Send out the Message

Immediately after the announcement of the Dalai Lama’s proposed visit to Tawang in November, this column had predicted that China would give a sinister political colour to the Tibetan leader’s spiritual programme. This is what has exactly happened. The Communist Party of China-controlled Global Times has quoted Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Jiang Yu’s statement opposing the Dalai Lama’s visit to ‘‘so-called Arunachal Pradesh’’ and said: ‘‘China holds a persistent stance on ‘Arunachal Pradesh’ which is part of Chinese territory but India has made it clear that it won’t stop the exile from making the visit’’. Chinese expert Zhao Gancheng, voicing Beijing’s take on the matter, has the temerity to say that ‘‘the continuous instigation will not only harm bilateral ties, but also do no good to the settlement of the China-India boundary question.’’ But who is instigating whom? Who has harmed bilateral ties? What happened in 1962, despite the Panchsheel, betraying the trust India had reposed on China? Who has attacked whom first? And who today is violating the 1996 agreement in which both India and China have pledged not to open fire, no matter what the provocation, as part of confidence-building measures? Who is repeatedly making incursions into the other’s territory? Who is then testing whose patience? Who is being openly aggressive and expansionist? Whose is the nefarious plan, as reported recently, to break India into 20-30 independent states? Who, apart from Pakistan and Bangladesh, has fomented militancy in India’s northeastern region? The list of such questions is endless when it comes to China’s repeated breach of India’s trust, bilateral agreements and its hegemonic designs in South Asia.

China refers to Arunachal Pradesh as ‘‘so-called’’ — that is, called so by India — as though the world should begin to call this State of the Indian Union by a Chinese name and recognize Beijing’s exclusive rights over the entire State of Arunachal Pradesh. Such audacity, as we have had occasion in the past to point out, is also a result of New Delhi’s inability to send out a clear message to Beijing that India will not, under any circumstances, cede even an inch of its territory to China and that there cannot be any dialogue on border disputes resolution with China if it persists in its stand that Arunachal Pradesh is its own territory. China, in other words, is emboldened to claim Arunachal Pradesh as its own territory due mainly to India’s failure to send out the right message and make the right assertion at the right time — that China should first free itself from the impossible dream of occupying Arunachal Pradesh, that 2009 is not 1962, and that India will go to any extent to protect its territorial integrity. The time for the UPA government to send out that message is now, because China has all along mistaken India’s patience and good intentions for weakness, and the time to dispel the impression is now. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should make it a point to visit Tawang every time he visits Arunachal Pradesh and assert that the State is one of the most cherished parts of the country. And let such visits and assertions be as frequent as possible. THE SENTINEL