The Barahoti saga: Failure of 'Nehru doctrine' and deceitful nature of Dragon

My article The Barahoti saga: Failure of 'Nehru doctrine' and deceitful nature of Dragon  appeared in Firstpost

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Hardly two months after the Panchsheel Agreement was signed, India discovered that all problems had not been solved. The first Chinese incursion took place in Barahoti in June 1954. This was followed by a series of intrusions numbering in the hundreds 

The Hindu recently reported that new posts of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) had sprung up some six-seven kilometres north of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the Middle Sector on the Indo-Tibet boundary, “while the frequency of patrolling has also significantly increased in certain areas,” it noted.
Citing sources in the Government, the newspaper asserted that China was actively expanding its network of ‘Xiaokang’ model villages (‘Xiaokang’ meaning ‘moderately prosperous villages’), along the Middle Sector of the LAC. These villages are said to be constructed with the main objective of ‘poverty alleviation’, but one could ask: is there a need for hundreds of such villages precisely on India’s northern borders …if there was no other purpose?
Obviously, these villages have a ‘dual use’; further, the fact both that Tibetans and Hans are settled there will quickly change the demography of the border areas, moreover providing bases or garrisons for the PLA when required.
The report also mentioned that the Chinese are “building villages at a rapid pace, sometimes as many as 300-400 houses in multi-storey blocks within 90-100 days. …Construction of a likely border settlement village was observed northwest of Tholing area [north of Chamoli district Uttarakhand] and a military complex is also under construction close by. Superstructures of buildings in both the locations are complete.”
China apparently uses prefabricated parts extensively to construct the houses at a quick pace.

Historical Background
The history of how Barahoti became a disputed area is interesting.
Let us remember that for centuries the Indo-Tibet frontier had been peaceful; however the Indian diplomats who negotiated the Panchsheel Agreement foolishly ‘avoided’ confirming India’s northern frontiers during the talks and in the final accord signed in April 1954. India still pays dearly for this monumental lapse.
The signature of the Panchsheel Agreement with China, through which India surrendered all its rights and responsibilities in Tibet while getting nothing in return, was a complete surrender to China; Delhi did not wait long to see the consequences of The ‘Nehru doctrine’ (to be friendly at any cost with China).

A Historical Background by the Intelligence Bureau
Let us go into the history of the so-called dispute; in July 1952, in a note ‘Border Disputes and Collection of Taxes by Tibetans in Garhwal District’, the Intelligence Bureau (IB) described the topography of the area (today’s Chamoli district of Uttarakhand): “The Garhwal-Tibet border can only be crossed through the Mana and Niti Valleys where there are open places and habitation, while the rest of the border area consists of snow-covered mountains studded with glaciers…”
The IB report continued its descriptions of the area: “There are four passes between Niti Valley and Tibet, namely: Gothing Pass, Damjin [Tunjun] Pass, Hoti Pass and Ghirti Pass. Niti, the Northern most village in the Indian territory, is situated 11 miles from Gothing Pass and Damjin Pass. There are few plains situated near these passes in the Indian territory.”
These passes marked the watershed line: north was Tibet (China after 1951), south was India.
The Intelligence note admitted that once in the 19th century, there was a short boundary dispute about Hoti Plain. Giving the background, it says: “About the end of the last [19th] century, the Tibetans had established a Customs Post at Hoti Plain. To stop this practice, the British Govt. had to send out a detachment of Gurkhas along with Shri Dharma Nand Joshi, Deputy Collector in 1890.”
The Tibetan official (called a Sarji, an emissary of the Tibetan Dzongpon or District Commissioner) usually crossed the border at Tunjun-la pass to announce the beginning of the trading season.
Though the access to the place was difficult, making it hard to keep a tab on the area, the British were quick to understand the plot and stop the Tibetan official to cross the pass.
Soon after the Chinese occupied Western Tibet in the early 1950s, they started claiming Barahoti as theirs. The IB recommended to the Government of India that it was essential that Delhi “should make it clear to the Govt. of Tibet and its Dzongpon that the Hoti Plain is Indian territory and the Tibetans have no right to establish any customs post there; nor can they exercise any authority in the area.”
But the Tibetan Government was fast losing its independence.

