The McMahon Line- a Century of Discord

by J J Singh

  However, the Chinese were deeply angered by the response of the people, press and Parliament in India and the widespread expression of sympathy with the Tibetan cause. They did not hesitate to convey their displeasure at this. In response to this, the foreign secretary of India sent a demarche on 23 May 1959 to the Chinese government, saying, ‘In India, unlike China, the law recognises many parties, and gives protection to the expression of differing opinions … and this freedom of expression, free press and civil liberties in India are not fully appreciated by the Government of China.’7 Defending the strong reactions of Indian parliamentarians to the harsh suppression of the Tibetans, the Chinese were apprised of the fact that Indian lawmakers belonged to ‘a sovereign parliament of a sovereign country and it does not submit to any dictation from any outside authority’.8

  As the situation along the disputed frontier was spinning out of control during 1958–59, one of the most important meetings on the boundary dispute between the prime ministers of India and China took place in April 1960 at New Delhi. After the politburo decision taken on 8 September 1959—a decision later confirmed by Mao—authorizing Zhou Enlai to hold talks with Nehru, the former proposed a meeting to discuss ways to resolve the complex boundary issue. The Chinese felt they were being isolated, as India seemed to have received support from both the USSR and the USA, and ‘world opinion, particularly within Afro-Asian nations, was turning against China’.9 The political scientist M. Taylor Fravel observed that China ‘was willing to settle border disputes with neighbours through a compromise when it was internationally isolated and internally weak’. In his masterly analysis of the Sino-Soviet split, Lorenz Luthi highlighted the severe Chinese famine in 1960 and the intense leadership struggle internally, indicating that ‘the Chinese state itself was in the process of collapse’.10 That was when Mao decided to fight the war in the Himalayas (1959–60). Henry Kissinger made this observation of the decision: ‘When Mao felt the national interest challenged, in the midst of all its self-inflicted travail, China needed to stand up.’11

  The Delhi meeting was ostensibly at the behest of Zhou Enlai, and Nehru, although reluctant initially, eventually agreed to it, as both wanted to avoid an armed conflict and neither wanted to be seen in a poor light internationally. However, Nehru had doubts about the outcome of any talks when there was such a vast variance between the claims put forward by the two countries. Was Zhou setting up a trap was the question. At the same time, Nehru had his back against the wall because of the public outcry against occupation of Indian territory by China and the casualties suffered by our troops while patrolling in their own territory, as happened during the armed clashes at Kongka La and Longju during 1959. Any latitude shown by him towards the Chinese would have amounted to political harakiri. During an earlier internal meeting, Nehru, summing up the discussions concerning the ‘barter’ proposal of the Chinese (India to concede Chinese claim in Ladakh and in return, the Chinese could give up their claim in the north-east of India), said, ‘If I give them that I shall no longer be Prime Minister of India—I will not do it.’12

  To project a neighbour-friendly approach, China reached a ‘non-aggression’ accord with Burma in January 1960, signing a liberal border agreement that adhered to the McMahon Line alignment. This was followed by a border agreement with Nepal in March 1960. Soon afterwards the Chinese said, ‘What has happened between China and Burma can take place between China and other countries.’13 These initiatives were intended to impress and indirectly pressure the Indian leadership to accept the Chinese proposal for the boundary settlement. In the next three years China signed border agreements with Mongolia, North Korea, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

  The Chinese prime minister arrived in Delhi on 19 April 1960 at the head of a huge delegation, including his foreign minister, Chen Yi, in three special aircraft. Premier Zhou Enlai’s delegation had apparently come well prepared for substantive discussions extending for a few days, whereas the Indian side thought the deliberations would at best go on for two days. The Chinese delegation received a cold though protocol-wise appropriate welcome. This event took place under the shadow of the insurrection in Tibet, particularly in the Kham region, which had been going on since 1956. By 1959, the insurrection had spread to other regions, including Lhasa proper. The same year, in March, the Dalai Lama made his dramatic escape from Lhasa to Tawang. The Chinese chose to believe that India, along with the CIA, had a hand in fomenting the uprisings in Tibet. They felt India had connived with the Americans in this matter. The fallout of these developments on the Chinese psyche was profoundly negative.

