Chumar, in Ladakh’s Daulat Beg Oldi sector/Depsang Valley seems to have become a compulsive preoccupation of Chinese Peoples Liberation Army (PLA)/China Border Police. In mid- April 2013 a platoon plus strength Chinese detachment made a most unusual kind of intrusion 19 kms across the Line of Actual Control (LAC) into Indian territory and camped there in tents with Molosser dogs for three weeks and departed after much diplomatic dialogue. On 17 June another detachment of Chinese troops came on horseback, demolished/ damaged some bunkers, cut some wires of cameras installed at the border post and took away some other visual equipment, broken remains of which were reportedly returned later.
Chumar, located 300 km from Leh, has always been an area of discomfort for the Chinese troops as this is the only location along the LAC, which they do not have easy/close access to . In the area of the April stand-off, Chinese troops came close to two km from the Indian posts in Burtse on 12 July, which is around 30 km from the perceived LAC. As per J&K media reports, this incursion was among five such incidents over 11 days. In Chumar, Chinese troops had entered the area on 16-17 and 18 July also and before that, on 11 July their helicopters violated Indian air space. On 20 July, a Chinese patrol came inside Chumar in the evening and after spending a few hours vandalizing visual equipment went back to their positions across the LAC. The 21-day face-off since April 15 was reportedly sparked off by the construction of an observation tower in Chumar division which had to be subsequently dismantled by the Army on May 5 before the crisis was defused. After dismantling the observation post and defence bunkers, Army had installed cameras to monitor movement of Chinese troops along the LAC, a step which had again irked the PLA.
Chumar, a remote village on Ladakh- Himachal Pradesh border, is being claimed by China as its own territory. The Chinese side also reportedly resort to helicopter incursions almost every year. In 2012, PLA troops were airdropped in this region, where they dismantled the storage tents of the Army and ITBP. This area is not accessible from the Chinese side whereas the Indian side has a road almost to the last point on which the Army can carry loads up to nine tonnes.
According to Maj Gen Ravi Arora (retd), in 2009, Indian Army recorded close to 100 “transgressions” on foot,motorised and boat patrols by PLA in the strategically located Pangong Tso area, on both north and south banks. Although the frequency of incursions by Chinese speedboats into Indian territory in and around the lake has not increased over the past few years, China has a stronger military presence on the lake and the Chinese Navy operates close to 22 armed patrol boats in the lake — mostly smaller vessels seating five to seven soldiers. Pangong Tso is one of the key border flashpoints between India and China.
In 1999, China took advantage of the Indian Army’s buildup in Kargil and built a 5- km permanent track into Indian territory along the lake. Both sides now carry out routine patrols on the track and mark their presence, but avoid physical contact. Yet Chinese patrolling speedboats often swirl aggressively around Indian boats. Chinese ire, already in plenty about India’s support to Dalai Lama and Tibetans, shot up since 2008, when Prime Dr. Minister Manmohan Singh visited Arunachal Pradesh, soon after Defence Minister AK Antony’s late 2007 visit there, when the latter exclaimed at China’s huge infrastructural development. Dr. Singh referred to Arunachal Pradesh as “the land of India’s rising sun” and promised a substantial long-overdue infrastructural development package to Arunachal Pradesh. This was kickstarted by major mobilization and relocation of Border Roads Organisation’s (BRO) resources. That was the spark-off point for the Chinese to focus their attention on the J&K part of the LAC by launching a series of multimode and multi-dimensional incursions involving camping, painting CHINA in Mandarin on rock faces, filching fuel and what not. And all these aggressive monkeytricks on the ground have continued along with visits by premiers/ministers/ delegations/working groups for trade and “defence cooperation”. What certainly emerges from all these Chinese forays is that they are testing the resolve (or lack of it) of the Indian Governmentquite obvious from the statements of both Chinese and Indian leaders and officials- and also the fact that ITBP is manning many parts of the LAC is another factor. The working arrangement for guarding land and sea borders of India has generally been that undisputed international boundaries are guarded by Border Security Force (BSF)/Ladakh Scouts/ Assam Rifles (AR) under command of the Army and Coast Guard under Indian Navy. In fact for Coast Guard, it was decided at the outset itself that it would be under Ministry of Defence, unlike BSF, AR, which are under Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). Of the two disputed borders, the Line of Control (LoC) with Pakistan and the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China, while both should be directly manned by 1999, China took advantage of the Indian Army’s buildup in Kargil and built a 5- km permanent track into Indian territory along the lake. Both sides now carry out routine patrols on the track and mark their presence, but avoid physical contact. Yet Chinese patrolling speedboats often swirl aggressively around Indian boats.
