We, the Indians, tend to be an emotional lot. We are very sentimental about our language, our culture, our cricket, even our politicians (unbelievably so!). So it might seem very unpatriotic of me to say that India should share Arunachal Pradesh with China. But in the next few paragraphs, I will try to justify myself.
China is now a super-power. It is a permanent member of UN Security Council. It has grown enormously in importance both economically and militarily, so much so, that even President Barack Obama cancelled his meeting with Dalai Lama. This is the first time in the American history that such an incident has happened. When even the US is refraining to antagonize China (despite claiming to be a champion of human rights and the only beacon of democracy), why are we still supporting Dalai Lama and Tibet when it is clearly against our national interests? It's time to get real.
India has already fought two wars with China since her independence and has suffered huge causalities both time. We cannot defeat China militarily or economically. When you cannot defeat them, be friends with them. While China friendship with Pakistan cannot be wished away, we can influence them by our growing economic power and trade relations. China has in the last few years settled most of her border disputes with its neighbors like Russia, Myanmar with less than 50% of their demands fulfilled. There is not a reason why it cannot happen with us?
Moreover, the cost of deploying and maintaining troops in the mountainous terrains of Arunachal Pradesh does not justify the returns we get from it. Tourism is negligible due to violence there. It is becoming like a vessel with no base in which India is pouring down money with no gains from it.
It is time that we stop viewing the world from our out-dated prism of Non-Aligned movement and do what's best for us instead of occupying a high moral ground and hurting ourselves.
This is just my view point. There may be very good reasons for or against it. Please feel free to share them here.
China is now a super-power. It is a permanent member of UN Security Council. It has grown enormously in importance both economically and militarily, so much so, that even President Barack Obama cancelled his meeting with Dalai Lama. This is the first time in the American history that such an incident has happened. When even the US is refraining to antagonize China (despite claiming to be a champion of human rights and the only beacon of democracy), why are we still supporting Dalai Lama and Tibet when it is clearly against our national interests? It's time to get real.
India has already fought two wars with China since her independence and has suffered huge causalities both time. We cannot defeat China militarily or economically. When you cannot defeat them, be friends with them. While China friendship with Pakistan cannot be wished away, we can influence them by our growing economic power and trade relations. China has in the last few years settled most of her border disputes with its neighbors like Russia, Myanmar with less than 50% of their demands fulfilled. There is not a reason why it cannot happen with us?
Moreover, the cost of deploying and maintaining troops in the mountainous terrains of Arunachal Pradesh does not justify the returns we get from it. Tourism is negligible due to violence there. It is becoming like a vessel with no base in which India is pouring down money with no gains from it.
It is time that we stop viewing the world from our out-dated prism of Non-Aligned movement and do what's best for us instead of occupying a high moral ground and hurting ourselves.
This is just my view point. There may be very good reasons for or against it. Please feel free to share them here.
Hey dear...its a wonderful article. Well as you know that my political gyan is not so strong :-), but I am really surprised. I mean how can a person at your age can have such a matured thinking.
ReplyDeleteCommendable....Keep it up :-)
Cheers
Ritika
Its all possible if China is ready to share Aksai Chin and tibet with India...but anyways...ur plitical thinking sound naive and immature..mainly because of two reason..
ReplyDelete1.To counter ur point even the most powerful country of US and Russia are still nt able to get Iraq and afganistan so forget abt any part of nuclear India being taken.
2.The most imo reason is u dont understand diplomacy at its core ..if Aruanchal is free similar demand fr kashmir NE states Tamilnadu and Mumabai will start there foe its very imp to give stron reply to chinese..with strenghth only we can grow economically nt from ur weakness like suggestion..
anyways nice blog i like the different but wrong view of urs
hmmm.. im surprised that u write on political topics too.. ur tgts are gr8 from a neutrals point of view but may i add that if u wiki the reasons for the border issues ur suggested solutions wud seem too naive..
ReplyDeletefirst of all, any country can not present itself as a soft state by gifting a state to a country which it has claimed as its own for more than 60 years now. India had a chance to do that when it got independence, it wud hv been logical then but now its completely foolhardy.
your logic of China being stronger and blah blah just does not hold.. though China is stronger it needs India as much as India needs China for its development.. China can not risk a war with India and with the ever growing trade between India and China even the internal forces in China wud resist such an extreme step.
