Flights Of Fantasy
[ M Panging Pao ]
Just a week back, China audaciously released a fourth list of 30 new names of various places in Arunachal Pradesh, which include 12 mountains, four rivers, one lake, one mountain pass, 11 residential areas, etc.
Earlier, on 2 Aprilm 2023, China renamed 11 places in Arunachal with Chinese names. Before that also, China renamed six places in Arunachal in 2017, followed by renaming 15 places in 2021. The renamed places include mountains, rivers and places like Mechukha, Manigong, Tawang, Sela, Walong, etc. China regularly claims Arunachal as southern Tibet or ‘Zangnan’.
China regularly issues stapled visas to officials and sportspersons from Arunachal planning to visit China. In a few cases, such as the one that happened with me, China said that visa is not required to visit China. China regularly objects to visits by central ministers or senior officials to Arunachal.
China traces back this dispute to the McMahon Line. The 890-km-long McMahon Line demarcates the eastern border between India and China, and follows the watershed principle running along the highest ridges, starting from Bhutan to the trijunction of India, China and Myanmar.
The McMahon Line was created during the Shimla Agreement of 1914. The British Indian representative was Henry McMahon, then secretary in the Indian foreign department, Tibet was represented by Lama Lonchen Shatra, and the Chinese representative was a diplomat named Ivan Chen. After almost a year of negotiations, the McMahon Line was initially presented on 22 April, 1914, along with an attached map. On 25 April, 1914, the Chinese representative submitted a memorandum with a number of objections to the boundaries between Inner Tibet and Outer Tibet and Inner Tibet and China. There were no objections by the Chinese representative on the border between Tibet and India. Thereafter, on 27 April, 1914, the Chinese representative initialled both the documents and the map without any objections. However, the actual agreement documents were kept secret till 1937, when the McMahon Line was first published in a Survey of India map. If the Chinese representative had no objections to the border between Tibet and India and had initialled the documents and the map during the Shimla Agreement of 1914, why are the Chinese still claiming Arunachal as ‘southern Tibet’?
This claim is bogus, hegemonic and not supported by documents and facts.
Arunachal is mentioned in the ancient Indian epics Mahabharata, Kalika and Bhagavad Purana (10th century AD). Having studied Chinese language and hailing from Arunachal, it may be firmly stated that the people of Arunachal, comprising many tribes, are culturally, traditionally, linguistically, and racially different from the Han Chinese. Arunachalis are patriotic Indians and have never been a part of mainland China.
Why does China continue this aggressive behaviour, especially with respect to Arunachal? Isn’t it time for us to give back to China? The government of India should start issuing stapled visas to a few Chinese officials. Another way could be to rename Chinese cities like Chengdu as Bharatnagar, Kunming as Modinagar, and Nyingchi as Arunnagar. (The contributor is retired Group Captain, Indian Air Force)
