You all read what Mrs. Nirupama Rao, Secretary in the Ministry of External said about China building a dam on their part of River Brahmaputra. What she said was "What I want to say is that this matter has been taken up not just once but on a number of occasions with China and China has consistently denied that it is engaged in any such construction activity on the Brahmaputra." Cabinet officials, government officials and congress party leaders were consistently were always in denial mode about the Chinese building a dam on the Brahmaputra River. Recently the Prime Minister had a meeting with his Chinese counterpart in Thailand and thereafter the Prime Minister also kept the line. Now consider other scenario.

The Defense Minister and the Army Chief have consistently, over the last two or three years, denied any Chinese incursions across the border. Recently they casually admitted that there were in fact numerous incursions by Chinese this year, last year, the year before the last and before on a regular basis. The Chinese government wants the issue wrapped under a cold blanket so that it can avoid the world public opinion. There was an accident in Arunachal in which one of Indian Air Forces transport plane went down after a mid air explosion. China wanted India to soft pedal on the issue and thereafter the Defense Minister issued a gag order to Indian Defense officials.

I sincerely hope that we don’t hear the Defense Minister and the Chief of Army Chief calling a press conference and tell the Indian people, “We had on going meetings with our Chinese counterparts. We have always told them that Arunachal is ours. We want to make that clear to the Indian people” and announce through the All India Radio that the Chinese army has already taken Arunachal and are on their way to Assam. I hope the Congress government would not be so callous and allow the loss of countless young military lives.

China will keep pushing, but India will not take up the issue in the international forums and do what the Chinese dread the most, raise public opinion against its aggressive expansionist policies. They don’t like to loose international public opinion because that could effectively put a cap on the capital inflow from western countries and also put a limit on the export of its cheap manufactured goods. Although I wonder if the Americans will buy that, India could also persuade the western democracies to impose economic sanction against China in that event. However, I doubt it will sell.