All that Happened in Galwan

Last week, it was all about a skirmish at the Galwan Valley. A handful of twenty Indian army personnel including a colonel lost their lives battling with Chinese troops who holed at the Line of Actual Control (LAC). Tempers and sentiments soared nationwide. 

The ‘hawkish’ media turned into war strategists, and each treadmilling to make the best presentation. A lame-duck politicians call for ‘ban on Chinese food’ (facepalm) and another, [the namesake] busy criticizing with no or distorted facts, at his baseline. Anyhow, by now, both Congress and Communist parties in India have lost their steam, and no-one bothers what they say. 

Unlike, my [namesake], I waited for a while till the last drop of the news trickled down—one of the few sensible decisions that I ever abided. So, what happened in the Galwan? There are two parts to the answer. One, some twenty soldiers were martyred, their bodies were put to the coffins and flew to respective states for cremation. Well, everyone knows about it. The other part of the answer that a very few is interested is where lies my interest.

Sometimes in 1860, a British surveyor W. H. Johnson draw a line to demarcate the borders of India and China. He presented the map to Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir, Pratap Singh (the grandfather of Karan Singh). His father, Gulab Singh in 1820 toppled the sovereign Tibetian regime and annexed the Gilgit region to its fold. 

Pratap built a fort the Sahidullah (modern-day Xaidulla) and stationed his troops to guard the eastern border of the country. The Black Jade River (Karakash) flows murmuring softly near the Xaidulla before it enters the Aksai-Chin. The route served as the main trading route to many ancient caravans who would carry silks and precious jades from the Khotan (or Hotan) to the west. [Trivia: Initially, Babur too want to travel to China and not India in the lure of these precious gems.] 

Anyways, the eighteen-thousand square kilometres of the eastern portion was identified as Indian territory under Johnson’s Line. 

Initially, the Chinese Qing administration did not object, but in 1878, the Chinese conquered the fort and terrain from the Dogra Army and erected a boundary mark around the Karakoram. Since then the borders of India of China remain disputable with both sides claiming Sahidullah (or Xaidulla) as their end-points. 

In 1962 (after Dalai Lama was granted asylum by the Indian government), the Chinese troops advanced in higher numbers and with aggression over the McMohan Line (a demarcation line between Tibet and the North-east region of India proposed by British colonial administrator.) Nehru, then Prime Minister of India along with his trusted Army Chief, B. M. Kaul were reluctant to attack the advancing Chinese troops; instead, Nehru had his eyes on ‘Panchsheel Programme’ and hopeful that the Mao Zedong would agree on a mutual treaty. The dragons differed. 

In October, the Chinese surrounded the Indian army at Chushul, and go offensive attacking the Namka Chu Valley, Walong, and Tawang. The Indian forces were undermanned, with only an understrength battalion to support them, while the Chinese troops had three regiments positioned on the north side of the river. 

A sizeable a portion (equal to Switzerland) of Aksai-Chin was surrendered to China. Nehru propounded that Aksai-Chin was “part of the Ladakh region of India for centuries” and that this northern border was a “firm and definite one which was not open to discussion with anybody.” 

Whoever thinks history is boring and irrelevant, by now, might have realized that it is neither. Foundation lies in history; it is same as you plant a sapling and fifty-years later, it grows into a fruit-bearing plant; and the generations feast upon it. [Note: Those claim or snidely remarks that why always blame Nehru for recent turmoils, hopefully, they would rest their case peacefully. ] 

Now, back to what happened to mid-June of 2020. 

Galwan, named after Ghulam Rasool Galwan—a Ladakhi explorer of Kashmiri is located on the west of Karakoram and stands at the northern-most border point of modern-day India. The Chinese call it  ‘Chang Chenmo’. The river is a part of Aksai-Chin. Up the Galwan Valley lies the Siachen, the second-longest non-polar glacier house where Indian sepoy stands at guard at freezing temperature. The adjacent Shyok river between the Indian and Chinese territories.

Four-kilometers of Galwan is the Daulat Beg Oldie. Just 8-kilometres from Daulat Beg Oldie lies the Chinese border of Aksai-Chin and Siachen Glacier on the other side. After 2014 and especially, the 2019 victory, the present-day government decide to infrastructure ramp-up. 

