Border confrontations and unprovoked military actions spiralling into a larger conflict can’t be discounted, Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat said on November 6, Friday. The comments come increasing tensions along the Line of Actual Control with China.
General Rawat said that the situation along the LAC remains tense.
The Chief of Defence Staff said that China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) was facing ‘unanticipated consequences’ in Ladakh due to firm responses by Indian armed forces.
‘Our posturing is unambiguous; we will not accept any shift in the Line of Actual Control,’ General Rawat said.
India and China have held seven rounds of military talks to de-escalate the standoff in Ladakh that began in May and witnessed an unprecedented escalation in June when 20 Indian Army personnel were killed in action in a violent clash with Chinese Army troops at Galwan Valley.
In August, Chinese troops tried to close in on Indian troops who had reclaimed heights at Pangong Tso. The face-off resulted in firing in the air for the first time in decades.
‘As India grows in stature, security challenges will rise proportionately. We must move out of the constant threat of sanctions or dependency on individual nations for our military requirements and invest in building long-term indigenous capability for strategic independence and application of decisive military power to squarely meet present and emerging challenges,’ General Rawat said.
Referring to Pakistan, General Rawat said that the ‘new Indian template to deal with terror’ had injected uncertainty in the country, which was continuing its proxy war through cross-border terror. ‘Unabated proxy war in Jammu and Kashmir unleashed by Pakistan, accompanied by vicious anti-India rhetoric, have taken India-Pakistan ties to a new low,’ he added.
