Opinion The Express View: Keeping an eye on China

The government’s decision to allocate a substantial sum of money to improve facilities in places along the Line of Actual Control has come none too soon. Under a “Vibrant Villages” programme, the government will spend Rs 4,800 crore for infrastructure development and to provide livelihood opportunities in the areas bordering China. The plan is to upgrade 633 villages in Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh and the Union Territory of Ladakh. Over a third of the allocation will go towards road building in the border areas. Tourism and sporting activities are being planned in these areas to provide livelihood opportunities for local people. A new 4.1 km all-weather tunnel will connect Himachal Pradesh to Ladakh making troops movement easier. Further, the government will spend Rs 1,800 crore to raise seven new battalions of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) — that means 9,000 personnel — chiefly deployed along India’s borders with China alongside the Army. Village and infrastructure development in the border areas mirrors reported actions by the Chinese military and civilian authorities on their side of the Line of Actual Control.

On both sides, the idea is to build permanent population settlements along the border to cement each side’s claim to the territory under its control along the disputed sections of the LAC. Security analysts assert that the villages on the Chinese side are hybrid in nature — a mixture of civilian and military settlements that are in fact staging posts for incursions into India. While that may or may not be true, it is a fact that China’s salami slicing tactics on India-claimed territory have been easier because many of these places have had no established human settlements. Residents of Ladakh’s border villages have long demanded better facilities — more 4G telecommunication towers, better roads, schools with adequate facilities, 24×7 electricity — to match what they can see in plain sight in settlements across the LAC, making the case that people would then stay on and act as the nation’s eyes and ears. It is unfortunate that the Indian state has not always taken seriously their complaints of having to surrender progressively acres of traditional grazing land in the face of Chinese incursions into these areas.

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The attempted Chinese incursion in Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh last December seems to have brought home the clear and present danger along the LAC. With the People’s Liberation Army deciding when and where to cause pain to India along the 3,488 disputed border, Delhi does not have the luxury of time. Building “vibrant” villages and developing infrastructure on the border are important, and convey politically that the government is seized of the urgency of the situation on the border, but by themselves, they may not be sufficient. They have to be part of a broader defence strategy with an all of government approach, which is not yet evident.