A 60-metre bridge was proposed over the Galwan River in eastern Ladakh to facilitate the infantry and supplies to the sepoys deployed in the cold, mountainous regions of Darbuk and Daulat Beg Oldie in Karakoram Pass. A military airstrip at an altitude of sixteen-thousand feet was also proposed. 

One of the media channel, with borrowed satellite images, demonstrate for hours the various outposts, Post 1-8 at Pangong Lake, the motorable and kuccha road that armies of both countries would patrol, the superfast construction and massive deployment at Chinese side but [possibly] overlook the nearby Tarim Basin, inhabited by Uyghurs where China notoriously created a concentration camp. So, erections on the Chinese side is natural and expected. Moreover, the distance between Pangong Tso and Galwan (where the skirmish happened) is approximately 7-8 kilometres. 

The present-day Chinese government, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and Xi Jinping feverishly object to the creation of the bridge, but the present-day Indian government pays no heed. The construction of the strategic bridge was seen as one of the triggers for the recent aggression. 

The construction of Bailey Bride allows the vehicles of the Indian army to cross the Galwan River against the aggressive PLA in case of a worst-case scenario. The construction was completed on June 12 or 13, 2020. 

At the Y-junction of the river where the two rivers—Syhok and Galwan meets lies an Indian army-base. Colonel Bikkumalla Santosh Babu, of 16-Bihar regiment and his platoon, was in-charge of the post. On June 15, a fisticuff between the two armies was reported and since, then onwards, the situation was on the escalated vein. While patrolling on June 14, the regiment noticed some of the Chinese forces holed in the region, near the bridge.

Babu asked the Chinese to push-back 2 kilometres from Line of Actual Control (LAC) as per the international treaty. Observing a lack of inclination, the troops burned down the temporary hutment built by Chinese. Next day, on the night of June 15, the PLA troops, appearing to have readied themselves and outnumbering the Indian troops three to one, attacked the delegation with sticks, stones, barbed wires injuring two of the sepoys, Havildar Palani and Kundan Ojha.  On June 17, Babu and his men patrolled further (closing to Chinese borders) to ensure that no Chinese were hiding midway. To their dismay, the unreliable dragons did, and they attacked.

Both sides succumbed a large number of casualties. Babu and 17 other lost their lives while China yet, not published their numbers. De-escalation started. 

Chinese Colonel Zhang Shuili, the spokesperson for the PLA’s Western Command, said that the Indian military violated bilateral consensus but the MEA, S. Jaishankar remarked “China had unilaterally tried to change the status quo and that its claims over the Galwan Valley were “exaggerated and untenable.” 

India struggling with its internal conflicts after the abrogation of Article 370, separating Ladakh from the clutches of Kashmir and declared as Union Territory. A Shaheen Bagh model erupts (coinciding to the hundredth year of Khilafat Movement in 1920), the communist and anti-India lobby working tumultuously but yet, to success. 

A close analysis of the events reveals that at the root of the raging unrest in India were the communist-minded Islamist groups. They have the support either from Middle-East (alike Khilafat) or China (the Communist-garbed into dictatorship). 

After the outbreak of COVID-19 that brought the world to a halt, China too was into a precarious position. Initially, the country tried to whitewashed by ramping an Industrial growth but soon caught with its pants down. Many of the nations, Hong-Kong, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, opened its front against China. 

China’s main rival, USA, supports the growing aggression and India was one of the significant countries that every one bank. It is also the primary market for the American and Chinese traders. 

At such juncture, China needs a diversion tactic; moreover, its prized project China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) hits a roadblock if Gilgit-Baltistan either gets sovereignty or make inclusion to India. China would have no direct access to Gawadar Port that allows the country to connect with the west without using the sea-faring trade routes where it has numbers of adversaries. 

Besides, the rising anti-China goods movement in India could bring down China’s monopoly on the world market. The world geopolitics is changing rapidly. 

It is foolhardy to look at the recent skirmish in Galwan as a standalone event or being over-passionate nonsensically. For twenty years, I have been a writer (may not be a fictional one but technical always) I understand, ‘a story contains a story within’. So, look deeper, look real.