Strategic thinkers, who do not subscribe to Chinese lobby, have started drawing a picture that depicts China’s strategic efforts to “encircle” India from all possible sides. Besides building modern roads along Indo-Tibet borders, new Chinese Air Force formations have been stationed at such locations from where India can be easily targeted. Nuclear capable missile bases have been set up in Tibet region for the first time.

However, the media and the people need not panic. Indian policy makers are alive of the situation and they are using all possible measures to contain China on the unresolved border issue.

The Indian response to the the hysteria in the press about recent Chinese incursions suggest that it wants to avoid rhetorical, political and military fights with China. India has avoided making public its displeasure even on the issue of China’s continued military assistance to Pakistan.

The Indian response to China’s policies suggest that India wants to strengthen its position vis-a-vis while seeking to avoid any direct confrontation with it.

The Delhi High Court on July 16 directed the Union government to place before it the Henderson Brooks-Bhagat Report.

The court issued a notice to the government to file its response on a petition filed by veteran journalist Kuldip Nayar.

The report, lying with the Defence Ministry for over 45 years now, was a result of the government inquiry into the humiliating defeat at the hands of China in the 1962 border war.

The Government of India still treats the report as a classified document and have no concrete reasons for not making it public after so many years.

The Indian government’s record in declassifying past records is appalling compared to mature democracies like the United States where even war secrets are declassified after the usual 30-year period. And in the “world’s largest democracy” important documents relating to our history are not made public on flimsy grounds.

There are different views on the Indian policy towards China and the Tibet issue. I will write more on that some other day. I have reproduced here the letter written by then Deputy Prime Minister of India Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel to the Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru on November 7, 1950 on Tibet issue.

The letter throws light on the thought process of the Indian government vis-a-vis Tibet and China in the initial years after the independence.