  The two prime ministers, who represented one-third of humanity, had seven tête-à-têtes, with Paranjpe and Chieh acting as interpreters for Nehru and Zhou Enlai respectively. In order to keep the proceedings highly confidential and away from the public gaze, the venue chosen was Teen Murti House, the prime minister’s residence. Neither the foreign secretary, M.J. Desai, nor Jagat S. Mehta and Sarvepalli Gopal, although present throughout the week-long confabulations, were ever called into the meetings to provide any inputs.14 Since there were no formal minutes made of the meetings, there were discrepancies in the records maintained by the two sides. These have been highlighted in the succeeding paragraphs.

  The Chinese prime minister put forward six points which he felt could form the basis for a friendly dialogue. The Chinese intention was to somehow make India agree to their viewpoint. The first point was that ‘disputes’ exist with regard to the boundary between the two countries. An unbiased analysis would suggest that if an undelimited boundary exists between two neighbours and conflicting claims have been put forward by both sides for the same area, it becomes a ‘disputed territory’. It is an accepted fact that India inherited an undefined northern boundary up to Nepal, which was depicted on Survey of India maps simply by a colour wash and the words ‘boundary undefined’ printed on the outer limit of the colour-washed area. These maps continued to be used till 1954, when Nehru ordered that our maps must have well-defined boundaries showing territory that is ours and that old maps be replaced by new ones. The validity of this unilateral delineation is something that is being questioned by China, although China itself is equally or more guilty of unilaterally depicting Indian territories as part of China, even earlier than India did so with its claimed areas.

  The second point of the Chinese was that ‘there exists a line of actual control up to which each side exercises administrative jurisdiction’. This was only partially true, as there were many ‘unheld gaps’ and some disputed areas that were forcibly occupied. This statement’s acceptance by India would confer legitimacy to China’s aggressive and expansionist policy.

  The third point stipulated that ‘certain geographical principles, such as watersheds, river valleys and mountain passes, should be equally applicable to all sectors’ while determining the boundary. The Chinese had probably intended to have the boundary delineated in the Ladakh sector along the Karakoram watershed and enclose most of Aksai Chin within their territory using the ploy of holding the watershed as a guideline.

  Their fourth issue highlighted the importance of taking into account ‘the national feelings of the two peoples towards the Himalayas and the Karakoram Mountains’ while arriving at a settlement of the boundary. The reference to the Himalayas is justified and undisputable, but from the Chinese point of view Tibet was far too remote, and the eastern Karakoram even more so. For the Chinese civilization, the Kunlun range was the outer limit of the ‘middle kingdom’. Seldom if ever were either the Himalayas or the Karakoram ranges mentioned in ancient Chinese texts or scriptures. But the Chinese cleverly crafted this line to justify their claim to Aksai Chin as it lay on the northern slopes of the Karakoram range. By no stretch of imagination could one compare the influence of the Himalayas on Indian civilization with that of the Karakoram range on the Chinese psyche—the Karakorams hardly impacted the average Chinese mind.

  The fifth point that Zhao Enlai put forward related to maintenance
of the status quo along the Line of Actual Control—in other words, the Chinese wanted to make sure that their occupation of Aksai Chin got indirectly sanctified and its consolidation continued unhindered.

  The sixth suggestion of the Chinese was, ‘Both sides should continue to refrain from patrolling along all sectors of the boundary.’15 The Indian parliamentarians thereupon questioned Nehru, demanding to know whether our soldiers could not patrol our own territory. Nehru responded that he did not agree to this condition of the Chinese.

