by A. G. NOORANI
Jawaharlal Nehru with Zhou Enlai in Beijing in October 1954. This was the “Hindi-Chini bhai bhai (Indian/Chinese are brothers).”” period. PHOTO/The Hindu Archives
A classic pattern for a border dispute is present,” remarked Robert Trumbull, the astute correspondent of The New York Times in a detailed report reprinted in The Times of India on December 7, 1950. From 1846, when Britain annexed Kashmir to the Empire, until Independence India had a boundary problem with China. Properly handled, as part of the boundary-making exercise of the two new states, India and the People’s Republic of China, it could have been resolved before it assumed the proportions of a boundary dispute. Even when it did, the dispute need not have led to war. Each side had, and still has, its own non-negotiable, vital interest securely in its own control. The dispute was, and still is, therefore pre-eminently susceptible to resolution.
Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, who held the External Affairs portfolio, bears the main blame for the tragedy, but not exclusively so. The entire opposition, especially Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Ram Manohar Lohia and their likes, attacked Nehru for being soft. Many in his Cabinet and party shared the view. Nehru himself fuelled their emotions by his angry rhetoric and a false stand. The nation was then concerned solely with the McMahon Line. The Aksai Chin in Ladakh interested none. Vallabhbhai Patel’s letter to Nehru of November 7, 1950, concerned the Line alone. Nehru’s statement on November 20, 1950, said “the McMahon Line is our boundary” while “the frontier from Ladakh to Nepal is defined chiefly by long usage and custom”. Only a few months earlier, the map in the White Paper on Indian States showed the western frontier as “undefined”. The map in the 1948 edition did not extend even the yellow colour wash to the entire State of Jammu and Kashmir. Charles U. Aitchison, the British Foreign Secretary who compiled successive editions of the authoritative Treaties, Engagements and Sanads, authoritatively and repeatedly said that the State’s northern and eastern boundaries were “undefined”. The definition could only be by a mutual agreement, never unilaterally. But Nehru defined it unilaterally by his Memorandum of July 1, 1951 (SWJN; Volume 26, page 477). Old maps were burnt. The new unilateral line was “not open to discussion with anybody”. This monstrously wrong stand had, and it still has, hardly any critics.
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Nehru could, and should, well have conceded the Aksai Chin and asked for the return of the Changchenmo valley, especially since China had written off the McMahon Line. This option was available to him when he met Zhou in 1960. But, by then, he was not in a negotiating frame of mind. Zhou was eager for a compromise, as he, as well as Mao Zedong, had promised Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev when the latter visited Beijing in November 1959.
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At no point in the talks did Nehru raise the question of the boundary west of the Karakoram Pass, which was in Pakistan’s control. Replying to the charge on the changes in Indian maps, he made an important comment: “It is true that we changed our maps in 1953 [sic], but that was in regard to the extreme north of this area and this change was made after careful enquiries and was made in favour of the Chinese government. It is true that, at that time, an area that is not now included in our maps was shown in colour shade and shown as belonging to Hunza of Kashmir State. We, however, examined this and came to the conclusion that it was not correct for Kashmir or Hunza to claim this area and so, on our own initiative, we left it out.” Three years later, he accused Pakistan of ceding those very areas to China whereas it had merely written off lands on old maps—which Nehru said he had revised in China’s favour.
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