions
14:29 by Wing Commander Jaginath, who was then squad leader.
14:34 Really unnerved the Chinese.
14:36 He got a Mahavir Chakra eventually.
14:38 I've seen his plane in the Palem Museum.
14:41 And it's been shot at many times by the Chinese
14:44 when he flew over the Chinese territories.
14:46 But he took a whole lot of photographs.
14:48 But Jaginath tells me, and he also
14:51 writes to an old Claude Arpy, the famous sinologist,
14:56 that he went with the air chief to meet Krishna Menon.
15:01 Krishna Menon didn't even want to talk to him.
15:03 He just told him, have you seen the Chinese?
15:05 He said, yes, sir.
15:06 He said, OK, go.
15:08 And here's a guy who put his life on the line
15:09 with more than 20, 30 missions photographing.
15:12 The other thing that worried the Chinese
15:14 is that these photographs would be getting India
15:18 the details of the Chinese nuclear facilities in Lopundi.
15:22 And those nuclear photographs would
15:25 be transported from India to London, London to Washington.
15:29 And Washington would use that as an opportunity
15:32 to destroy Chinese nuclear programs before it's fructified.
15:37 This program was a deal between Mao Zedong and initially Stalin,
15:43 Khrushchev, and then Stalin.
15:45 And Mao Zedong said, I'll crawl in front of you,
15:48 but give me nuclear weapons, because that's
15:50 what I need to be a world power.
15:52 So the Russians decided to give them
15:54 after China's huge manpower losses in the Korean War,
16:01 where they fought for the Russians.
16:03 All that is documented in the book.
16:04 Everything is footnoted.
16:06 Everything is based on published documents.
16:09 I'm not saying a source told me this
16:11 and a source told me that.
16:13 I don't write like that.
16:15 It has to be authenticated with something in the public domain.
16:18 And therefore, Nehru and his top advisors, Mr. Krishnamenon,
16:29 his other advisor was National Security and Intelligence
16:33 Advisor, Mr. I think his name was Mathai.
16:37 And they were all very clear that India
16:42 should fall into the American trap
16:44 and become an American flunky.
16:47 Nehru wanted to avoid that.
16:49 So Nehru fouled up on his judgment of China
16:54 on the border areas, though he did get a border arrangement
17:02 for us with all these small countries that
17:05 are on the border with China--
17:07 Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim.
17:09 At that time, Sikkim was independent.
17:11 And even Arunachal was, again, a point of dispute.
17:18 But they all signed treaties with India.
17:21 So they became a buffer of India against Chinese expansion.
17:23 But Chinese thought that before Nehru
17:26 becomes too big for his boots, let them cut him down to shoot.
17:30 Cut him down to his height.
17:31 So they decided to attack by saying--
17:34 it's like the joke that how did Hitler enter Poland?
17:39 By saying, I'm not entering.
17:41 And the same thing, the Chinese decided to attack us.
17:45 And that led to the '62 war.
17:48 Of course, the forward post and the forward patrolling
17:50 and all those issues are nitty gritties of military tactics.
17:53 Thank you, Maruf, giving us some good background.
18:05 But now, what irks a lot is that in 1967,
18:14 it got proved very, very clearly that the Chinese soldier then,
18:22 or the Chinese PLA, People's Liberation Army,
18:27 is not really got a stomach to fight.
18:31 That is why after they had to deal
18:34 with about $400 body bags, and look at the way
18:40 they took advantage of this.
18:41 In 2020, when they came, they came
18:44 with those crude, ancient, barbaric, damned weapons.
18:50 They are building up.
18:51 They're building up like nobody's business.
18:56 Look at how they built up in Arunachal.
19:00 And we are trying hard to keep abreast.
19:05 It's costing us a lot.
19:06 It's costing them a lot.
19:07 But in their case, they don't give a damn.
19:11 What irks is that despite our having the capability of as
19:19 well as armed as we were in '67, we haven't even
19:25 thought about taking back what this government hasn't--
19:33 we keep repeating, oh, they've not got an inch of territory.
19:38 And we keep repeating it.
19:40 How long will this carry on?
19:46 How long will you carry on this business
19:49 of managing a border by [INAUDIBLE]
19:55 grappling, pushing, pulling, fisky cups of stones
20:03 and scaves and what have you?
20:07 They've ordered maces, electronic maces.
20:12 I mean, for how--
20:14 OK, so your question has two, three parts to it.
20:18 The last part being how long will it carry on this way?
20:22 The earlier part being has China learned any lessons
20:27 from its engagement with India?
20:29 And the geostrategic part being that where
20:33 do Indochina relations go?
20:36 So quite clearly, the Chinese do acknowledge
20:42 the grit and the determination of the Indian soldier.
20:46 It is the Indian politician that they are targeting.
