11-29-2006, 10:02 PM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Of mandarin megalomania
Sandhya Jain, The Pioneer, Nov. 28, 2006
When Chinese envoy Sun Yuxi startled New Delhi by staking claim to the North-Eastern State of Arunachal Pradesh on the eve of President Hu Jintao's visit, he was simply reiterating the Middle Kingdom's practice of never renouncing territorial claims. Chairman Mao had once graphically delineated China's territorial vision with Tibet forming the palm and Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan, NEFA (Arunachal) and Ladakh its five fingers. His successors may have taken the superhighway to super-capitalism, abandoning communism in all but name, but they have not departed from his territorial designs.
<b>India, in the meantime, has abandoned Nepal to the US-dominated United Nations and the goon squads of the dubious Prachanda; closed its eyes to the sudden promotion of 'democracy' by the Bhutan king; and failed to manfully rebuff Chinese audacity in Arunachal.</b> The tragedy is that even six decades after independence, Indians in blood and colour are playing games with the country's cultural and geographical integrity. If there is any continuity in the political culture of modern India, it is in the chasm between the nation's natural strategic concerns and its political actions.
Jawaharlal Nehru relinquished half of Jammu & Kashmir when the Indian Army was within a hairsbreadth of victory, at the instance of Lord Louis Mountbatten, and later claimed to be shocked when UN officials were found shifting border posts in favour of Pakistan prior to the proposed plebiscite. Still later, he tried to brazen through the Chinese aggression in Arunachal, about which he was given ample warning by intelligence. Lal Bahadur Shastri surrendered the hard-won peaks of Haji Pir; Indira Gandhi gave away 90,000 PoWs. And, notwithstanding the ISI's bloody footprints in Punjab's Khalistan movement, the nationwide jihadi network, and the meticulously planned Kargil invasion, Mr Vajpayee offered Gen Musharraf kingly cuisine at Agra. And now, Mr Manmohan Singh has embraced him as a co-victim of his own jihadi terrorists!
Nevertheless, the people of Arunachal Pradesh, home to the kund (pond) of sage Parashuram, must wonder why their civilisational links with the Indian mainland seem to weigh so little with South Block. Notwithstanding the racial-ethnic inventiveness of colonial officials-cum-anthropologists, Arunachalis have no historical or cultural affinity with the Han Chinese. According to scholar B Chakravarti, Arunachalis are Danavas of the Brahmaputra Valley who fled under pressure from Asuras of Mithila. The Kalika Purana says many Danavas departed to countries beyond the ocean (Sagarantam); others withdrew to the northern valley of the Brahmaputra and the hills of the Arunachal Pradesh, where they are known as Mishing, Adis, Apatanis (The Children of Abo-Tani in India, Fiji & Polynesia, Calcutta, 2000).
The Asom Buranji (history of Assam) recorded by the Deodhai priests of the Ahom kings says its earliest king was Mahiranga Danava. Chakravarti believes Mahiranga could be a Sanskritised form of Moirang, the capital of the Danava ruler. Moirang (Mai+rang) means husked paddy, and there are several places called Moirang in Assam's Brahmaputra valley as well as in Manipur. There is considerable evidence that Manipur was home to some Danavas, as also a transit point for other Danavas from the West to the East.
As Mahiranga was designated a Danava, it follows that he descended from people who claimed Tani as their ancestor ( Taneh apatyam puman iti Tanavah). Hence they are called 'Tanavas,' or Danava in Sanskrit. Assam had several Danava kings; the Asom Buranji lists them as Mahiranga, Ghataka, Samvara, among others. They ruled the Kiratas of north-eastern India.
The Puranas say around the third millennium BC, the Asuras led by prince Naraka moved from Mithila up the Ganga and occupied Pragjyotispura on the banks of the Brahmaputra. Ghataka led the Danava resistance, but was beheaded by Naraka, who also took over the white elephant of King of the Kiratas and riding it, started trampling and liquidating the Kiratas up to the river Dikrong. The Kiratas sought refuge beyond the ocean. Later, another Asura prince, Bana, travelled further upstream and occupied Sonitapura. The wars with the Asuras caused many Danavas to flee to Thailand and Myanmar; small groups possibly went even further.
