JUST as India has a dispute with Pakistan over India-occupied Jammu and Kashmir, it also has border dispute with China. India disputes China’s rule over about 3,800sq-km of land on the Tibetan plateau that China had seized duirng the 1962 war. On its part, China claims 9,000sq-km territory in Arunachal Pradesh, including the Tawang and Tawang monastery, which is one of the last remains of Mahayana Buddhism that once prevailed across Tibet.

After several rounds of talks, being held since 1981, India unilaterally converted the disputed area into a state, and made it a permanent part of the country by establishing an adminis-tration there, which is a tactic identical to the one India adopted in the case of occupied Jammu and Kashmir. India has refused to vacate any populated area of the disputed territories.

Similarly, in the case of Siachen glacier (image above), India asserts that the presence of its troops is important for its vital defence interests against Pakistan and China.

So far, India has been maintaining an uneasy status quo over its disputes with both Pakistan and China.

India’s status quo is pretty much like Israel’s fragile status quo over occupied Palestine since 1967. The world is witne- ssing horrible consequences of the status quo in the Middle East. There is an urgent need to settle the various issues instead of letting the status quo prevail.

Abid Mahmud Ansari
Islamabad

Published in Dawn, February 5th, 2024