  The major point of contention was whether or not Zhou Enlai had proposed a ‘package deal’ to Nehru that implied India’s acceptance of the Chinese claim to Aksai Chin in return for China’s recognition of the McMahon Line. Chinese accounts of the discussion claim that Zhou Enlai said at the outset that ‘although the area south of the McMahon Line was once part of Tibet, yet China would be “practical” and not raise new demands’. In a subsequent discussion, Zhou said (according to the Chinese account) that ‘the customary “Line of Actual Control” be treated as the basis of a settlement … that in the Eastern sector we recognize the line reached by India’s administrative jurisdiction and in the Western sector, India should recognize the line of China’s administrative jurisdiction’. This has also been alluded to in Garver’s authoritative account highlighting the Chinese proposal of ‘reciprocal acceptance of present realities in both sectors’.16

  On the contrary, the Indian account of the discussions, according to Gopal, who was heading the historical division of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), had concluded that there was no concrete offer of ‘swapping’ territorial claims or a ‘package deal’ made by Zhou Enlai.17 According to a declassified US study on this subject, a message regarding these talks sent to Indian missions on 27 April said, ‘Throughout the discussions [the Chinese] had invariably linked Ladakh with NEFA and stressed that the same principles of settling the boundary must govern both areas.’ Therefore, based on various accounts and statements made on this matter, and also from interpreting the six-point proposal and reading between the lines, the Chinese account of the package deal cannot be dismissed. This view has also been endorsed by Kissinger.18 Although Zhou Enlai appeared ready to accept the McMahon Line alignment, as China did in the case of Burma, in return it expected India to agree to the Chinese claim in Aksai Chin. Unfortunately, at this stage Nehru was in no position to accept any ‘barter deal’. Thus it would be reasonable to surmise that he might have played down Zhou’s offer.

  Nehru had planned meetings of important personages like the vice-president and some of his senior cabinet colleagues with Zhou Enlai during this visit. It is appreciated that perhaps Nehru wanted Zhou Enlai to get a first-hand feel of their views and also to enable his cabinet members to convey their opinions to the Chinese prime minister directly. This was done also because Nehru’s position was weakening by the day, and any leeway he had to accept any compromise on the boundary issue had been seriously constricted. He wanted the burden of a possible failure of the talks to be shared, and at the same time for Zhou Enlai to know the political pulse of the nation.

  Natwar Singh has, in a revealing account, described the meetings Zhou Enlai had with Vice-President Radhakrishnan, Home Minister G.B. Pant and Finance Minister Morarji Desai. ‘When an exasperated Zhou said to Desai, “You have said enough,” Morarji’s boorish rejoinder was, “You have said more than enough.”’ The Chinese prime minister was livid the next day to see himself caricatured as a ‘cobra’ in a cartoon in the Indian Express. Natwar cooled him down a bit by saying the media would not spare Nehru either.19

  As expected, the talks were an abject failure and resulted in a curt joint communiqué that said, ‘The talks did not result in resolving the differences that had arisen.’ Yet, in order to continue the engagement to resolve the boundary problem, the prime ministers agreed to have a time-bound report submitted by the officials of the two sides, who ‘should meet and examine, check and study all historical documents, records, accounts, maps and other material relevant to the boundary question, on which each side relied in support of its stand’.20 The communiqué also said that while the officials were engaged in the examination of factual material, ‘every effort should be made by the parties to avoid friction and clashes in the border areas’.21 However, the officials of the two sides were neither empowered nor assigned the responsibility to recommend solutions to the problem. The official teams were led by Jagat Mehta on the Indian side and by Chang Wen-chin on the Chinese side. The intention of this exercise was to discern areas of agreement and areas of discord in order to help the governments to carry out a logical analysis of the situation and find solutions acceptable to both sides.

  These talks took place for over six months commencing June 1960. The two sides handed over their reports to their respective governments in February 1961. Both sides more or less justified their respective alignments of the Sino-Indian boundary based on factual evidence, logic and reasoning. At one stage, says Jagat Mehta, he coerced the Chinese into parting with a map showing their claimed boundary, failing which, he had told them, it would be assumed they desired to end the negotiations:

  At times it may be necessary to risk rupture and try brinkmanship in negotiations but it has to be carefully calibrated and never overplayed. I hinted at stopping the talks in Peking when China showed reluctance to provide her own certified maps of what the Chinese delegation considered to be the frontiers of China. (Of course, I wanted to undercut the untenable Chinese contention that boundaries are not valid unless formally delimited.)22

  Nehru presented the report to Parliament in February 1961.23 The report further hardened the stance of the Indian people and eliminated any scope for concessions or bargaining, something inevitable in boundary negotiations, historically speaking.