While the entire North-East is permeated with stories and traditions related to Indian epics, gods, and holy men, there is no corresponding association with China and the Han people. Not even a trace of Confucianism or Taoism can be detected in the region. The earliest connection seems to be 1950, when China invaded Tibet. Later, it occupied 30,000 sq km of high plateau in Ladakh district (Aksai Chin) bordering Tibet and its own Xinjiang province.
The Aksai Chin road is strategically vital for Beijing, being the only link between Tibet and Xinjiang. Later, in October 1962, China invaded the eastern sector and claimed 90,000 sq. kms. of Indian territory on both sides of the Himalayan watershed. Sadly, neither Congress supremo Sonia Gandhi nor Prime Minister Manmohan Singh shows awareness that on 18 November 1962, the 13th Kumaon took its last stand here and died fighting to the last man.
Intelligence officers say China entered Arunachal Pradesh via Yunnan, moving stealthily across the Putao region of the Kachin state of the Burma Naga Hills, then a virtually unmanned region. It is keen to possess Tawang as it forms the strategic gateway to Tibet in one direction and Assam in the other. Tawang could challenge its strategic control of Tibet; hence India needs to be alert to a lightening attack on Tawang. China is ever enhancing its military presence and access in Tibet. The Qinghai-Tibet railway is likely to further link Lhasa with Shigatse and Yadong, near the Sikkim border. Mercifully, New Delhi has also now decided to build roads along the Sino-Indian border to integrate the border areas in the North-East.
Since envoy Sun Yuxi reopened the Arunachal chapter, there has been intense speculation that China wants to capture the State to harness its potential to provide an estimated 48,000 mw of hydroelectric power. China has denied reports that it plans to divert the Brahmaputra from Tibet to feed the arid Gobi Desert which contains nearly half its landmass but only seven per cent of its freshwater. Experts believe the Gobi offers China the only viable space to accommodate its burgeoning population; the Brahmaputra is close enough for Chinese engineers to envision a daring manoeuvre to nourish the parched Yellow River.
http://tinyurl.com/j8dfd
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Sandhya Jain, The Pioneer, Nov. 28, 2006
When Chinese envoy Sun Yuxi startled New Delhi by staking claim to the North-Eastern State of Arunachal Pradesh on the eve of President Hu Jintao's visit, he was simply reiterating the Middle Kingdom's practice of never renouncing territorial claims. Chairman Mao had once graphically delineated China's territorial vision with Tibet forming the palm and Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan, NEFA (Arunachal) and Ladakh its five fingers. His successors may have taken the superhighway to super-capitalism, abandoning communism in all but name, but they have not departed from his territorial designs.
<b>India, in the meantime, has abandoned Nepal to the US-dominated United Nations and the goon squads of the dubious Prachanda; closed its eyes to the sudden promotion of 'democracy' by the Bhutan king; and failed to manfully rebuff Chinese audacity in Arunachal.</b> The tragedy is that even six decades after independence, Indians in blood and colour are playing games with the country's cultural and geographical integrity. If there is any continuity in the political culture of modern India, it is in the chasm between the nation's natural strategic concerns and its political actions.
Jawaharlal Nehru relinquished half of Jammu & Kashmir when the Indian Army was within a hairsbreadth of victory, at the instance of Lord Louis Mountbatten, and later claimed to be shocked when UN officials were found shifting border posts in favour of Pakistan prior to the proposed plebiscite. Still later, he tried to brazen through the Chinese aggression in Arunachal, about which he was given ample warning by intelligence. Lal Bahadur Shastri surrendered the hard-won peaks of Haji Pir; Indira Gandhi gave away 90,000 PoWs. And, notwithstanding the ISI's bloody footprints in Punjab's Khalistan movement, the nationwide jihadi network, and the meticulously planned Kargil invasion, Mr Vajpayee offered Gen Musharraf kingly cuisine at Agra. And now, Mr Manmohan Singh has embraced him as a co-victim of his own jihadi terrorists!