20:52 They wanted to teach Nehru a lesson,
20:55 so the country had to be attacked.
20:58 And here, they again want--
21:01 see, I wrote a piece also in the Tribune
21:04 to say that 1962 deja vu, which meant that Xi, like Mao,
21:11 is very powerful.
21:13 Modi, like Nehru, is very powerful.
21:16 So is it another repeat of '62 where--
21:20 this is when the intrusions took place
21:22 in Galwan and those areas.
21:26 Now, second thing is that we need
21:29 to understand that they are not going to give away
21:35 any part of Aksai Chin to us.
21:37 They were willing to accept the McMahon line as a boundary
21:44 between India and China.
21:46 That happened in Chawla's visit.
21:48 That happened subsequently also.
21:51 But in Aksai Chin's case, they said
21:55 that there is no agreement.
21:57 And they are right on that.
21:58 There is no agreement which was signed and sealed
22:03 and announced.
22:05 They kept exchanging maps also.
22:07 And that also exchange of maps took place in a shifty manner.
22:11 It didn't happen in a straightforward manner
22:14 that you put the map across on the table and say,
22:17 listen, this is what I regard as my boundary line.
22:19 What is your boundary line?
22:21 And what surprises me, that in '62,
22:23 when they went to settle the boundary dispute,
22:26 they captured much more area than what
22:30 is the claim line even now.
22:33 They came much forward of the claim line,
22:36 59-60 claim line of Aksai Chin.
22:39 They came right up to Tawang and even
22:43 wanting to go down West Ham side.
22:47 And then they suddenly packed up and went without insisting
22:51 that in war--
22:54 so you've been a soldier, I've been a soldier.
22:56 In war, we are taught that what you gain, you hold.
23:02 And then you negotiate from a position of strength.
23:05 They didn't hold.
23:06 They went back to where they had earlier dug their trenches.
23:09 And it was kind of a sort of field firing exercise for them.
23:14 So that was the second thing.
23:15 And the third quickly, third point
23:17 was that masons and all those things that were used,
23:22 which your book brings out in great detail,
23:25 is about this nonsense about bulletless border management.
23:31 There was no bulletless border management.
23:33 China was distracted with lots of other things
23:37 to be able to focus too much on trying
23:38 to capture territory from India.
23:41 But Aksai Chin is very important to them.
23:43 It holds massive reserves of uranium and water.
23:49 The Russians were using that uranium
23:51 to create their first nuclear explosion north of Aksai Chin
23:55 in a place called Semipalatansk.
23:57 And Mao extracted uranium from there
24:01 also for his nuclear program, because Lop Nur
24:04 is on the other side, south of Aksai Chin.
24:07 So there and the highway at Highway G219,
24:12 which runs from Kashgar to Aksai Chin to Lhasa,
24:19 is a highway that has been built not for convenience
24:22 of the local people there or the people, population of Xinjiang
24:26 and Tibet.
24:27 It's been built to transport material
24:30 for their nuclear program.
24:32 So Aksai Chin, they're not going to give away.
24:34 Water is very important.
24:35 Aksai Chin is the catchment area for five or six major rivers,
24:40 which lead to dams.
24:42 And dams give the water that is necessary for making
24:46 silicon wafers.
24:48 So therefore, Aksai Chin--
24:50 Iqbal Malhotra has written quite a bit about--
24:53 Yeah, Iqbal originally came up with this finding,
24:57 and he's right.
24:58 I've double-checked on it.
25:00 And the water, 10,000 liters of fresh water
25:05 added with desert sand of Taklamakan Desert
25:11 leads you to create 30 centimeters
25:14 square of silicon wafer, which makes microchips.
25:19 So why would China give away?
25:21 Because India has made some presumptuous map.
25:24 [SPEAKING HINDI]
25:27 [SPEAKING HINDI]
25:29 I asked people in India, were you
25:31 there in occupation in Aksai Chin till 1960?
25:35 You were not, except you had one or two posts of Maharaja
25:38 of Kashmir in Haji Langar in one of the places
25:42 where trading posts were there.
25:44 That also people used to vacate in cold weather and go away.
25:47 You want to hold on to something?
25:49 Kargil is a case in point.
25:51 You be there cold or summer, and we weren't there.
25:56 And when we told the government, the military
25:59 told the government, we need to get more proactive.
26:03 Initial response of Panditji was the police
26:05 can handle the Chinese.
26:06 Back to you, sir.
26:12 Well, I don't know.
26:15 One of the very latest books on China
26:17 is by Major General Ashok Kumar, China Betrays Again.
26:24 He tries to make a point that the deployment of--
26:31 that increased deployment, heightened deployment of China
26:36 in Arunachal is going to hurt them more than us,
26:44 because our troops can--
26:47 we are probably the toughest group of troops in the world
26:52 and unacknowledged.
