Chakrabarti's Chinese Tonic for Indians

Sreemati Chakrabarti's op-ed in today's edition of The Hindu talks about improving Indo-China relations by removing the 'mental barrier' and fostering mutual trust. Readers who read the whole piece will notice what the issues are.

The article is well written but from a Chinese perspective. Notice that when it talks about what needs to be done to overcome the trust deficit, the onus is on what Indians need to do to appease the China.

We are told to forget the border issue because it is not hurting either side. This is debatable. Keeping the issue open will perpetuate a festering wound which is hardly going to improve the trust deficit.

Secondly, she claims that 'accepting Tibet as part of China is convenient for India or else an independent 'Greater Tibet' brings to dispute the status of Sikhim'. Again, the bogey of an independent 'Greater Tibet' is classical Chinese state propaganda. Needless to say, the claim is preposterous and little more than fear mongering. The Indian constitutional order is broad enough to allow the people of Sikhim the right to be a part of India and run their own governmental affairs while maintaining their religious allegiance to the temporal authority of the Dalai Lama. In the remote instance that any political question regarding Sikhim should arise, one should remember that the Dalai Lama being a highly respected figure in India, it is quite likely that such an issue will be resolved amicably with the GoI.

Thirdly, she says that India 'New Delhi needs [to] constantly renew its commitment on curbing Tibetan separatist actions on its soil so as to mitigate suspicion that it might intend to 'play the Tibet card'. Having declared Tibet to be an autonomous part of China, India needs to do no such thing. There is no reason not to permit the Tibetans to peacefully seek to realize the goal India has so publicly stated and has long accepted. The burden is on the Chinese government to recognize the problem and negotiate a satisfactory settlement on the issue.

Finally, her statement that 'all the facts behind the border war have not come out in the open' is mentioned only in the context of Indian media propaganda. All facts may not have been made public but enough have come out into the open to know that though India made many mistakes, Chinese provocation was considerable (even A.G.Noorani has acknowledged it in Frontline). Though India has not released the Brooks Henderson report, several books have been published giving the Indian side of the story with one of them even being allowed access to that document (Neville Maxwell). On the other hand, how the Chinese side saw it remains a black box. The blame therefore lies less on the Indian side.

Sreemati Chakrabarti's article may have been a good fit had it appeared in Xinhua. By publishing this, The Hindu has reiterated its credentials as the unofficial spokesperson of the PRC in India.