Voices From Ground Ziro

Against Chinese claims, it’s time for the Arunachali frontier to be heard

- Shruti Pandalai

It’s been relentless – Beijing’s unbridled propaganda offensive against India since the bloody clash in the Himalayas. Threatening rhetoric on Chinese military superiority, punishing reminders of 1962, seething editorials attacking India for being a US lapdog – all packaged for mass dissemination outside the great firewall – are now routine.

The handing over of five Arunachali youth detained by the PLA for allegedly foraging on the other side made news recently, but it was a tweet from a Chinese handle that amusingly went viral – “PLA handed over five Indian nationals who crossed LAC to China side to seek for a better and safe life. The youths reluctantly returned to India to face poverty and coronavirus back home.” Here was Psyops 101with Chinese characteristics.

Far away from New Delhi, in Arunachal Pradesh such statements do elicit reactions. An interaction with a cross section of people during a visit to the state last year was telling of the aspirations of people, who are among the primary stakeholders in developing and securing India’s borders.

It was revealing that in the border state which dominates headlines in part due to Beijing claiming it as Southern Tibet, China’s mind games – issuing of stapled visas, renaming of six districts as part of ‘standardisation’, burning of maps etc – received no traction. However, there’s a genuine desire among people to discredit what they see as a false narrative that disregards their inalienable right to a land safeguarded by their tribes over centuries, and protected by the sixth schedule of the Indian Constitution.