Border problems between India and China

source: The Times of India

Tawang rebuffs China, says 'we are Indians'

TAWANG (ARUNACHAL PRADESH): India and China have been locked in endless border talks for 22 years and yet Chinese claims to Tawang have popped up repeatedly.

While Chinese officials recently refused visa to an Arunachal Pradesh official to reiterate Beijing’s claim, there have been reports of alleged incursions by the People’s Liberation Army into the state’s higher reaches. Even the Chinese ambassador to India, Sun Yuxi, has claimed that the whole of Arunachal Pradesh belongs to China.

Inside Tawang, however, such a debate appears irrelevant and unnecessary. The people of this picturesque north-western Arunachal Pradesh district regard themselves as "Indian" — in body and soul.

"Not a soul in Tawang will ever support China. We are an inalienable part of India and the Indian society," says Sangay Jampi, secretary of Tawang’s famed Galden Namgyal Lhatse monastery. "Neither Tibet nor Tawang ever belonged to China," the 35-year-old monk adds.

The 400-year-old shrine wields tremendous influence on the lives of the local people, who pay taxes for its upkeep.

Will New Delhi ever respond to Beijing?
25 Jun, 2007

TAWANG: Jawaharlal Nehru’s “Hindi-Chini bhai bhai” dictum was Indian diplomacy’s buzz word in the Fifties, but failed to stop the 1962 Chinese aggression. Forty-five years after the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) overran Arunachal Pradesh, the state is still waiting for New Delhi’s befitting diplomatic reply to the Chinese.

The PLA retreated on its own in ’62 after reaching close to Tezpur in Assam, but have not been able to take its eyes off Arunachal Pradesh. Beijing claims 90,000 square km of Indian territory in the eastern sector as historically Tibet’s and now its.
Indian defence sources say Chinese incursions in Upper Subansiri district have taken place more than 100 times between 1998 and 2000, though the Indian Army officially denies it.

BJP MP Tapir Gao blames the Centre for remaining a mere spectator. Tako Dabi, the state government spokesman, feels that though the Assembly contested the Chinese claims over Tawang, the issue has to be ultimately handled by the Centre.

The Chinese psychological game was there in 1962. And continues. In the opening ceremony of the 1982 Asian Games in New Delhi, a Chinese news agency criticised the inclusion of a lion dance of Arunachal in the cultural programme, which Chinese claimed was theirs. In ’84, the Chinese denied visa to the then Assembly Speaker, T L Rajkumar. He ultimately received a loose visa but the Chinese authorities refused to put the immigration stamp on it.

Three IAS officers of Arunachal were also denied visas. “What we could understand is that the Chinese wanted people of Arunachal to travel to China without any visa and in turn wanted their men to enter the state without any papers,” the BJP MP says.

External affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee recently said border tensions are all but inevitable between any two countries. “We need to ease the tension through discussions,” Mukherjee said.

Defence analyst Maroof Raza says he does not see another Chinese aggression happening. “It’s tied down with the US and Taiwan and would not probably want to waste its energy on India,” he feels.

In '62, Chinese came with orders to conquer
25 June 2007

TAWANG: Forty-five years is a pretty long time, enough to heal old wounds and make cerebral cells wear and tear. But for Lobsang Phunchu, now 53, that chilly night of October in 1962 is something that can never be deleted from his memory. Phunchu was only eight then, too young to figure out what was actually happening, not quite knowing whether his own Tawang fell or stood, went to the Chinese or saved and remained part of his country.

However, Phunchu, a proud Indian, still remembers, "quite vividly" the day, October 24, when he was on a long march along with his harried parents and some 25 sheep. They were escaping from a huge group of men with the arms they have never seen. "Only a few days later I came to know that those people were not my countrymen," Phunchu says.

"We walked for 12 days before we stopped at a village called Chako. It was the end of the road. Literally..," he recounts his all-walk days.

"Much later, farmers who stayed put told us stories about those foreign soldiers. Not all were demons or saints. Some would even guard our houses and protect property in our village, wouldn’t mind working alongside our farmers," Phunchu says.

"But they were invaders, executing orders to conquer us, control us and show us their might. Some of them were cruel and scary. There was a special team to clear the bodies of their own men. The Chinese were not quite willing to show the locals how many of them actually perished. But they would take the body of every single Indian soldier out of the jungles and display it in a public place," Phunchu says.

Now Phunchu has grown older and wiser to the history he witnessed. He is one who decides on land allotment in Tawang district.

"I remember where we stood then. I also know where we stand now. We are strong enough to make the Chinese realise the changing equation of power," he says.