Nevertheless, the people of Arunachal Pradesh, home to the kund (pond) of sage Parashuram, must wonder why their civilisational links with the Indian mainland seem to weigh so little with South Block. Notwithstanding the racial-ethnic inventiveness of colonial officials-cum-anthropologists, Arunachalis have no historical or cultural affinity with the Han Chinese. According to scholar B Chakravarti, Arunachalis are Danavas of the Brahmaputra Valley who fled under pressure from Asuras of Mithila. The Kalika Purana says many Danavas departed to countries beyond the ocean (Sagarantam); others withdrew to the northern valley of the Brahmaputra and the hills of the Arunachal Pradesh, where they are known as Mishing, Adis, Apatanis (The Children of Abo-Tani in India, Fiji & Polynesia, Calcutta, 2000).
The Asom Buranji (history of Assam) recorded by the Deodhai priests of the Ahom kings says its earliest king was Mahiranga Danava. Chakravarti believes Mahiranga could be a Sanskritised form of Moirang, the capital of the Danava ruler. Moirang (Mai+rang) means husked paddy, and there are several places called Moirang in Assam's Brahmaputra valley as well as in Manipur. There is considerable evidence that Manipur was home to some Danavas, as also a transit point for other Danavas from the West to the East.
As Mahiranga was designated a Danava, it follows that he descended from people who claimed Tani as their ancestor ( Taneh apatyam puman iti Tanavah). Hence they are called 'Tanavas,' or Danava in Sanskrit. Assam had several Danava kings; the Asom Buranji lists them as Mahiranga, Ghataka, Samvara, among others. They ruled the Kiratas of north-eastern India.
The Puranas say around the third millennium BC, the Asuras led by prince Naraka moved from Mithila up the Ganga and occupied Pragjyotispura on the banks of the Brahmaputra. Ghataka led the Danava resistance, but was beheaded by Naraka, who also took over the white elephant of King of the Kiratas and riding it, started trampling and liquidating the Kiratas up to the river Dikrong. The Kiratas sought refuge beyond the ocean. Later, another Asura prince, Bana, travelled further upstream and occupied Sonitapura. The wars with the Asuras caused many Danavas to flee to Thailand and Myanmar; small groups possibly went even further.
While the entire North-East is permeated with stories and traditions related to Indian epics, gods, and holy men, there is no corresponding association with China and the Han people. Not even a trace of Confucianism or Taoism can be detected in the region. The earliest connection seems to be 1950, when China invaded Tibet. Later, it occupied 30,000 sq km of high plateau in Ladakh district (Aksai Chin) bordering Tibet and its own Xinjiang province.
The Aksai Chin road is strategically vital for Beijing, being the only link between Tibet and Xinjiang. Later, in October 1962, China invaded the eastern sector and claimed 90,000 sq. kms. of Indian territory on both sides of the Himalayan watershed. Sadly, neither Congress supremo Sonia Gandhi nor Prime Minister Manmohan Singh shows awareness that on 18 November 1962, the 13th Kumaon took its last stand here and died fighting to the last man.
Intelligence officers say China entered Arunachal Pradesh via Yunnan, moving stealthily across the Putao region of the Kachin state of the Burma Naga Hills, then a virtually unmanned region. It is keen to possess Tawang as it forms the strategic gateway to Tibet in one direction and Assam in the other. Tawang could challenge its strategic control of Tibet; hence India needs to be alert to a lightening attack on Tawang. China is ever enhancing its military presence and access in Tibet. The Qinghai-Tibet railway is likely to further link Lhasa with Shigatse and Yadong, near the Sikkim border. Mercifully, New Delhi has also now decided to build roads along the Sino-Indian border to integrate the border areas in the North-East.
Since envoy Sun Yuxi reopened the Arunachal chapter, there has been intense speculation that China wants to capture the State to harness its potential to provide an estimated 48,000 mw of hydroelectric power. China has denied reports that it plans to divert the Brahmaputra from Tibet to feed the arid Gobi Desert which contains nearly half its landmass but only seven per cent of its freshwater. Experts believe the Gobi offers China the only viable space to accommodate its burgeoning population; the Brahmaputra is close enough for Chinese engineers to envision a daring manoeuvre to nourish the parched Yellow River.
http://tinyurl.com/j8dfd
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