The Opposition Congress has raised a raft of questions about the agreement between India and China on patrolling arrangements along the contested Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the Ladakh theatre, with its concerns primarily centred around whether the Indian Army will be able to patrol areas that were cut off due to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) forward presence in several pockets.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, Congress general secretary (communications) Jairam Ramesh posed six questions to the government, urging it to take the country into confidence and provide answers.
He asked if Indian troops will be able to patrol up to the country’s claim line in Depsang to five patrolling points past the ‘Bottleneck junction’ as they were able to earlier, if they will be able to visit the three patrolling points in Demchok that have remained out of bounds for more than four years, and if the army will continue to be restricted to Finger 3 on the northern bank Pangong Tso when earlier they could go as far as Finger 8.
The development comes at a time when the two sides are moving ahead to defuse border tensions under an agreement on patrolling arrangements in forward areas including Depsang and Demchok.
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On October 21, 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, the two remaining flashpoints in Ladakh where the 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.
The string of questions from Ramesh included if Indian patrols will be permitted to access the three patrolling points in the Gogra-Hot Springs area that they could earlier go up to, will Indian graziers once again be given the right to access traditional grazing grounds in Helmet Top, Mukpa Re, Rezang La, Rinchen La, Table Top and Gurung Hill in Chushul, and if the “buffer zones” that the government “ceded to the Chinese” are now a thing of the past.
The queries raised by the Opposition party relate to going back to the ground situation as it existed before April 2020.
India is looking at restoring the status quo ante or the situation as it existed along LAC in April 2020, army chief General Upendra Dwivedi said on Tuesday. He called for restoring trust between the Indian Army and PLA to cool tensions along LAC.
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.
“The Foreign Secretary has said that this (agreement on patrolling ’arrangements) is ‘leading to disengagement and eventually a resolution of the issues that had arisen in these areas in 2020.’ We hope that India’s worst foreign policy setback in decades is being honourably resolved. We expect that the disengagement will restore the status quo ante as it existed in March 2020,” Jairam said.
He alleged that the “sorry saga” is a complete indictment of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “gullibility and naiveté “ regarding China.
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. The zones of separation were aimed at eliminating the possibility of violent face-offs.
To be sure, both armies still have tens of thousands of troops each and advanced weaponry deployed in the Ladakh theatre.
