NEW DELHI: A heated debate in Parliament on Monday over an unpublished book authored by former Army Chief Gen MM Naravane has brought back memories of the “surprise” India faced when China ‘unilaterally’ violated existing ‘peace agreements’ along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in April-May 2020, resulting in clashes with the Indian Army.
Gen Naravane served as Army Chief from December 31, 2019, to April 30, 2022.
In April 2020, the Indian Army responded effectively to China’s military moves, but there was a gap in anticipating Beijing’s intentions, said a senior Indian military officer with decades of experience on China.
During the debate in Lok Sabha, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh countered Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi, noting that “the book being cited has not been published.” Gandhi was citing excerpts published by the news magazine Caravan.
A retired senior officer said multiple steps led to the clashes in April and May 2020, culminating in the fatal Galwan Valley clash on June 15, 2020.
The first was China’s surprise deployment along the LAC in April 2020. Troops exercising elsewhere in Tibet were rapidly diverted to Eastern Ladakh. By the third week of April, an estimated 40,000–50,000 People’s Liberation Army troops were stationed along the LAC on their side.
A clash occurred on the night of May 5-6 at a location called “Finger 5” on the northern bank of Pangong Tso in Eastern Ladakh, injuring troops on both sides. In a prior incident in 2017 near the same spot, soldiers had hurled stones at each other.
A week after the Pangong Tso clash, a military stand-off began along the 832-km stretch of the LAC in Eastern Ladakh, with thousands of troops from both sides within rifle-shot distance.
India was surprised by the rapid deployment and responded by ramping up troops. Normally, in winters (April is winter in the icy heights of Eastern Ladakh), the Army maintains about 10,000 troops along the LAC, with another 3,000-4,000 in high-altitude reserves to allow for sudden deployment.
The accretion took about three to four weeks, and by the third week of May 2020, additional troops, missiles, guns, and rockets had been deployed.
A draft of Gen Naravane’s book, “Four Stars of Destiny”, remains unpublished due to pending clearance from the Ministry of Defence over ‘sensitive’ details regarding the 2020 LAC standoff and the Agnipath scheme.
The book was slated for release in January 2024, but the MoD asked the publisher to hold off. The contents of the draft remain under review.