China’s Misadventure In Arunachal Pradesh

The Communist regime of China seems to be jealous of Bharat’s resurgence as a glorious nation with power, patriotism and people’s welfare. Hence the Beijing administration continues adopting unwanted actions targeting India’s eastern State of Arunachal Pradesh. As a rhetoric the imperialist regime changed the name of Arunachal itself along with 30 other places to assert their control over these localities. But the question that arises here is, if you change the name of a place will it belong to you immediately ? Are you challenging the might of 140 crore Bharatiyas who are enriched with ancient wisdom, unparallel unity among diversities and a recharging nationalism.

Mentionable is that the Chinese civil affairs ministry announced its fourth list with so-called standardised geographical names for places, mountains, rivers, etc inside Arunachal on 30 March 2024. It even called the hilly State as Zangnan and renamed several over places along the line of actual control (LAC), which Beijing often claims as part of southern Tibet. New Delhi had promptly rejected the move terming it as a senseless attempt to invent those names. India's foreign ministry on 1 April asserted that the change of names will not change the reality.

The foreign ministry condemned China's latest attempt to rename several places in Arunachal and clarified that the invented names to those locations will not automatically pave the way to go under the control of Beijing. New Delhi firmly rejects such attempts and reiterates that Arunachal Pradesh is, has been, and will always be an integral and inalienable part of India. Foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar declared that Indian armed forces are regularly deployed at the LAC. Both the countries had over 20 rounds of military-level talks since 2020 but no breakthrough is observed till date.

AP chief minister Pema Khandu termed the action of Beijing as another gimmick. The saffron leader asserted in a social media post, “Being a proud citizen of Bharat and a native of Arunachal Pradesh, I strongly condemn this act of naming places within Arunachal Pradesh which has been an inalienable integral part of India.” Proud citizens and patriots of Arunachal Pradesh reject such antics, he added. Union minister Kiren Rijiju, who hails from Arunachal, also condemned the Chinese misadventure.

Recently while addressing an election rally at Arunachal’s Namsai locality, defence minister Rajnath Singh also echoed the same version that changing of names of 30 Arunachali places will hardly change the ground reality. He even wondered what would be Beijing’s reaction if New Delhi also makes claims over some places in the neighbouring territories. Finally he opined that these kinds of activities can only deteriorate the relation between the most populous countries.

Denouncing the hopeless attitude of the Communist regime to rename several Arunachal localities, a forum of nationalist citizens in eastern Bharat, urges the Union government in New Delhi to ratify its stand on Tibet as being an independent nation, so that China will never remain a neighbouring country for India. Patriotic Peoples’ Front Assam (PPFA) also asked the Chinese Communist leaders to respect the sovereignty of a nation which became their neighbouring country only after grabbing the land of 14 Dalai Lama.

China does the tricks very often to draw the international media attention with an aim to cover up their invasion over the Tibetan people and their holy land in the 1950s, following which Param Pavan Dalai Lama had to escape Potala palace and take refuge in Dharamshala of Himachal Pradesh in northern India. Indians are unanimous in support the cause of Tibet even though New Delhi has not materialised their wish. Probably time has come to show Beijing its real face as an aggressor and morally support the decades-long movement for an independent Tibet, said a PPFA statement.

Beijing had recently objected to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Arunachal when he inaugurated the Sela tunnel which now enhances all-weather connectivity to Tawang. Now the troop movement to reach many strategically important positions on the frontier region becomes easier, which has definitely annoyed Beijing. Earlier the Communist regime released another list of standardised names for 11 Arunachal places, which was also strongly rejected by New Delhi.

Lately, the United States has also criticized the Beijing initiative terming it an unilateral attempt to reassert its territorial claims over Arunachal. Washington strongly opposed any unilateral attempts to advance territorial claims by incursions or encroachments, military or civilian, across the LAC, said an official representative. It may be noted that during the 1962 Chinese aggression too, the US stood behind India and it compelled the Chinese armed forces, which even reached Tezpur, to retreat unilaterally.

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