Has India actually lost territory to China?

July 12, 2020 12:08

Indian soldiers patrol the border with China at high altitudes. Photograph: Utpal Baruah/Reuters

While the government has been at pains to insist that the Chinese have disengaged from the Line of Actual Control, Colonel Ajai Shukla, strategic affairs editor of the Business Standard, who has been consistently taking a different line on the Chinese incursions, has now, in a video interview to Karan Thapar for The Wire, claimed that contrary to claims that there has been disengagement whatsoever at Hot Springs and Gogra.

Not only that, Shukla also says in his interview that the Chinese are refusing to vacate Indian territory.

In fact, he asserts in the interview that far from India removing Chinese soldiers from India-claimed territory, the LAC has not shifted westwards, ie, into Indian territory.

"It had shifted 12-15 km in Depsang, 1 km in Galwan, 2-4 km in Gogra and 8 km in Pangong Lake,' Shukla says, adding, "I'm absolutely sure about this."

"This would be the largest loss of territory to China since the 1962 war," he adds for good measure.

In his defence, Col Shukla also points out that while he has taken a line contrary to the government line, the government has so far not denied anything he's written.

About other defence correspondents and strategic affairs editors citing army sources, he says, "The government is misleading the media," and putting pressure on the Army. "The Army is spouting the line given by the NSA's office,' he says, referring to National Security Advisor Ajit Doval.

Another devastating claim Col Shukla makes is that where disengagement has taken place at Galwan, 'the buffer zone that has been created is almost entirely on Indian territory.'

'India has accepted, under Chinese pressure, that the Y-nullah at Galwan will be considered the marker for the LAC rather than PP-14. As a result, India's troops are now pushed back some 2.4 kms from PP-14, the traditional marker for the LAC, whilst China is only 400 metres from this point,' Karan Thapar says quoting Col Ajai Shukla, here.

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