The Ink was Hardly Dry
Hardly two months after the Panchsheel Agreement was signed, India discovered that all problems had not been solved, as just announced in Parliament by the Prime Minister. The first Chinese incursion took place in Barahoti in June 1954. This was followed by a series of intrusions numbering into hundreds and culminating in the attack on India in October 1962.
The irony of the story of the first intrusion is that it was China which complained about the incursion of Indian troops… on India’s territory!
Though Barahoti was well inside India’s frontiers (clearly south of Tunjun-la, the watershed), arguments about the new ‘dispute’ continued with the exchange of hundreds of notes during the following months ...and years.
TN Kaul who had negotiated the Panchsheel Agreement, (before being sent back to Delhi for having an affair with a Chinese woman), philosophically explained later: “Territorial disputes have existed between near and distant neighbours through the ages. The question is whether they can and should be resolved by war, threat, use of force or through the more civilized and peaceful method of negotiation... Both sides still profess their faith in the Five Principles, and therein lies perhaps some hope for the future.”
The Five Principles had put Kaul and his colleagues to sleep.

1850 Map of Hoti

Where is Wuje?
In the meantime, the Chinese started calling Barahoti by the name of ‘Wuje’ creating more confusion in the minds of the Indian diplomats (the same tactic of changing the names of places is today used in Arunachal Pradesh).
During the following months, the Chinese would insist on sending a joint investigating team to this spot, something Delhi always refused. The main reason for Beijing to insist on a joint investigation team was that Beijing did not know that Barahoti was located south of Tunjun-la and therefore in India.

A New Note
Over the years, as the situation continued to deteriorate, a note was prepared by Jagat Mehta, Director (China) in the Ministry of External Affairs in 1961. It provides the background of Barahoti saga during the preceding years. Mehta writes: “The Chinese claim to the Barahoti became known to us in 1954, when the Indian and Chinese army faced each other in the small pasture ground. The suggestion for refraining from sending the troops was first made in 1955 and was reiterated in 1956; it was agreed that no troops should be sent by either party in 1957, and a conference to discuss the dispute regarding Bara Hoti was held in April – June 1958.”
At the end of the conference, it was agreed that “neither side should send forces in exercise of its supposed right during the talks and until the question was settled.”
At the same time, the Chinese reiterated again their desire for a joint investigation, while “persistently refused to specify the actual area of Wuje. When pressed, in a vague manner they said that Wuje covered 15 kms north to south and 10 kms, east to west, but no coordinates were given even with reference to this area.”
Mehta explained that India made it clear that Barahoti was a small pasture ground south of Tunjun-la: “during the talks we specified the relevant coordinates and pointed out that the area involved was 2 miles in length and ¾ of a mile in breadth. The Chinese did not agree to our suggestion for the complete neutralization of this area and hinted that they would continue to send civil officials, where upon we also informed them that we were reserving the right to send our own revenue officials to this area.”
The agreement was that the patrols should be unarmed; while India always kept its promise, already in 1958, China sent an armed detachment to the area after the Indian civil party withdrew in September.
Two points should be made to conclude: though it was not necessary for India to participate in a conference for Barahoti in 1958 as the area was clearly south of the watershed and therefore in India, Delhi agreed out of goodwill and for the sake of the ‘friendship’ with China. It did not help to find a solution for the issue.
The second point is that even after agreeing not to send armed patrols to the remote plain, Beijing did not keep its word. It was the beginning of a series of un-kept promises, which continues till today in Eastern Ladakh or Arunachal Pradesh.

A World War over some sheeps and a few yaks?

Yaks by Wang Yiguang, a famous modern Chinese painter

As I mentioned in my last post, ‘differences of perceptions’ on the Tibet-Sikkim-Bhutan and the Sikkim-Tibet borders are not new.
China used fully these differences during the Indo-Pakistan conflict of 1965, threatening to interfere in the War and opening a new front in Sikkim.
This has been well-documented in the Notes, Memoranda and Letters Exchanged between the Government of India and China (known as White Papers on China) published by the Ministry of External Affairs in Delhi.
Today, I post an extract of White Paper No. XII (pertaining to January 1965 to February 1966). The Note relates to an incident which took place in Delhi on September 24, 1965.
Atal Bihari Vajpayee, then a Member of Parliament took a herd of 800 goats to the Chinese Embassy in Delhi to send a message to Beijing: is it worth starting a war over some pastures in the Himalaya or because some herds had crossed an unmarked line?