Chinese ire, already in plenty about India’s support to Dalai Lama and Tibetans, shot up since 2008, when Prime Dr. Minister Manmohan Singh visited Arunachal Pradesh, soon after Defence Minister AK Antony’s late 2007 visit there, when the latter exclaimed at China’s huge infrastructural Mandarin on rock faces, filching fuel and what not. And all these aggressive monkeytricks on the ground have continued along with visits by premiers/ministers/ delegations/working groups for trade and “defence cooperation”. What certainly emerges from all these Chinese forays is that they are testing the resolve (or lack of it) of the Indian Governmentquite obvious from the statements of both Chinese and Indian leaders and officials- and also the fact that ITBP is manning many parts of the LAC is another factor.
The working arrangement for guarding land and sea borders of India has generally been that undisputed international boundaries are guarded by Border Security Force (BSF)/Ladakh Scouts/ Assam Rifles (AR) under command of the Army and Coast Guard under Indian Navy. In fact for Coast Guard, it was decided at the outset itself that it would be under Ministry of Defence, unlike BSF, AR, which are under Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). Of the two disputed borders, the Line of Control (LoC) with Pakistan and the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China, while both should be directly manned by the Army, with BSF/AR or the Indo- Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) in situ being under Army’s command and control, the LoC is being guarded by Army.
However, in the case of the LAC, it is not known as to why any part of it has been allotted for guarding to ITBP and that too under direct control of MHA and not the Army, as in the case of South East Ladakh, where both major Chinese incursions of 2008-9 in the general area of the barren land at Chumar, East of the picturesque Tso Morari (lake), Zulung La (pass) and the 22, 420 feet high Mount Gya and the recent one in Daulat Beg Oldi occurred.
Interacting with this writer, Lt Gen JS Bajwa (R), author of Modernisation Of The PLA:Gauging its Latent Future Potential (Lancer) and Maj Gen Dhruv Katoch(R), Director, Centre for Land War Studies (CLAWS) both reiterated what they succinctly wrote about the drawbacks and disadvantages of deploying ITBP on the LAC .
While Bajwa has gone into details about various aspects of ITBP’s lack of suitability for guarding the LAC, Katoch strongly recommends that Army must replace ITBP on the LAC and the latter be deployed against Left Wing Extremists (LWE), instead of requesting for Army’s assistance, which the Defence Minister has correctly declined.
The Chinese have been very active on the LAC and those who camped in Depsang required more than a “police” force response. Deploying ITBP on the LAC sends the wrong message to the Chinese who interpret it as a tacit acceptance of the Indian Government that the LAC is not active or live and as such does not need to be guarded by Army. Bajwa states: “MHA’s reluctance to place the ITBP under the Army is indicative of the underlying resistance of the IPS lobby to serve under any commander from the Army….”.
Chinese only seem to understand the kind of message the Indian retaliation provided in Nathu La, Sikkim in 1967 and later in Arunachal Pradesh. In 1986, a PLA unit marched seven kilometres inside the Line of Actual Control at Somdurong Chu, Arunachal Pradesh. General K Sundarji airlifted troops and surrounded their camp; placed artillery on nearby heights and asked a unit to erect tents just 10 metres away. The Chinese withdrew.
The author is the Associate Editor of Salute
