Army chief says trust key to disengagement
ndia is looking at restoring the status quo ante or the situation as it existed along LAC in April 2020, Dwivedi said
General Upendra Dwivedi on Tuesday called for restoring trust between the Indian Army and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) along the contested Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh as the two sides move ahead to defuse border tensions under an agreement on patrolling arrangements in forward areas including Depsang and Demchok.
“We are trying to restore trust,” the army chief said.
General Dwivedi’s comments come at a time when the two armies are preparing to disengage from Depsang and Demchok, the two remaining flashpoints in eastern Ladakh where the Indian Army and PLA have been eyeball-to-eyeball for almost four-and-a-half years. The two armies earlier disengaged from four other friction points along the LAC.
“How will the trust get restored? It will get restored once we are able to see each other and convince each other that we are not creeping into the buffer zones that are there... that have been created. Both must reassure each other. Patrolling gives you that kind of advantage,” Dwivedi said, in response to a question at an event organised by the United Service Institution of India (USI), the country’s oldest think tank founded in 1870.
The army chief’s comments came a day after external affairs minister S Jaishankar and foreign secretary Vikram Misri announced that India and China had achieved a breakthrough in negotiations to resolve their stand-off in Depsang and Demchok.
India is looking at restoring the status quo ante or the situation as it existed along LAC in April 2020, Dwivedi said.
“Thereafter, we will be looking at disengagement, de-escalation, and normal management of LAC. This normal management of LAC will not just stop there. There are phases in that also. This has been our stance since April 2020, and even today it remains the same... As we restore the trust, the other stages will also follow through,” the army chief said.
To be sure, the disengagement of rival troops from Depsang and Demchok will not involve the creation of so-called buffer zones, and once it is over, Indian and Chinese soldiers will patrol the areas as they did before April 2020, HT learns. This disengagement will be different from the previous rounds of troop pullback that involved the creation of buffer zones.
The disengagement of front-line Indian and Chinese soldiers from Depsang and Demchok is expected to begin in a few days, and likely to be completed in a few weeks, officials aware of the matter said, asking not to be named.
The disengagement from the two friction points will involve rigourous verification to monitor the joint withdrawal of troops to a specified distance from the face-off sites, dismantling of temporary infrastructure created there, and joint verification to assess its implementation, said one of the officials cited above.
The troop pullback is expected to be carried out in phases as the complex plan progresses on a verifiable basis on the ground by both sides. It will also entail the phased withdrawal of weapons and equipment to a mutually agreed distance, and finally the restoration of status quo ante (early April 2020), said a second official.
The verification process is likely to involve the use of unmanned aerial vehicles, other aerial means of surveillance, and satellite imagery of the areas.
India and China earlier disengaged from Galwan Valley, Pangong Tso, Gogra (PP-17A) and Hot Springs (PP-15), areas where buffer zones (extending up to 4km) were created to temporarily restrict the patrolling activities of both armies in the region. These zones of separation were aimed at eliminating the possibility of violent face-offs.
Both armies still have tens of thousands of troops each and advanced weaponry deployed in the Ladakh theatre.
On October 1, Dwivedi described the situation along the LAC in eastern Ladakh as “stable but sensitive,” pointing out that trust between the Indian Army and PLA was “the biggest casualty” of the military standoff. Positive signalling is coming from the diplomatic side but military commanders on both sides have to execute the options on the ground to take things forward, he said at the time.
The Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination (WMCC) on India-China border affairs met in Beijing on August 29 for the 17th time since the start of the face-off in May 2020. Also, the two armies have held 21 rounds of corps commander-level talks to cool tensions along the LAC.
Restoring trust between the two armies is the key to peace and tranquillity along LAC and a win-win situation for both sides, said former director general of military operations Lieutenant General Vinod Bhatia (retd).
“But we need to keep our guard up and focus on improving military capabilities and infrastructure. We must never forget that China respects strength,” Bhatia added.