India’s Navy is a small, capable missile-laden three-dimensional force, which, given the funds, can expand to keep a check on the PLA (Navy) and support free navigation in the Indo-Pacific with the Quad and the free world Navies.
In the last century, strategists Alfred Thayer Mahan, K.M. Panikkar and John Corbett predicted the world’s future would be decided on the waters of the Indian Ocean in the 21st century. China has risen economically and militarily, and is hell-bent on displacing the US as the sole superpower. India finds itself amid that stormy transition when China, India’s foe, and India’s close friend Russia are coming closer, both wanting to end US supremacy. Exacerbated by the extended one-year-old Russo-Ukraine war, the world finds itself in an extended period of insecurity and economic unpredictability, and the ill effects of climate change continue to plague the world.
The US attempt to diminish Russia’s power by providing weapons and financial support to Ukraine to wrest Crimea and the Black Sea into NATO’s ambit seems more unlikely now, than when the Russo-Ukraine war began a year ago, with threats of the use of nuclear weapons by Russia. European nations are still falling in line to give arms and transit to Ukraine, but EU unity is under strain. China’s economy has rebounded, and US desire to contain China is also looking more challenging as China is fortifying the rocks it has converted into artificial islands it annexed in the South China Sea, and hinders free navigation. The US has formed a Quadrilateral (Quad) with Japan, Australia, and India as a grouping to cooperate on specific issues. China views the Quad as an anti-China force, with its eyes on Taiwan. The US is wooing India to join it as a military ally to check China’s aggressive attitudes in the Indo-Pacific as India enjoys a strategic and geographic maritime advantage in the Indo-Pacific.
China’s lifeline of energy and other imports, and significant exports, pass the choke points in the Indian Ocean that the resident navies can block. It is a deterrent to China’s aggressiveness. India’s Navy is a small capable missile-laden three-dimensional force, which, given the funds, can expand to keep a check on the PLA (Navy) and support free navigation in the Indo-Pacific with the Quad and the free world Navies. US’ Admiral Mullen dreamt of such a 1,000-ship Navy for maritime stability. India is in a strategic sweet spot with friends on both sides of the world’s aisle, but Indians must smell the coffee, recall history and refrain from joining the West in a cold war with China. It can watch Australia acquire nuclear submarines and see Japan increase its defence budget as it places missiles on its Senkaku islands to deter China.
Admittedly, the China factor weighs heavily on India. The unsettled Indian border with China, a legacy left behind by the British, has bedevilled India-China relations. The world watched as China annexed the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) in the 1950s. The 14th Dalai Lama, aged 25, with some of his government officials and Tibetan followers assisted by the US’ CIA, escaped from Lhasa in 1959 after the 10 March uprising engineered by China and reside as refugees in India at Dharamsala. The numbers have increased to around 180,000. The American leadership had desired to make Tibet independent with India’s support and set up Centre 22 at Chakrata to train Tibetan and Indian troops to take Lhasa in a coup.
The US plan angered China, which promptly claimed the McMahon Line with modifications to its advantage as the permanent India-Tibet-China border, and moved its defences forward. In 1962, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru ordered “a forward policy” on the Indo-Tibetan border to throw the Chinese out, especially from the Namka Chu Nala in the east. Mao Zedong seized the opportunity to salvage his sagging power after his Long March policies failed, and ordered China’s People’s Liberation Army (mark the word “Liberation” in PLA) with experience of the Korean War to go down to what they claimed was the 1959 borderline in the east near Tezpur, and areas in Western Ladakh and waged the 1962 Indo-China war that India lost. Relations between India and China have never been normal since.
China befriended Pakistan on the principle that “an enemy’s enemy” should be a friend. In 1963, Pakistan ceded the strategic Shaksgam valley in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK) to China in exchange for military and nuclear technology. Shaksgam borders Xinjiang Province of China in the north, the Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK) in the south and west, and the strategic Siachen Glacier area that the Indian Army controls at a high cost. Article 6 of the International Border agreement clearly states that “the two Parties (PRC and Pakistan) have agreed that after the settlement of the Kashmir dispute between Pakistan and India (i.e. POK), the sovereign authority concerned will reopen negotiations with the Government of the People’s Republic of China, on the boundary as described in Article Two of the present Agreement, so as to sign a formal Boundary Treaty to replace the present agreement.” The agreement laid the legal foundation of the Karakoram highway, which has been built jointly by Chinese and Pakistani engineers and traverses through POK now as part of China’s Border Road Initiative (BRI).
In 1993, India and China agreed to demarcate a line of peace and tranquillity to hold the peace. The catch was the line drawn was over 20 km and thick and unclear on the small scale maps, so both armies have differing perceptions of where the final border lies. India’s China study group laid down patrolling points, but never got China to agree. Both troops have clashed near their forward patrolling points, albeit without using weapons, and an uneasy state of affairs between India and China had ensued until recently. Trade grew in China’s favour and China stole a march on the economic front and galloped away with a GDP five times of India.
China has always looked to settle the border to its advantage. In May 2020, the PLA, after annual exercises in Tibet, unilaterally attempted to change the ground situation by surreptitiously transgressing into Pangong Tso (lake), Gogra-Hot Springs, Khugrang nullah and Galwan Valley in Ladakh, breaking all agreements and stopped the Indian Army from patrolling at points India claimed. On 14-15 June 2020, in a physical exchange of pulling and pushing each other into icy waters at Galwan, India lost a full colonel and 19 soldiers.
Diplomacy took over to calm the situation. On 20 September 2020, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar met with his counterparts Russia’s Sergey Lavrov and China’s Wang Yi in Russia to bring about some normalcy. Both sides’ local Army commanders have met 17 times and decided on non-patrolling buffer zones on the map. An uneasy peace is holding, but the buffer zones stop India from patrolling to its claim lines, and the Army is deployed in a stand-off in Western Ladakh with around 50,000 troops, missiles and tanks. The Indian Air Force has moved up, while China still holds India’s grazing lands in Depsang plains and Demchok. There is no de-escalation of forces on either side, despite meetings between the diplomats and the Army commanders. Also, there are competing claims in Arunachal Pradesh and in Aksai Chin, where China is building connecting roads and a railway line.
India looks forward to the resumption of regular bilateral ties with China, but only when PLA allows the resumption of legitimate patrolling rights of the Indian Army in the Depsang plains in Daulet Beg Oldi (DBO) sector and at the Charding Nullah junction in Demchok and the return of gazing lands and after the de-escalation of troops. The Ministry of External Affairs has left it to the respective commanders to negotiate the ground issues.
In the second year of the Russia-Ukraine war, the US has gone too far to relent, leaving Germany and France with a Hobson’s choice. China has offered a 12-step peace plan. Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz flew to India and wanted Prime Minister Narendra Modi to help bring peace. Australian PM Anthony Albanese visited India and discussed the war with PM Modi and the future of the Quad. All nations facing the Chinese threat, are looking at the moves being made by India, which has a rising economy and military power. Prime Minister Modi calls it “India’s moment”. Indian Navy is the net security provider in the Indian Ocean, and if enlarged, it can join the world’s friendly navies to keep the tangled Indo-Pacific peaceful for open navigation and deter China’s aggressive moves even on India’s borders with the proverb “a rising tide lifts all boats”.
Commodore Ranjit Rai (Retd) is a former DNI and DNO in NHQ and author of The Indian Navy@75: Reminiscing the Voyage. ISBN 9 789381 722336 on Amazon, Rs 250.