The China Lessons Rahul Gandhi missed

The just-concluded session of Parliament reflects a new low with Congress MPs, including women members, crowding the passage in Lok Sabha that leads to the Prime Minister’s seat, effectively preventing access to the front row of the treasury benches to the right of the Speaker’s chair. The blockade led to PM Narendra Modi not being able to speak during the discussion on the President’s address to Parliament as the Lok Sabha secretariat correctly apprehended that the Congress MPs were looking for a showdown that could well turn physical and impinge on Modi’s personal security.

The palpable anger in the Congress ranks on February 4 was due to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Godda MP Nishikant Dubey’s hard-hitting attack on the party’s record of dealing with the external threat from China and unflattering accounts of Jawaharlal Nehru’s personal failings. Dubey’s attack was in turn a response to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s persistent efforts to read out excerpts from a book by former Army chief Gen Manoj Naravane – which the publisher says is not available for sale – that he claimed demonstrate the Modi government’s indecisiveness at the height of the 2020 India-China border tensions. As is his wont, Rahul’s comments were a personalised attack on the Prime Minister.

BJP counter punch agitates Congress

When BJP and Dubey returned the favour, agitated Congress MPs raised Cain in the Speaker’s office and then seemed ready to settle scores in the House. It is evident that BJP’s success in repeatedly raking up Nehru’s failure to detect Chinese leader Mao Zedong’s hostility towards India while mistakenly believing that acceptance of China’s grab of Tibet and the Panchsheel Agreement would herald peace is deeply galling for the Gandhis. It runs counter to the account that the Congress first family favours and it believes BJP is “tarnishing” the image of icons such as Nehru and Indira Gandhi. Rahul has therefore been at pains to repeatedly articulate a counter narrative accusing the Modi government of ceding territory to China.

On more than one occasion Rahul has claimed that India has lost territory the “size of Delhi” amounting to 4,000 sq km to China. For one, the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi is around 1,500 sq km. But such niceties are unlike to matter to the Leader of Opposition, convinced as he is that the disengagement between India and China along the Line of Actual Control amounts to loss of territory even though the Government has said that India has regained patrolling rights to areas such as Depsang and Demchok in east Ladakh. The reported contents of the Naravane book – irrespective of concerns that confidential communication between the military and the political executive can be misunderstood without relevant context – does not seem to add up to proof that the Modi government stepped back against China.

How China went on backfoot

Those in the know of events during the intervening night of August 29-30 in 2020 point out that the surprise move by Indian troops to take control of the Kailash range heights that gave them a vantage over Chinese ingress on the north bank of the Pangong Tso went badly for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). The bold military manoeuvre held to angry and panicked reactions with the Chinese foreign ministry very unusually issuing statements late on the night of August 29 lashing out at India for “violating” the LAC and acting in a provocative manner. When foreign minister S Jaishankar met Chinese state councillor Wang Yi 10 days later in Moscow, he had for the first time since the Galwan clash, solid bargaining chips in his pocket.

The Joint statement by India and China after the Jaishankar-Wang meeting stated “…the current situation in the border areas is not in the interest of either side. They agreed therefore that the border troops of both sides should continue their dialogue, quickly disengage, maintain proper distance and ease tensions…both sides shall abide by all the existing agreements and protocol on China-India boundary affairs, maintain peace and tranquillity in the border areas and avoid any action that could escalate matters.” Around mid-February, 2021, Chinese troops vacated the Finger 4 (part of a series of ridges) on the north bank where they had encamped since May-June 2020. The speed at which they pulled up tents, dismantled semi-permanent structures and removed heavy weapons suggested the PLA troops were not keen to linger. Former Indian officers who have served in the region point out that sitting atop the remote and barren ridges amidst extreme weather was never a good idea and the PLA might well have thought the withdrawal was not a day too soon.

Cong allies have second thoughts

The finer points of the 2020 action seem to have escaped Rahul who saw the Naravane account as an opportunity to target Modi. But his I.N.D.I.A. allies were never onboard. They correctly felt that questioning the Prime Minister’s credentials on the basis of an unconfirmed account, which even if accurate, does not lend itself to the conclusions Rahul envisaged, might not work. Indeed, BJP launched a strong counter-attack on previous Congress governments who have been embarrassed by Chinese intrusions across the LAC. The insinuation that Congress was questioning the Army’s competence or playing into the hands of China was damaging.

The death of 20 Indian soldiers including Col B Santosh Babu in the June 15 Galwan clash and the subsequent border stand off led to a rapid re-evaluation of the border situation. Over the next two years, the Indian Army overhauled its tactical plans, roads and other infrastructure such as airfields was built at speed, a large number of troops mobilised and new weaponry inducted while the arrival of Rafales added a serious heft to the Indian Air Force deterrence capabilities along the norther border. It is unclear whether Naravane’s book takes note of these developments though he was in office when the series of measures were taken to add military muscle along the LAC and other parts of the border with China.