Most logical solution at this point of time wud be to accept the present Line of Control as International Border. this means giving up our claim to Aksai Chin and the areas ceded by Pakistan to China. Add to it China wud ask India to recognize Tibet as its integral part and will push India not to allow any kind of separatist movement against China on its soil. That wud go against Indias historical policy of holding the morale high grounds but if it solves something so be it. But giving away Aksai Chin wud not be easy job for govt politically.That is why every govt runs away from signing even wen there is a solution on horizon as it is as good as political suicide.
What we need right now is a strong govt which can bring back China to negotiation table so that the talks can resume and the strong will to conclude them.
anywz is my history to weak or was it a typo.. coz as far as i know India fought only ONE war with China. and there is no Violence in Arunachal Pradesh.. tourist dont visit that area coz its very remote and accessibility through roads is less while there is no rail network there(again its our fault)
i wud luv to continue this discussion further if u wud like it :)
@Sid What you are trying to say is exactly what I am saying too!! Only the presentation is different.
ReplyDelete"That wud go against Indias historical policy of holding the morale high grounds but if it solves something so be it." And I said, "why are we still supporting Dalai Lama and Tibet when it is clearly against our national interests?". Clearly we are on the same page.
As for accepting the LOC as permanent border, the same would then have to be applied for the border with Pakistan, which we are clearly not willing to accept.
As for the number of wars, yes it was a typo. But for no violence in Arunachal Pradesh, just google the terms and you will get 110,000 hits. :)
nope except the Dalai Lama point we clearly hv different idea abt it.. u actually want to do steps like giving away Arunachal Pradesh which i clearly disagree to.
ReplyDeletesituation related to pakistan and that to china are diffrent.. Pakistan and Kashmir are more emotive issues for us but Aksi Chin has almost been forgotten. It just needs a strong political will to give the whole deal a conclusion.
If you go through the basic History of the reason for conflict you will understand the crux of it. It will take much more time to explain it to you. Why i made the point abt making the LOC permanent was because several time in last 15 years India and China in the diplomatic circle hv agreed without letting it out officially that this may be the only solution to the murky situation.
regarding Violence.. if you check the records of the state you will find that there is no insurgency there now. ULFA which used to have some bases there has left that state and in any case it had nothing to do with Arunachal.
There has been no recorded clash between the indian and chinese troops in the state and the military presence in the state is not much if u compare that to India's northern borders with China. Just because China now has easy access to Tibet because of vastly improved roads India decided to strengthen its military in that area for strong posturing. As history has taught us that if at all stupid Nehru wud hv used the air force in the Chinese war India wud hv salvaged some pride.
hey man i'm really got hurt after reading this article.. with very personally it seems you are emotionally a heartless person, although you were real and practical. Well, my comment are here to ask you that, If it appear to be that you are a belonging of arunachal pradesh like i do and you have lots of relative and families including your mom and dad like we people do.. My question here for you is would you still feel that you have to share your own state with the highly economic or strong millitiant force CHINA? (as u mentioned above) would you still think that you can be very real or you will think you'd fight for your little sisters and brothers who recently started/learned to step up with a school? My dear friend as a human i would like to share a lines with you, Sometimes reality doesn't make sense when a unbelievable grief rise up.
ReplyDeleteAnd for my satisfactory i can even claim this article as a discriminating application to A.P with the unions who are fighting a lot for indo-sino border at present. But i would sincerely not because You even mentioned that our area posses violence but its not so true as well. So iam cool with it.
Lastly, It might be a counter reply to you but i also Hope that you will have enough understanding about my words. Thanks.
@sid Brother i would star you as well known person. regarding violence activities of A.P @mayank I will hardly check this blog. for if you have problems with my points than you can here is my mail id tolikworld@gmail.com
ReplyDeleteIndia should accept that Aksai Chin is chinese territorry while China should accept the same about most part of Arunachal. The only thing they really want in Arunachal is Tawang. It's a small and relatively unimportant part of India and to be honest, culturally has nothing to do with India. If India would ready to give them Tawang, the whole situation would be solved.
ReplyDeleteBut of course it would be a political suicide for the actual Indian goverment so noone will accept it.