“Solve Dispute In My Lifetime” Method Won’t Work in Indo-China dispute: BJP Leader

Ram Madhav said, “Don’t be in a hurry for an (Indo-China boundary) solution…Don’t be long after a legacy that should be solved in my lifetime. It is not going to be solved because you are not dealing with just any other country; you are dealing with civilization, a cultural nation.”

New Delhi: According to the Press Trust of India (PTI), The approach of ‘I should solve this dispute in my lifetime,’ said BJP leader Ram Madhav, will not work in the case of the Indo-China boundary disagreement, claiming that any “hurry” in finding a solution to the long-standing conflict will not help in dealing with a “cultural nation” like China.

Ram Madhav said at the launch of a book, “China Bloodies Bulletless Borders,” by Colonel Anil Bhatt, VSM (Retired), detailing the troubled Indo-China relationship since the 1962 war between the two countries, that it should not be considered an “issue of legacy” because no one knows who will solve the problem eventually.

On Tuesday, Mr Madhav said, “Do you know the great border dispute between the then Soviet Union and China was solved by a thoroughly drunken leader called Boris Yeltsin (first Russian president). Now, who would have imagined that Yeltsin would finally resolve that issue. He did. It went to his credit.”

He further said, “Don’t be in a hurry for an (Indo-China boundary) solution…Don’t be long after a legacy that should be solved in my lifetime. It is not going to be solved because you are not dealing with just any other country; you are dealing with civilization, a cultural nation.”

Boris Yeltsin, a Soviet Union politician, became the Russian Federation’s first President (1991-1999) at the end of the Cold War.

Speaking of China and its military tactics, which the 57-year-old BJP leader attributed back to Sun Tzu’s ancient treatise “The Art of War,” Ram Madhav said one should not understand China by its acts but by the thought behind its deeds, as reported by PTI.

“You have to understand China not from the incidents you have encountered but by understanding the thinking of them – the middle kingdom.” “That we (China) are between the heavens and the earth, that we are the intermediate kingdom, where you cannot be on par with me and certainly not above me,” Ram Madhav, author of “Uneasy Neighbors: India and China after 50 Years of War,” remarked.

He also mentioned the distinctions between the two countries’ traditional approaches and customs.

He said that although Indians are taught in a “romantic and idealistic culture,” even in military tactics, we recall Arjuna’s (one of the five Pandava brothers in the epic Hindu Mahabharata) single-minded focus, China believes in having five targets at once instead of one.

“When we talk about war strategy, we recall Arjuna’s single-minded focus on a bird’s eye on the branch of the tree. But Sun Tzu says: If you have a target, never make that as a single target, attack in five places.”

“So they will engage in dam construction, they will engage you at the border… and they will also talk to you,” he said, emphasizing that “proactive diplomacy combined with robust ground posture” is the way to deal with China, much as India did during the Doklam and Galwan disputes.

Lieutenant General (retired) Vinod Bhatia, professor Ravni Thakur, and author-analyst Iqbal Chand Malhotra were among those who attended the book launch ceremony, which was chaired by defense expert Maroof Raza, as reported by PTI.

‘China Bloodies Bulletless Borders,’ published by Pentagon Press, promises to describe and analyze the challenging process of bullet-less border management by the Indian Army against the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of China.