26:54 So in two world wars.
26:58 But not so in their case.
26:59 And you think there is any--
27:07 I mean, and eventually, is there anything
27:11 we will do to at least--
27:14 we can't take back at least what has been taken in 2020?
27:20 Sir, I think I'm again going against the grain
27:24 of common thought.
27:25 I think the answer lies for us to be actively in defense.
27:33 So what you call offensive defense,
27:36 which means that [INAUDIBLE] they
27:40 try and show a little bit of adventurism.
27:43 We should do a [INAUDIBLE]
27:45 And push them back.
27:46 We should do a [INAUDIBLE]
27:49 Yes, [INAUDIBLE] was a case in point.
27:52 But there was no physical interaction in [INAUDIBLE]
27:55 Only troops were flown in by helicopter and surrounded.
28:00 It was, I think, a brilliant message.
28:03 Let's see what we do now.
28:04 I've talked about it in my book also.
28:07 I talked about it in my book also.
28:08 And General Sundarji was a mastermind
28:11 at strategic activities.
28:12 No doubt.
28:14 So he did that.
28:15 And it gave a message to China that, you see,
28:19 strangely, every 20 years, we've taken them on and given them
28:25 a bloody nose.
28:26 '67, '87, Songdurang Chu, and then in the 2020--
28:37 So China has realized that India is not a pushover.
28:40 And if a country 1/10 the size of India, Vietnam,
28:44 can teach China a lesson or two in the 1979 Chinese invasion,
28:49 why can't we?
28:49 And I don't know.
28:56 With all this sign painting that they're doing in Arunachal,
29:01 I think it's time we started referring to China as--
29:05 not-- as China held Tibet.
29:12 China occupied Tibet.
29:14 C-O-T.
29:16 I mean, since--
29:18 Our foreign office had misplaced notions
29:22 that we didn't want to say anything offensive to China,
29:25 which they could rub our nose on the ground with Kashmir.
29:29 But Kashmir is ours.
29:31 It's not going away.
29:32 Though China is 20%, 25% occupational control
29:37 of Kashmiri land, Jammu and Kashmir,
29:39 the state of Jammu and Kashmir, Aksai Chin and Ladakh
29:42 and all that, and the Chakram Valley with China,
29:45 they have a lot of control over Kashmir and its waters.
29:49 But we've been very sensitive.
29:50 Just like we don't want to open an office of Taiwan in India
29:55 and let them issue visas here, because people from Taiwan
29:59 who want to come to India for Buddhist pilgrimages
30:01 to go there have to go to Hong Kong to go and get a visa.
30:06 So our foreign office, Mr. Jaishankar's statements
30:11 notwithstanding, but up till now,
30:14 the foreign office has not colored itself in glory.
30:19 And it's time we did so.
30:23 Today, it will be the greatest tragedy
30:32 when you have an armed force which is capable, Army, Navy,
30:39 Air Force, all three of them.
30:41 The Navy is also--
30:45 you won't go into that.
30:46 That's another--
30:46 But there are many other areas where
30:49 you can contest the Chinese and spoil their plans,
30:52 like their expansion strategy in Indian Ocean,
30:55 like their expansion strategy in our neighborhood
30:58 with Burma, Bangladesh, and with Pakistan, of course.
31:03 So China is going to do--
31:06 China's got more resources.
31:07 It's going to put into it.
31:09 And China wants to be the world's most important power
31:11 by 2050.
31:13 And that is what they're working towards.
31:17 We haven't-- we've defined what we want to achieve in 2047.
31:22 But it's not military-centric.
31:27 It's about us being an economic powerhouse.
31:32 But China has got deep pockets.
31:34 It's putting money into Maldives' hands.
31:37 It's putting money into various countries, like Burma.
31:44 But we still tend to be nice to these guys.
31:48 So--
31:49 OK.
31:52 Maru, I think very briefly, if you just very briefly give us
31:56 an idea about your afterward and who's
31:59 behind it, because we are running short now.
32:05 The afterword in this book is by Lieutenant General Pannu,
32:09 who is a dear friend and who was also the Corps commander in Leh.
32:14 And General Pannu is now into many academic forays.
32:18 And I asked him to spell out very clearly what
32:23 would we have done if we had reacted differently
32:28 to Chinese incursions.
32:30 And what were our limitations to reaction to Chinese incursions?
32:36 And what were Chinese capabilities?
32:39 How far is their browbeating going to be taken seriously?
32:44 Or how far are they really from becoming a superpower?
32:52 Thank you, Maru.
32:55 We wish you happy writing, more writing, and more in China.
33:02 And I mean, let's hope we get further and get them
33:13 by their short hairs.
33:14 Simple.
33:15 All the best.
33:16 Thank you, sir.