THE REPUBLICwatershed line at that time when debate was focused on a different line,
supposed to divide Tibet into an Inner and Outer Tibet on the same pattern
as Inner and Outer Mongolia. Inner Tibet was to be under Chinese
influence and Outer Tibet under British influence. But Communist China
made use of the fact that the agreement had not been ratified and accused
India of clinging to the imperialist heritage with regard to the Himalayan
boundary.
This harping on the legal position in the northeast was a tactical move
made in order to build up a bargaining position with regard to Aksai Chin
where the Chinese could not raise similar claims. But Chinese feelers in this
direction were always ignored by India. Aksai Chin, although uninhabited,
was nevertheless a part of Indian territory which could not be bartered
away. When the public came to know about the Chinese roads in Aksai
Chin, Nehru was faced with increasingly vocal criticism in the Indian
Parliament, and he once angrily asked his critics whether they wanted him
to go to war on this issue. The Chinese pursued their aims relentlessly and
edged closer and closer to the strategic Karakorum Pass.
Finally, a border war broke out in October 1962. It was a typical
demonstration war conducted with great finesse by the Chinese. They
completely perplexed the Indian generals by pushing a whole division
through the mountains down to the valley of Assam and withdrawing it
again as quickly as it had come. The Indian strategic concept of defending
the Himalayan boundary by cutting off the supply lines of the enemy if it
ventured too far beyond the border could not even be put into operation:
the Chinese were gone before their supply lines could be cut. But why did
they do this? They wanted to divert attention from their moves in the
northwest, where they did reach the Karakorum Pass in a swift offensive
and did not withdraw as they had done in the east.
In the years after 1962 there was a conspiracy of silence about the line
of actual control established by the Chinese. India did not like to admit the
loss of territory as this would have led to acrimonious debates at home.
China had no reason to advertise its territorial gains. Subsequent Indian
attempts at resuming the dialogue with China were frustrated until Prime
Minister P.V.Narasimha Rao visited China in 1993 and signed an
agreement whereby both sides respect the line of actual control. Once
again no attempt was made to specifiy this in detail or to delineate a
border. To this extent the position remains more or less the same as in
1954 when both sides refrained from delineating the border. Nehru had to
pay the price for this in 1962. The Indian army smarted for many years
under the humiliating defeat in that border war until the more
conventional battles with Pakistan in 1965 and 1971 restored its image.
Pakistan was an enemy operating on the same military wavelength,
whereas Chinese strategy and tactics were too devious for officers trained
in the Sandhurst tradition.