ARMY CHIEF MEETS TROOPS CAUGHT IN DOKLAM ROW

NEW DELHI: Army chief General Bipin Rawat made a quiet visit to the Sikkim border last week and interacted with soldiers who were involved in a 73-day border standoff with Chinese troops in the Doklam sector.

HT has learnt that General Rawat made the visit on Saturday and spent the day with Indian soldiers deployed in the sensitive sector. The last visit by the army chief to this sector was in June this year when the standoff was still on.

The Doklam faceoff ended on August 28 after both India and China agreed to pull back their troops and the latter removed road-building equipment too.

China had accused India of trespassing and preventing its troops from constructing a road in t he Himalayan plateau claimed by China and Bhutan. However, a repeat of the summer standoff cannot be ruled out.

In September, a defence think tank observed that the Doklam standoff between India and China was likely to be the new normal, making a strong case for building military capabilities as China respects strength.

In a paper titled Looking Beyond Doklam, the Centre for Joint Warfare Studies (CENJOWS), a think tank set up by the defence ministry a decade ago, said it was crucial for India to demonstrate strength as peace along the disputed border or the Line of Actual Control will be “constantly and continuously” under stress with “increase in frequency, intensity and depth of (Chinese) transgressions leading to more and more standoffs”.

The paper was authored by CENJOWS director Lieutenant General Vinod Bhatia (retd). Bhatia was the director general of military operations when India and China were locked in a tense border standoff at Depsang in Ladakh four years ago. He has also commanded the Siliguribased HQS 33 Corps that controls the Sikkim sector.

The paper said the dual command and control structure was a recipe for disaster as “conflicting directions can emanate from the controlling ministries”.