Dharamsala, Oct 2: India’s Home Minister P. Chidambaram’s reference to the “Indo-Tibet border” at a media conference on Wednesday was an accidental mistake; the ministry has reportedly clarified on Thursday.
“It is clarified that an inadvertent error had crept in, which is regretted. The reference was to the ‘India-China border’,” a home ministry statement, issued by officer on special duty S.A. Rizvi, said in response to a report published in The Telegraph on Thursday.
On the eve of the 60th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China on Wednesday, a monthly report card released by home minister P. Chidambaram mentions construction “on the Indo-Tibet border”, a departure from the official “Indo-China border”.
Chidambaram, reading from written text, was referring to the completion of road construction on the border area during his monthly media briefing.
“On the Indo-Tibet border, work on construction of 10 roads totalling 196km is under progress. 45.27km of formation works and 4.77km of surfacing works were completed in September,” he said, reading from a written statement.
In official communication, the government refers to the international border as the “Indo-China” border and not “Indo-Tibet border”, Telegraph quoted a home ministry official as saying at the time.
Until last month, the parlance was on conventional lines.
India has officially said several times that it considers Tibet an integral part of China. Beijing does not approve of India’s asylum to the Dalai Lama, and New Delhi has more or less acted cautiously to ensure that the references to Tibet do not nettle Beijing beyond a point.
However, with the recent but vigorously denied reports of incursions by China, the Centre is also under pressure to be seen as being firm.
However, from The Telegraph report, it is not clear what prompted the Indian Home Ministry to quickly issue a clarification statement. The report also did not carry any speculation if any there was an official complaint from Beijing on the border reference.
