No one is inside India's territory, says PM Narendra Modi; Remarks trigger row

Chairing an all-party meeting on the violent clash in Galwan in which 20 Indian soldiers lost their lives, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said, “Neither has anybody intruded into our territory, nor is anybody inside our territory, nor any of our posts have been captured,” drawing strong reactions on social media.

Former diplomat and strategic affairs expert K C Singh tweeted, “PM Modi to nation: no post or land lost. Semantically true but LAC is Indian boundary claim, till which we patrol. China has some overlapping claims/patrolling. But when Chinese entrench at their claim limit & block us either PM concedes Chinese version of LAC or he misspoke.”

Strategic expert Brahma Chellaney asked, “Does Modi’s statement signal India is willing to live with China’s forcible change of the status quo in the Galwan Valley and Lake Pangong? By occupying unoccupied areas, China has put a halt to India’s patrolling of those areas and built positions overlooking Indian defenses.”

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Earlier, Beijing claimed that the Indian Army soldiers had withdrawn from China’s side of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Galwan Valley and had even demolished its facilities, but they again returned on June 15 leading to the clash.

“In order to ease the situation, China and India have stayed in close communication through military and diplomatic channels,” Zhao Lijian, spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Chinese Government, said. “In response to the strong demand of the Chinese side, India agreed to withdraw the personnel who crossed the LAC and demolish the facilities, and so they did.”

Zhao’s statement was released in Beijing late in the evening on Friday.

It gave the Chinese government’s version of the clash between the soldiers of its People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and the Indian Army in Galwan Valley on June 15. The statement was added with the transcript of his press-conference earlier on the day.

Earlier, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs had on June 16 said that a consensus had been reached on June 6 on a process of de-escalation of the situation after a meeting of senior Commanders from both the nations but the Chinese side later departed from the consensus to respect the LAC in the Galwan Valley. On the late evening and night of June 15, a violent face-off happened as a result of an attempt by the Chinese side “to unilaterally change the status quo there”, the MEA had said.

At the all-party meeting on Friday, Modi also assured the leaders that the country today has such capability that “no one can even dare look towards an inch of our land”.

At the virtual meeting that lasted nearly four hours and attended by presidents of 16 parties, some of them raised questions about the intelligence inputs before the government. They also questioned the status of border security in view of the killing of 20 soldiers, with Modi saying the soldiers, who sacrificed their lives “taught a lesson to those who had dared to look towards our motherland”.

Assuring the leaders that the armed forces were leaving no stone unturned to protect the country, the Prime Minister said, “While on the one hand, the army has been given freedom to take necessary steps, India has also conveyed its position clearly to China through diplomatic means.”

He said that today, Indian forces are capable of moving together across sectors. And with the recently developed infrastructure, patrolling capacity at LAC has also increased. With this, transgressions which earlier went unchecked, are now detected by our jawans, which at times leads to tension.

Modi’s remarks came at the end of the meeting in which Congress President Sonia Gandhi rued that the leaders are still in the dark about the details of the Galwan incident. Gandhi posed a number of questions regarding the date of intrusion of Chinese troops and when government found out these transgressions. She also asked if there was a failure of intelligence.

The CPM also questioned the government on “lapses, intelligence failures” and the government not briefing the Opposition earlier. Sitaram Yechury said that it was agreed that the overall situation would be handled in a responsible manner.

The general tone at the meet was of fully backing the government on its strategy to deal with China.