P. Stobdan
The Indian Express
April 26, 2013
As China intrudes, India must pay urgent attention to the region.
Since 1986, China has taken land in the Skakjung area in the Demchok-Kuyul sector in Eastern Ladakh. Now, it has moved to the Chip Chap area in Northeastern Ladakh. As in Kargil, India has been lax in patrolling. Unlike the lowlands in Eastern Ladakh, the Chip Chap valley is extremely cold and inhospitable. Until end-March, it remains inaccessible, and after mid-May, water streams impede vehicles moving across the Shyok River. This leaves only a month and a half for effective patrolling by the Indian side. For China, accessibility to Chip Chap is easier. No human beings inhabit the area. No agencies except the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and the army have a presence there. And both are locked in inter-departmental disputes.
The Chinese intention is to enter from the south of the Karakoram and cross the Shyok from the east. That would be disastrous for Indian defence, leaving the strategic Nubra vulnerable, possibly impacting supply lines and even India’s hold over Siachen. It is quite possible that China is eyeing the waters of the Shyok and Chang Chenmo rivers, to divert them to the arid Aksai Chin and its Ali region. The only provocation from the Indian side was the recent opening of airbases at Daulat Beg Oldi, Fukche and Nyoma.
In Eastern Ladakh, the 45-kilometre long Skakjung area is the only winter pasture land for the nomads of Chushul, Tsaga, Nidar, Nyoma, Mud, Dungti, Kuyul, Loma villages. The area sustains 80,000 sheep/goats and 4,000 yak/ ponies during winter. They consume over 75,000 quintals of tama or dry forage, worth Rs 10 crore annually. The Chinese advance here intensified after 1986, causing huge scarcity of surface grass, even starvation for Indian livestock. Since 1993, the modus operandi of Chinese incursions has been to scare Indian herdsmen into abandoning grazing land and then to construct permanent structures.
Until the mid-1980s, the boundary lay at Kegu Naro — a day-long march from Dumchele, where India had maintained a forward post till 1962. In the absence of Indian activities, Chinese traders arrived in Dumchele in the early 1980s and China gradually constructed permanent roads, buildings and military posts here. The prominent grazing spots lost to China include Nagtsang (1984), Nakung (1991) and Lungma-Serding (1992). The last bit of Skakjung was taken in December 2008. The PLA has also moved armoured troops into Charding Nalla since 2009. It could eventually threaten the Manali-Leh route.
China’s assertion in Ladakh has grown after it built infrastructure in its Ngari area to develop Kailash-Manasarovar into a tourist complex to attract affluent Chinese. Ngari’s rapid development was a precursor of things to come. China may be applying the Sino-India Guiding Principle (2005) to consolidate its position, for it knows that only 0.6 per cent of the Ladakh region is inhabited. The PLA used nomadism as an instrument for incursion. The migration of Changpa nomads on specific routes has been a key component of national security, something India has never understood. The imposition of multiple restrictions by our authorities has led to a massive shrinking of pastureland and the de-nomadisation of Changthang Ladakh, adversely impacting national security.
The Chinese want to push Indian control to the left of Shyok River in the north and left of Indus in the east, possibly to establish both rivers as natural boundaries. In Chushul, the aim is to reach Luking to take control of the entire Pangong Tso. The three-pronged strategy would make India defenceless both in the Indus Valley and the Nubra Valley.
As of today, the issue is not reclaiming 38,000 square km of Aksai Chin lost to China in 1962 but retaining the territory lying inside the Indian LAC. India’s problems include poor infrastructure, shortcomings in understanding the boundary, discrepancies in maps held by various agencies, a lack of institutional memory, lack of clarity in South Block, a demoralised army. In a 2010 meeting, officials admitted the loss of substantial land in 20-25 years, though then Army Chief General Deepak Kapoor dismissed that Ladakh had shrunk. Some agencies used the change in river course as a reason for the loss of 500-1,500 metres of land every year.
Beijing is now giving a different spin to the boundary issue by detaching Ladakh from its list of boundary disputes with India. Visiting Chinese security experts for a recent bilateral security dialogue at IDSA confirmed that China has no dispute in the “so-called Western Sector” (meaning this is not Indian territory) and that for China, J&K means only the Kashmir Valley. What do we make of it? Ladakh is not a part of J&K?
What needs to be done? Follow the authentic J&K revenue map (Sambhat 1958) available in Leh. Distribute the land from Chumur to Karakoram among the local population of Leh district. Build infrastructure, populate the area, reactivate nomadic herding, and provide them with the wherewithal to fight the vagaries of nature. This should be implemented directly under the defence budget. The J&K government should appoint more patwaris to maintain ground reports of the area. The defence ministry should adopt a theatre command system with a strike corps for Ladakh. India’s political sensitivity towards Ladakh has also waned over the years. A drift in Ladakh is not desirable.
The writer is a former ambassador.
