Ground realities

Problems along the LAC demand transparency

It is now becoming clear that the pullback of Indian and Chinese troops along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh is more complex than the robust official narrative suggests. Recent media reports from a variety of sources have all pointed to the same fact: That Chinese intrusions are deeper and cover a broader set of points on the map than has been officially admitted, and that the so-called “buffer zone” between troops of both countries encompasses, in fact, a significant portion of Indian territory. As late as July 18 — almost two weeks after de-escalation talks began between National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi — The Hindu reported that a second assessment by security agencies revealed that Chinese troops were yet to fully move out of a key patrolling point that is about 1.5 km inside Indian territory. Despite Defence Minister Rajnath Singh’s muscular statement that “not one inch of our land can be taken by any power in the world”, Chinese troops still occupy an area along the north bank of Pangong Lake and it goes five to eight km beyond what Beijing claimed during its 1960 boundary talks with India. There have been reports of Chinese intrusion 15 km into the Depsang plains. Given that 20 Indian soldiers lost their lives in brutal combat, defending these same areas in June, it is vital for the government to come clean on the full extent of the problem it faces along the LAC. 

Those tragic and wholly avoidable deaths make it imperative for the defence establishment to launch a proper enquiry into how the intrusions were allowed to happen along an area that falls squarely on the Indian side of the LAC — and, more to the point, why it took over a month for the infiltration to be detected. Poor intelligence has been a repeated failing of the Indian military — from Kargil in 1999 through Pathankot and Uri (both 2016) to Pulwama in 2019 — resulting in casualties. Unless this basic flaw is addressed on an urgent footing, India is likely to see history repeating itself as an escalating tragedy. China’s well-armed incursions along the LAC are just one facet of the threat along the northern borders. There is also growing concern, expressed by serving and former generals, of a China-Pakistan pincer in Ladakh, which China had refrained from during the 1965 and 1971 wars, when Cold War calculations counted for something. 

The second lesson must, therefore, be that defence capital budgets have to be boosted immediately and for some years to come. Right now, India spends no more than 25 per cent of its defence budget on capital expenditure — less than Pakistan’s 37 per cent and considerably lower than China’s 41 per cent. Most of the defence budget is absorbed by salaries and pensions, which the one-rank one-pension scheme has bulked up. India will need to find resources for improving defence capabilities. That apart, long-term requirements tend to be unaligned to priorities or budgetary realities and requisitioned on an ad hoc basis. Banning Chinese imports and investment and stirring anti-Chinese sentiment cannot make up for underspending and poor planning, now that it is evident that the country’s security environment has taken a turn for the worse.