By Sultan Shahin
NEW DELHI – The reopening of a Sino-Indian trade route through Nathu-La Pass in Sikkim has been deferred by the new Indian government, apparently over security concerns. The excitement that was building up among traders in Sikkim after India and China agreed to reopen the trade route last year has subsided.
Just across the road from the spectacular Tsango Lake in Sikkim, where tourists try to ride yaks, is the Nathu-La Pass. At 4,290 meters above sea level, the pass is the high point of the fabled Silk Route. It is the shortest link between China and India. It was closed after the two countries fought a brief and bitter border war in 1962. The bitterness has persisted until recently, compounded further by China deciding to supply military hardware and other economic assistance to Pakistan. In 1998, then Indian defense minister George Fernandes labeled China the country’s “potential threat No 1” to justify the testing of nuclear weapons.
China seems eager to put the experience of 1962 behind it, but many Indians fed on a diet of Chinese “perfidy” continue to smart over the issue and distrust Chinese intentions. While Indian strategists agree there would be economic benefits to both countries, it is the politics involved that worry many. Recent Indian overtures to China, particularly the decision to reopen the Nathu-La Pass, were seen by several strategic thinkers in academe and the bureaucracy as the government of India writing off the Dalai Lama and the Tibetans and abandoning any role in helping to preserve the unique Tibetan culture and Tibetan school of Buddhism in its anxiety to wean Beijing away from Islamabad. “It’s advantage China,” said defense analyst Srikanth Kondapalli. “Without explicitly recognizing Sikkim, Jammu and Kashmir, and Arunachal Pradesh as integral parts of India, China has been able to establish an important trade post.”
The trade through Nathu-La would entail a Chinese presence in Sikkim, and this could mean closing down the only route available for Tibetan political refugees fleeing perceived persecution from China. The government of Nepal handing over some Tibetan refugees to China last year was also seen as the Indian government of the time succumbing to Chinese pressure as it was felt Kathmandu could not have done so without some sort of green signal from New Delhi.
While China is avoiding making any adverse comments, or showing any impatience on the delay in the reopening of the route, this has caused a veritable row between New Delhi and the state government of Sikkim, which had high hopes of an economic upturn with the reopening of the pass.
Tibetan businessmen and authorities, too, believe that the resumption of trade along the route would help in expanding Tibetan trade. Ying Hong, vice secretary of the Shigatse Regional Committee of the Communist Party of China, for instance, termed the Nathu-La agreement as timely and added: “This will surely have a positive impact on our trade.”
The chief minister of the Indian border state of Sikkim, Pawan Kumar Chamling, has ostensibly accepted the decision and will wait for New Delhi to ready itself for honoring the agreement former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee made with the Chinese about this time last year. The chief minister had made great preparations for the opening of the route. There were to be border markets on both sides of the Nathu-La. He seems to be aware that all the parties concerned – the Indian military, intelligence, and Commerce and External Affairs ministries – have objections and deep misgivings about this decision made by the previous government.
To Sikkim’s great disappointment, India and China are yet to do their groundwork and finalize details on items of trade, trade posts and security-related matters, and top officials have said the opening could be delayed for a year or more.
China recently showed Sikkim as part of India on its official maps posted on a government website, thus removing India’s serious misgivings about whether China accepted Sikkim as part of Indian territory or considered it disputed in some way. That no development has taken place on the reopening of Nathu-La Pass, despite what Chamling termed as Beijing’s “positive action”, is particularly disheartening for him. China removed the mention of Sikkim as a separate country from its Foreign Ministry website last October (Sikkim was earlier shown as a separate country after Singapore). This was welcomed in India then as a major Chinese move to foster friendly ties with India. China agreeing to trade through Nathu-La Pass was itself seen as an implicit recognition of Sikkim being part of India, though Chinese politicians had disagreed.
Chamling said, “China’s negative approach over Sikkim is long over. The international acceptance of Sikkim’s merger with India in 1975 is complete. Since our party, the Sikkim Democratic Front, came to power in 1994, we have been consistently demanding the resumption of trade between India and Tibet through the former Nathu-La route to Lhasa. This will not only help in improving India’s relations with China but also boost the state’s development.”
Most of Sikkim’s businessmen were looking forward to an early reopening of the old “Silk Route”. Some recall the time they used to make trade trips across the wind-swept Nathu-La up to 1961 to sell bicycles, motorcycles, trucks and cars in Tibet. “There was a mule track and we dismantled everything here. Automobiles were reassembled in Lhasa. On some days as many as 5,000 mules would line up for the trip to Tibet,” one 77-year-old businessman recalled in conversation with The Hindu newspaper. In his opinion, the trade route via Nathu-La to Yatung and Lhasa would bolster economic activity in Sikkim and West Bengal. Some of the small traders are also apprehensive of Chinese goods such as electronic and electrical gadgets flooding Indian markets.
