Infrastructure development across LAC should be of grave concern to India, provided the national hierarchy studies and analyses its vital implications

In the 1990s, Rand Corporation assessed that 2010 onwards China will begin military assertiveness. Indian think tanks recommended we sort out the Sino-Indian border before that and adopt an adequate deterrent posture but this was largely ignored. Raising two additional divisions and placing a couple of Sukhois in the Northeast hardly matters considering overall divisional voids in the Eastern Theatre are much more going by the norm of three Divisions per Corps. On August 25, 2011, three news items appeared: Pentagon warning PLA will transform into a modern formidable force by 2020, having already upgraded missile cover in Tibet with plans to position airborne forces in TAR, MoD (Finance) turning down Army’s proposal to raise a Mountain Strike Corps costing Rs. 12,000 crore and Claude Arpi’s article sighting PLA soldiers working in Northern Nepal hiding their faces when someone tried to photograph them. Media has already been mirroring hierarchical appreciation of a collusive China-Pak threat. Where then will the conflict occur if not in the mountains to begin with. But historically we only wake up after criticalities; raised 33 Corps post-haste after 1962 and 14 Corps courtesy the Kargil conflict. Hope we are not forced to raise the Mountain Strike Corps after Arunachal Pradesh is swarmed by Chinese.

Infrastructure development across the LAC should be of grave concern to India, provided the national hierarchy studies and analyses its vital implications; roads and tracks developed right up to the very border along each important valley and spur leading to every forward post and intended thrust line - synonymous to creeping up your very spine. Mobilisation and move of reserves is greatly telescoped. Conversely, communication infrastructure on our side is actually deteriorating including due incessant rainfall. Strategically important plateaus are easily accessible by the Chinese, but will take excruciatingly long from our side. Movement of mechanised forces is well nigh impossible unless focused efforts are made to improve infrastructure. Alternative, easier road alignments are available but are being stonewalled by concerned States on mundane grounds like tree cutting. The national hierarchy is making no move to dictate operational priorities. Chinese have been changing their claims to our territory periodically; starting with a 1959 Claim Line, another in the 1960s, yet another in 1975 and then in 1993. They merrily transgress borders, break bunkers on our side and we shrug it off saying it is as per “their perceptions”. Why could they not be told in the first place that any discussion on the boundary issue is only possible as per their first claim line of 1959? Alternatively, why do we not lay claim to territories captured by Maharaja Ranjit Singh, Chandragupt Maurya, Ashoka and include Yatung where our military was stationed some decades back? James Lamont and Amy Kazmin quote K. Shankar Bajpai, Chairman of India’s National Security Advisory Board and former Ambassador to US in the Financial Times of September 9, 2011, saying, “The instruments of State action have become dysfunctional. India’s strategic interests extend between the Suez to Shanghai…but we have neither the manpower nor the strategic thinking to handle these challenges”. Why do we acquiesce to our adversaries even when China’s state TV shows Jammu & Kashmir not part of India? Is it so difficult to identify and exploit the Achilles heel and fault lines of our adversaries? Will our operational priorities remain kaput?

The views expressed herein are the personal views of the author.