General’s Concerns

Aditya Kakkar

Speaking at the annual press conference in New Delhi, Chief of Army Staff General Bipin Rawat had many things on his mind including the role of education in radicalising the youth of Jammu and Kashmir and the necessity of lowering the General Staff Qualitative Requirement (GSQR) of weapon systems so that the indigenous defence industry gets a helping hand. But the main focus of the media interaction was the issue of Doklam and the many narratives that emerged post de-escalation between China and India.

General Rawat gave a sense of why Doklam is important to India even though the territory isn’t Indian. “Doklam is an area that is divided into two parts: North Doklam and South Doklam while the Torsa nala separates the two.”

“Up till June 2016, there was fairly inconspicuous activity, one or two bulldozers that would scrape the earth and go away but this time we found that the kind of equipment and manpower they (Chinese supported by the PLA) came with, they meant business. We felt they would probably try and claim the whole of Doklam and build a road there, and probably reach where the RBA (Royal Bhutan Army) post was. That was our impression and we realised that if this was going to happen, we would have to block it. This was posing a threat to us and was changing the status quo and violating our agreement with the Chinese to maintain the status quo. So, we were compelled to take action and block them. That led to a stalemate.”

“As of now, we feel the de-escalation has happened because of the winter months or because (the Chinese) felt it was time to de-escalate. But bec