DNA Edit: Chinese chequers – PM’s Diwali visit to Sino-Indian border has a message

Narendra Modi has set a trend that succeeding Indian Prime Ministers may find hard to emulate. He celebrates Diwali every year in the forward areas with the troops.  It may be a symbolic gesture, but one that counts. On Wednesday, Modi plans to visit Harsil in Uttarakhand, which constitutes the central sector of the Sino-Indian border. The prime minister would be doing what he has done since 2014, i.e. spend time with troops in remote border districts. Three years ago, Modi had started this trend when he offered sweets to soldiers at the Siachen Glacier, the world’s highest battlefield on Diwali day. Succeeding Diwalis have been spent at forward bases in Amritsar and Kinnaur.  This Diwali again, it is China time. Not just Modi, but defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman too intends to join in festivities with the Indo-Tibetian Border Police (ITBP) in the Upper Dibang Valley in Arunachal Pradesh, along with the Line of Actual Control (LoAC). The move is two-fold. One, to boost the morale of troops in high Himalayas, who silently guard the frontier even as the rest of the country celebrates. Two, in this case, it is a clear signal to China that India is watching its powerful dragon neighbour. While the Prime Minister himself is going to an uncontested frontier, Harsil in Uttarkashi district – a place renowned for its beauty where Jawaharlal Nehru reportedly wrote  a chapter of his 'Discovery of India’ - the defence minister’s visit to Arunachal is bound to provoke China. Beijing, which refers to  Arunachal as 'South Tibet’, has periodically raised objections to any official Indian visits to that eastern-most state, calling it its own territory.

In a sense, India has done well not to buckle down under China’s glare. If Beijing does not find enough evidence to back Masood Azhar’s case of being a terrorist, despite the Pakistani’s long and distinguished criminal record on dossiers of neutral police forces like the Interpol, there is no reason for India to keep its giant neighbour’s sensitivities in mind by not sending its defence minister there. After all, Arunachal is disputed for China, not India.  New Delhi has done well not to wilt under the Chinese onslaught. Earlier this year, during Chinese defence minister Gen Wei Fenghe’s visit, New Delhi urged Beijing not to view its developmental works along the 4,056 km Sino-Indian border with suspicion. For good measure, Kiren Rijiju, Minister of State in Home Affairs - and a native Arunachali - was included in the official levels talks. India has, thus far, keeping Chinese sensitivity in mind, kept out officials from that state when it has come to handling official delegations from Beijing. Now, no longer is New Delhi prepared to hand out that kind glove treatment and about time too. The LoAC has been tranquil since the 1962 border war, but has witnessed a lot of infrastructural development on the Chinese side. In the last few years, India too is catching up, building state-of-the-art roads on the border for speedy movement of troops. China has not taken too kindly to this infra upgrade, leading to unarmed skirmishes and intrusions across the border, particularly in the Ladakh area, in which both sides make contesting claims.