‘Illegal’: China irked as Indian team names Arunachal Pradesh peak after Dalai Lama

This comes after an expedition by the National Institute of Mountaineering and Adventure Sports (NIMAS) under the Ministry of Defence. A team led by director Col Ranveer Singh Jamwal scaled an unnamed and unclimbed 20,942 ft high peak in Arunachal Pradesh and decided to name the summit after the 6th Dalai Lama Tsangyang Gyatso, who was born in 1682 in the region of Mon Tawang.

Why is the peak named after 6th Dalai Lama?

The decision on the peak’s name was meant as a tribute to his timeless wisdom and his profound contributions to the Monpa community and beyond, as per a Defence Ministry press release.

In reference to this, Jian said he was not aware of the particular naming. “Let me say more broadly that the area of Zangnan is Chinese territory… This has been China’s consistent position,” he added.

Meanwhile, Arunchal’s Chief Minister Pema Khandu extended his wishes to the NIMAS team for the achievement. “Led by Director Ranveer Jamwal, they’ve successfully summited an untamed peak in the Gorichen Massif of Mon Tawang Region of Arunachal Pradesh, reaching an impressive 6,383 meters!” he wrote on X.

Territorial claims over Arunachal

China claims Arunachal Pradesh as South Tibet. It has been renaming places in Arunachal Pradesh — which it calls Zangnan — since 2017 to assert territorial claims by terming the area an “inherent part of China’s territory”.

India has continued to emphatically reject these claims over Arunachal Pradesh. On several occasions, New Delhi has also dismissed Beijing’s move to assign “invented” names to the area, saying it did not alter the reality.

Earlier in March this year, India rejected Beijing’s objection to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Arunachal. This was in line with China routinely objecting to Indian leaders’ visits to the state to highlight its claims.

External affairs ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal had said China’s objection to such visits will not change the reality that Arunachal Pradesh “was, is, and will always be an integral and inalienable part of India.”

Along the LAC front

The Chinese Defence Ministry on Thursday issued a statement on Thursday about the two countries being able to “reduce differences” and build “some consensus” on disengaging troops along LAC in eastern Ladakh.

China’s meeting with the Indian envoy also came on the same day The Indian Express reported that India and China had made “significant progress” in narrowing their gap on these pending issues. This included exploring the contours of a possible solution that factors in their respective pre-April 2020 positions while agreeing to address existing issues in Arunachal Pradesh.

Sources said this might imply that Indian troops, whose access to certain patrolling points along the LAC in eastern Ladakh were blocked either by Chinese troops or due to the implementation of the buffer zones created in the backdrop of disengagement at specific friction points, might be close to accessing them again.

“The two sides agreed to reach a resolution at an early date acceptable to both sides,” Zhang Xiaogang, spokesperson for the Ministry of National Defence said on Thursday.

— With PTI inputs