New Delhi: India faces the threat of a single-front war from China and Pakistan, Rahul Gandhi told a group of ex-servicemen recently as he urged the government to share with people what is happening at the borders.
“China and Pakistan have come together militarily and economically. They are preparing a surprise for us. The government can’t keep quiet. It must tell the people what is happening at the borders,” Rahul told a group of ex-servicemen recently in Haryana as part of the Bharat Jodo Yatra.
Rahul also noted that China had taken 2000 sq km of Indian territory in Ladakh and its forces were sitting inside the Indian border. “The PM told a lie to the nation. He said no one has entered our territory and no one has taken our land,” Rahul said.
A video of the interaction was released by the Congress on Sunday. During the interaction, the former Congress chief discussed the border situation with the ex-servicemen, especially the December 9 Chinese incursion at Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh.
Rahul, who has been targeting the government over its China policy, had also raised questions over the Chinese land grab at the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh in 2020 and in particular over the bloody clashes between the two armies in which 20 Indian soldiers and an equal number of Chinese People’s Liberation Army troops had been killed in June.
The Chinese incursion where the PLA troops deliberately violated the LAC and the subsequent bloody clashes at Galwan Valley, plunged the India-China relations to a new low. As a result, the face-off is still not over despite several rounds of talks between the two armies. Before eastern Ladakh, the armies of India and China had a major face at the Doklam plateau in 2017.
“The Doklam and Galwan incidents are linked. They are part of the Chinese strategy to hit us along with Pakistan,” Rahul told the ex-servicemen. Noting that “India was extremely vulnerable”, Rahul said that the “Indian border situation was linked to the international situation.”
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He further said that “the Indian border situation had changed and the Chinese soldiers were inside Indian territory.” Rahul recalled that during the time of his father and former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, India had pursued a different foreign policy which was based first on a two front war and then two and a half front war at the borders.
“The two and a half front threat meant China, Pakistan and terrorism (from across the borders). Our policy then was to keep enemies like China and Pakistan separate. Today, it has become a single front war threat,” Rahul said.
“When Rajivji had gone to China the idea was to keep the two countries separate. Today China and Pakistan are working together. The Belt and Road Initiative projects (in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir) and the Gwadar port have become important for China,” he said.
The former Congress chief noted that while the Chinese economic system was growing fast financially and technologically, the Indian economy had slowed down since 2014. Further, India had many internal challenges like infighting, confusion and hatred. He cautioned that the Indian strategy was still based on the old threat perception.
“India still thinks in terms of a two and a half front war and does not think of joint operability and cyber warfare. We needed to have started taking action five years ago but we did not do that. However, if we don’t start taking action now, the nation may suffer a lot of harm,” Rahul said.
The ex-servicemen too shared their views on the China and Pakistan threat with the former Congress chief. According to Lt Gen DDS Sandhu (retd), “the satellite pictures of the LAC showed what was happening on the ground and were disturbing. The country must be kept in the picture about what is going on at the border.”
Major Gen B Dayal noted that China had nullified all the land pacts that India had with it during the British rule in the 1950s and now exploits the existing peace pacts. “We did not lose a single man in clashes with China from 1967 to 2020 because China was afraid of us. We will have to tell China that either you have a treaty with us or we will boycott you,” he said.
“I am extremely concerned about what is happening at the border in Arunachal Pradesh and in Ladakh. I love you and respect you because you defend the nation,” Rahul said. His interaction with the ex-servicemen came days after he had slammed the Centre saying that while China was preparing for a war, the government was ignoring the border skirmishes.
The Congress had demanded a debate on the China policy in Parliament’s winter session but the government did not agree to it citing national security concerns. However, foreign minister S Jaishankar slammed Rahul for his remarks and said that the Congress leader should not have used the word "thrashing" for the Indian soldiers.