The Sikkim government is, however, continuing with its preparations even while it is giving vent to its disappointment and seeking help from the media to explain the benefits to India. Speaking to the media a day after his first meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Chamling said: “I was told that the Commerce Ministry has been asked to look into the matter. A decision on the reopening of the trade route will be taken by the center [Delhi] after the ministry submits its recommendations. It is likely to happen some time next year.”
However, the Sikkim government is carrying out a survey on the trade route and how Sikkim would benefit from its reopening. The report on the findings will be ready within three months. Chamling apprised the prime minister of the development programs in Sikkim and said his party fully supported the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government “keeping in mind the joint interests of both the state and the country”.
According to several economists, flourishing trade along this route could well create a new trade bloc in Asia outside the Association of Southeast Asian Nations region. Indian Chamber of Commerce secretary general Najeeb Arif, who is an expert in the economic development of this subregion, said, “The easing of political tensions along this route and the consequent opening of this strategic path [have] paved the way for unprecedented economic development in the region, which includes the Greater Mekong region of Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, the eastern and northeastern states of India, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Yunnan province of China. The Nathu-La Pass will provide the key connectivity to develop that trade bloc.” In his view, the creation of such a trade bloc will pave the way for further economic cooperation between the two Asian economic giants, which could work on their synergies for effective partnership that could pose a formidable economic rival to the European Union and the North American Free Trade Area.
It is not so much a question of the left-leaning Congress-led coalition of socialists and communists having problems with decisions made by the earlier right-wing Hindu-fundamentalist Bharatiya Janata Party-led alliance. This difficulty is more of a reflection on the very nature of the present government. On account of her foreign origin, Sonia Gandhi, the politician who led the Congress to victory, has been made to abdicate in favor of mandarins. Bureaucrats have traditionally seen their job as that of studying the pros and cons and basically raising objections to anything the politicians want to do. Security agencies and the military, of course, cannot be expected to take any chances with the security requirements of the country, as opening up of any new routes necessarily entails. This also increases their workload. Bureaucracies have traditionally preferred a closed system.
A leadership vacuum is becoming apparent with the new government in India. Manmohan Singh is a distinguished economist, academician, former governor of the Reserve Bank of India and former finance minister. But he has never been able to win an election. He tried once to contest a parliamentary seat from the country’s most sophisticated constituency, South Delhi. He had already won the hearts of India’s middle classes by being the finance minister who started the liberalization and globalization process in 1991. Many members of the intelligentsia came out on the streets of South Delhi to campaign for him. Yet he could not win this seat. Politics in India is not a gentleman’s game.
Singh had to enter parliament through the back door of the Rajya Sabha (Upper House) by furnishing dubious certificates of residence from the northeastern state of Assam courtesy of the Congress chief minister of the state – in order to fulfill a technical requirement for entry into the Rajya Sabha. No one doubts his probity and integrity, and many wanted him to be a member of parliament. But even after assuming the office of the prime minister, he is not considered a politician.
The same is true of the present foreign minister, Natwar Singh. A distinguished mandarin, he retired 15 years ago as foreign secretary. He has been a columnist and writer since. Both of the prime minister’s national security advisers, J N Dixit (foreign affairs) and M K Narayanan (internal affairs), were eminent bureaucrats. Dixit retired as foreign secretary and Narayanan as the director of the Intelligence Bureau.
Seldom have bureaucrats, no matter how distinguished and well-meaning, achieved any breakthrough. Whatever little progress has been made in Sino-Indian ties, for instance, owes a great deal to two visionary former prime ministers, Rajiv Gandhi and Vajpayee. It is too early to write off the ability of the present government to carry on implementing Vajpayee’s vision or develop one of its own, but the portents are ominous.
One silver lining is the interest the Left Front government of West Bengal has been taking in the reopening of the pass. Though situated in Sikkim, the trade route will be immensely beneficial to West Bengal. State Commerce and Industry Minister Nirupam Sen visited Nathu-La last November, along with Urban Development Minister Asok Bhattacharya, to explore the possibility of trade with China through the border. The duo talked with the Sikkim chief minister and emphasized infrastructural development of the area to help traders in the transportation of goods. Enjoying a lot of clout with the present government, the Left Front may intervene on the issue, despite the misgivings expressed by nearly all security agencies and the armed forces.