Here is the Note given by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing to the Embassy of India in China on September 26, 1965.
Let us hope that the Chinese missives are less rude today.
I wish I could find a cartoon (by Shankar for example) of the ‘incident’.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China presents its compliments to the Indian Embassy in China and has the honour to state as follows:

In the afternoon of September 24, 1965, a mob of Indian hooligans went to the gate of the Chinese Embassy in New Delhi to make provocation led by Indian officials and Congress leaders and driving a flock of sheep before them.
They made a huge din, yelling that China had ‘invented absurd pretexts for threatening and intimidating India’ that ‘China wants to start a world war over some sheep and a few yaks’, and so on and so forth.
This ugly farce was wholly instigated and staged by the Indian Government. The Chinese Government hereby lodges a strong protest with the Indian Government.
The Indian Government will definitely not succeed in its attempt, by staging this ugly anti-Chinese farce, to cover up its crimes of aggression against China and the wretched picture of its troops fleeing in panic from the Chinese side of the China-Sikkim boundary.
For a number of years you have flatly denied that Indian troops had intruded into Chinese territory across the China-Sikkim boundary and built military works for aggression there.
Yet within a few days of our demand for the dismantling of the military works for aggression within a specified time-limit, the Indian troops who had intruded into the Chinese side of the China-Sikkim boundary could not but flee helter-skelter under the surveillance of Chinese troops, leaving behind numerous evidence of their crime, thus suddenly exploding the falsehood which you had so painstakingly concocted over these years.
How can you succeed in hiding your shame?
It was clearly because you knew yourselves to be in the wrong that you could not but hastily withdraw all your troops who had intruded to the Chinese side of the China-Sikkim boundary and demolish some of your aggressive military works there.
But then you felt it to be too great a loss of face, so you cast aspersions on China alleging that China wanted to start a war merely for some sheep and a few yaks. Actually, you knew full well that this was a deliberate lie. Otherwise, why did you withdraw all your intruding troops before the time-limit set by us was up?
You must return every single one of the border inhabitants and livestock you kidnapped and seized from Chinese territory across the China-Sikkim border.
But the issue between China and India is absolutely not limited to a matter of some sheep and yaks. Are your subversive activities in Tibet only a matter of some sheep and yaks?
Is your occupation of 92,000 and more square kms of Chinese territory [mainly NEFA, today’s Arunachal Pradesh] along the three sectors of the Sino-Indian border a matter of some sheep and yaks?
No. All Indian intrusions, harassments and armed provocations against China are major questions involving China's sovereignty and territorial integrity, and these accounts will have to be settled.
The distinction between aggression and anti-aggression can never be blotted out. The whole world now sees that it was India which launched a war of aggression against Pakistan, thus endangering peace in Asia and the world, and that it was China and other justice-upholding countries which by their firm anti-aggressive stand punctured your aggressive arrogance. It is understandable that you are feeling very much ill at ease.
But you will never succeed in your attempt to coerce China into abandoning her just stand by concocting the lie about China wanting to start a world war. The Indian Government should know that it cannot do what it likes to its neighbouring countries even with the backing of the U.S. imperialists and the modern revisionists. In staging a few forlorn and unseemly anti-Chinese demonstrations you have your undivulgeable motive - to seek reward from the imperialist and modern revisionists. But the Chinese Government must remind the Indian Government that there is a limit to everything, and that the exceeding of such a limit will not be tolerated.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs avails itself of this opportunity to renew to the Indian Embassy the assurances of its highest consideration.

