Good humour, not gunfire, on border

By Subir Bhaumik BBC News, Tawang, Arunachal Pradesh

There is "absolute peace on the border", Indian troops say (All photos by P Saini)

They fought a bloody war and followed it with 40 years of tension, but things are a little more relaxed for Indian and Chinese troops on their Himalayan border now.

"One Chinese soldier ran away with our weapon as a joke and returned it after a while," says an Indian colonel whose Madras regiment holds the Wangdung region.

"Another snatched some Indian rupees and later returned them with some yuan as interest," says the colonel, Karandeep Singh.

Back in 1962 it was here, in the Tawang-Bumla area, where the Chinese army broke through.

Tawang-Bumla is now the command of Indian colonel, Brijender Singh.

His father, Chander Bhan, and uncle, Hoshiar Singh, fought the Chinese in 1962. Hoshiar Singh, a brigadier, was killed.

"My father died recently and when he heard we are friends with the Chinese, he advised me not to lower my guard. That we will never do but we are now friends with the Chinese," Col Singh told the BBC.

"We now have in place a system of regular border meetings to exchange notes. It is working. There's absolute peace on this frontier."

'Enemy locations'

The Indians now attend the Chinese national day celebrations at their border posts on 1 October and the Chinese reciprocate on Indian Independence Day on 15 August.

Cultural troupes join celebrations of national days

Cultural troupes enliven the celebrations and even families of Indian and Chinese officers meet each other and exchange gifts.

"I did not see the war or the tension that persisted for almost four decades after it, but now the mood is clearly one of friendship," says Lt Rohit Bali of the Rajput battalion, which holds the Bumla pass.

As one climbs into Bumla, a board warns the visitor - "You are now under enemy observation".

As Lt Bali briefs us, he keeps referring to Chinese positions across the border as "enemy locations".

But such language is only a reminder of the past history of border tensions that nearly brought Indian and Chinese armies to the brink of war on two occasions after the 1962 war.

Gone are the days of aggressive patrolling and "area domination" tactics that both armies resorted to in the four decades after the 1962 war.

In 1986-87, this correspondent was witness to the aggressive Indian response to alleged violation of the border by Chinese troops.

The Chinese, alleged the Indian army, had crossed the line at four points and set up posts in areas the Indians said were theirs.

The Indians crossed the line in at least two places to set up posts just to remind the Chinese that they were prepared to meet any challenge.

Scaled down

Wangdung was one area where the Indians responded in strength in 1986-87 during "Operation Chequerboard", as the Indian response to the Chinese move forward was christened.

War monuments are the sole signs of past conflicts

In that area now, Chinese and Indian troops play an occasional game of volleyball and score points with light banter rather than with guns.

The Chinese have moved away their regular troops from the border and deployed light-armed border defence regiments in recent months.

"We cannot do that but we have scaled down our forward deployment in response to the Chinese gesture," says Brig Abhay Kumar, who commands the brigade at Tawang.

Brig Kumar says because it is so peaceful on the border, Indian military formations have been able to deploy much of their strength to fight insurgencies in north-east Indian states like Assam.

Just outside the headquarters of the mountain brigade that Brig Kumar commands stands the Tawang war memorial, which honours Indian soldiers who died fighting the Chinese army in October-November 1962.

But as India and China push ahead with negotiations to find a durable settlement of their border problem and their armies scale down tension on the frontier, the war memorials on either side of the border are the only reminder to the years of conflict gone by.