BJP leader deplores lack of infrastructure in border areas
Rudy is part of delegation tasked to report on China's intrusions
New Delhi: Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Rajiv Pratap Rudy deplored the lack of infrastructure on the Indian side of the country's border with China.
Rudy is part of a BJP delegation that visited the area and tasked to report the situation to the party before it takes up the government's alleged soft paddling of repeated instances of transgression and intrusions by the Chinese forces.
"It is almost impossible to reach the border due to lack of logistics. It is hard to believe that we Indians in India cannot go to what is our land without permission of the Ministry of Defence which does not come easily," Rudy said yesterday while addressing a round table discussion organised by the Observer Research Foundation.
Perception
"There are deserts of hundreds of miles with no habitation and no demarcation of land. Border is just imaginary that varies from local shepherds of where the Indian land ends and the perception of the Indian army," Rudy said, adding that failure to demarcate border is the main bone of contention between the two countries that went to war in 1962.
Defence experts and Sinologists concurred with Rudy's view that the Line of Actual Control (LAC) is just a perception.
"LAC is just a perception and both sides (India and China) patrol what they perceive as their areas. We have had face-offs which can prove dangerous as these can lead to firing and armed conflict," said retired brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal.
Kanwal also listed presence of multiple authorities as a major problem.
The Indian side of the border is manned by army, Border Security Force and Indo-Tibetan Border Force, creating confusion and lack of cohesiveness, while the People's Liberation Army (PLA) is in total control on the Chinese side.