Yaks by Wang Yiguang

India Answers
On October 1, the Indian Government answered the allegations by sending Note to the Embassy of China in India.
It is a reply to two Chinese communications; one dated September 24 about Tibetans taking refuge with their yaks in India and the above.
It also mentions China's 'ultimatum' to India. 
The ministry says:

In the two notes under reply the Chinese Government has again belaboured the trumped-up and farcical allegations which have formed the terms of its impertinent ultimatum to India. The Government of India have already repudiated each and every one of these allegations. As regards the so-called military structures, which the Chinese had made into a casus belli, the Government of India and the entire world are amused by the Chinese Government's statement that these have since been demolished by Indian troops while ‘withdrawing’ within the time-limit set by the Chinese Government. The fact was that there were no Indian troops in Tibetan territory to be withdrawn and that there were no Indian military structures in Tibet to be destroyed. The Chinese Government had, indeed, admitted this indirectly by its refusal to allow an independent observer to go to the border and also by rejecting its own proposal for joint inspection when the Government of India accepted it.
Both the 'construction' and the 'demolition' of military structures by Indian troops were a Chinese myth-a myth which has now exploded in the face of its own authors.

The Note continues:

About the four Tibetan inhabitants allegedly kidnapped by Indian troops, an adequate reply has been given in the Indian notes of September 17 and 21. Like other Tibetan refugees these four people had come into India on their own volition and without our permission and taken refuge in India. They are free to go back to Tibet at any time if they desire to do so. A propos the 800 sheep and 59 yaks the Government of India have already given a reply in the clearest terms possible. We know nothing of the yaks and as regards the sheep it is up to the two herdsmen concerned to take them to Tibet if and when they choose to go back to their homeland.

Then it comes to the incident in front of the Chinese Embassy in Delhi.
The Indian Note remarks:

In its note of September 26, China has protested against the peaceful demonstration which was held near the Chinese Embassy in New Delhi on September 24 when some of the citizens of Delhi took in procession about 800 sheeps. The Government of India had nothing to do with this demonstration. It was a spontaneous, peaceful and good-humoured expression of the resentment of the citizens of Delhi against the Chinese ultimatum and the threat of war against India on trumped-up and trivial issues. In India, as the Chinese Government is, no doubt, aware, citizens have the right of peaceful assembly and of peaceful demonstration. There is no reason for the Government of China to protest against this. The demonstration was not only peaceful but the demonstrators kept themselves more than 50 yards away from the gate of the Embassy building.

It further adds that full security protection was provided to the Chinese Embassy:

This peaceful demonstration by a number of private citizens of Delhi was entirely in conformity with the laws of India and with the rights and freedoms enjoyed by Indian citizens under the Constitution. The Chinese Government has absolutely no right to interfere in the internal affairs of India. The protest is, therefore, rejected as completely unwarranted.

The rest of the Note deals with the inflow of Tibetan refugees in India, a topic very sensitive for Beijing in the 1960s … and today too.
South Block says:

The Chinese Government appears to have been embarrassed by the statement in the Indian note that there are not four but thousands of Tibetans who have left their homeland and taken refuge in India. But that is a fact, though not a creditable one for the Chinese regime in Tibet. The Chinese note has stated that these thousands of Tibetan refugees are a debt which India owes to China. On the contrary, it is a debt which China owes to the people of Tibet for making it impossible for them to live in freedom and dignity in their own motherland. It is interesting that a mention has been made in the Chinese note to His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

These remarks were bound to upset China further.
However, Delhi continues to give its views on the matter:

In March, 1959, when the Dalai Lama fled from Lhasa, following the Chinese invasion of Tibet, and took asylum in India, the Chinese Government had stated that His Holiness was ‘abducted to India by Tibetan rebels’ and kept under duress by the Indian authorities.

At that time, India still speaks about an ‘invasion’, a term which is not used anymore today.
The Note recounts the sequence of events:

However, on December 17, 1964, the State Council of China, while dismissing the Dalai Lama from his posts as the Chairman and member of the Preparatory Committee for the autonomous region of Tibet, described His Holiness as having ‘staged a traitorous armed counter revolutionary rebellion against the country in 1959’ and to have fled abroad. Now the Chinese Government has changed its tune once again and has alleged that the Dalai Lama and others were enticed or coerced to go to India.

Using strong words, Delhi points out: “The falsehoods propagated by the Chinese Government do not even possess the virtue of consistency. The Chinese Government ought to be aware that rebellions do not take place under enticement or coercion.”
And says: “Where there is oppression, there is rebellion. It is futile to blame India for the troubles in Tibet and for large number of Tibetans being forced to leave their hearths and homes for refuge in other countries.”


The entire White Paper is available on my website.