  Zhou Enlai left India feeling angry and bitter. He made no bones about his disappointment with the ‘arrogant’ Nehru. He also held a midnight press conference at Delhi before leaving India, trying to impress upon the media that his efforts to get India to accept his six-point proposal for further dialogue to resolve the boundary dispute sadly proved to be in vain.

  Nationalistic fervour was palpable by now, and people expressed their anger in a public rally in the proximity of the prime minister’s house ‘demanding that the Government of India should not truckle under Zhou En-lai’s personal pressure. Nehru came out and addressed the crowd and assured them that not an inch of Indian soil would be yielded to China.’24

  Unfortunately, Nehru had by then boxed himself into a corner where any give or take, adjustments or exchange of territory would be seen as a sell-out. At the same time, the Chinese were aware that the Indian armed forces were ill-prepared for anything beyond minor skirmishing along the northern frontier. The Indian Army brass were given to understand that there would be no war with China, and a state of ‘guarded complacency’ had begun to creep in among them. There appeared to be no urgency to modernize the armed forces. Defence Minister Krishna Menon was focused on indigenization and setting up ordnance factories and defence infrastructure, but prioritization was conspicuous by its absence, affecting the operational readiness of the army. Time criticality was least understood, either by the minister or by the bureaucrats in the Ministry of Defence! As the two ministers, Krishna Menon and Morarji Desai, did not see eye to eye, money for acquisitions was not forthcoming, particularly the foreign exchange element. As a result, modernization and the making up of deficiencies in our defence capabilities took a back seat, and the appeals of the armed forces for the same remained unheeded.

  The armed border clashes in Ladakh and the north-eastern frontier regions in 1958–59, where India lost many more soldiers than China, made Parliament sit up and question the government strategy to free Indian territory from Chinese occupation. What was not articulated or amplified adequately to the people of India was that Britain had bequeathed to India no defined political boundary from Shaksgam and Karakoram right up to Nepal. That the Indian armed forc
es were not capable of facing the PLA in an all-out war was also not shared by Nehru, neither with Parliament nor, definitely, with the people of the country.

  Nehru was under the wrong impression that he would be able to prevail upon the Chinese to vacate Aksai Chin. He perhaps never truly comprehended or was correctly advised that for China the road alignment through Aksai Chin was a geostrategic imperative. Because of the Kunlun range, there was no other feasible route that could connect Sinkiang with western Tibet. An alternative route would be a circuitous one, a few thousand kilometres longer. Under no circumstances could China contemplate giving up the Aksai Chin region. This was not adequately appreciated by Nehru and his advisers. The Indian Foreign Service officers and the intelligence agencies were unable to join the dots and establish that China must have had some grand design in closing down the Indian trade agency in Gartok and preventing the Indian consulate from functioning from Kashgar. As reasoned by me earlier, the Chinese wished to conceal the building of their road through Aksai Chin from the Indians. They even stopped traders from using that route during the 1950s.

  Unfortunately, India’s national strategic planners, if they were at all considering possible threats from the northern frontier, were unable to see through the Chinese bluff and bluster and to come to the right conclusions. Although the director of the Intelligence Bureau, Mullik, has claimed that he kept the ministries concerned informed about the construction of the Sinkiang road, no effort was made to ascertain whether its alignment violated Indian territories. In fact, Mullik has gone on to state there were two possible alignments of the road from Kashgar to Rudok in western Tibet. This argument is manifestly incorrect, as there was only one historical trade route joining the two towns, and it went through Saidulla and Haji Langar in Aksai Chin. The other possible route was through the Keriya Shankou Pass (5,599 metres) across the Kunlun range, which was a difficult fair-weather foot track at best. Mullik should have known this, or endeavoured to find this out using all possible means.