Border Agreement

Ex-India NSA and Foreign Secretary (among a host of other roles), Shivshankar Menon’s book, Choices, is about some of the major foreign policy decisions made since the 90’s, and the why’s behind those, er, choices:

“The examination of choices suggests there is no single correct or right answer to the questions foreign policy throws up, no answers that are valid in all circumstances… Choice involves uncertainty, risk, and immediacy.”

 

A major foreign policy decision, esp. a 180˚ change in course, he says wryly, requires a crisis. A situation that forces you to think and act differently. When “more of the same” is not an option. He cites the 1993 border agreement with China during Narasimha Rao’s tenure as one such example.

 

Given the bitter history and the “emotional baggage” of 1962 that India carries, why were the 2 countries even willing to start talking? It was a pragmatic choice on both sides, given the internal challenges they faced at that time. China felt shaky due to the collapse of the USSR, and Tiananmen Square. America’s demonstration of its military might and tech during the First Gulf War had spooked China - would the US try a regime change in China? They needed to concentrate on their internal affairs, not be side-tracked by border issues with India. And India? Well, the USSR had collapsed, creating a vacuum on multiple fronts. Liberalization had just started; the economy was in dire straits. India too didn’t want to be distracted by disputes with China: it too had enough problems:

“It would serve both Chinese and Indian purposes to try to impose peace along the border.”

 

Ever noticed the India-China border is called the LAC (Line of Actual Control)? In other words, both sides feel there is land on the other side which “rightfully” belongs to them, and the LAC is just how the situation is, not how the situation should be. Accepting the LAC as the de facto boundary meant India would have to forego its stake for the land taken by the Chinese in the 1962 war… a very hard choice, but PM Rao was willing to make it. Further, he asked Menon and others to keep major opposition leaders in the loop and consult them as well.

 

India proposed restrictions on air activity and military deployment near the LAC. This is a very nuanced topic. The nature of the terrain on either side of the LAC is such that there are areas where it is easy for one side to accumulate its resources, but very inaccessible for the other. In other places, the situation would be reversed. Hence, India said that restrictions had to factor for that asymmetry on a case-by-case basis, not based on a simple “mathematical equivalence”. China agreed and the restrictions should be on “mutual and equal security, rather than on parity or other simple formulas”. (This, says Menon, was an idea that was seeded by something Vajpayee suggested in very high-level terms).

 

This idea/principle was then used as the guiding principle by both sides over decades to come up with “agreements, mechanisms, and even standard operating procedures” along the border. For almost a quarter of a century, it kept the peace and allowed both countries to focus on economic growth. In turn, Menon says that during the same period, peace made it easier to frame other bilateral agreements and have discussions on other areas of contention (e.g. river waters). Just contrast that with the “hot” border with Pakistan, writes Menon, and you can see the benefit to both sides of the 1993 border agreement.

 

Until recently, of course, as the run-ins on the LAC have been increasing. Clearly, the circumstances that brought both countries to the negotiating table have changed (both are a lot more stable, and have had decades of economic growth behind them). But that’s the other thing, as Menon says. Foreign policy isn’t set forever and forever…