India Is Still Losing to China in the Border Infrastructure War - The Diplomat, 21 September 2018

In this week's column for The Diplomat, I write on the state of the Sino-Indian border infrastructure. In "India Is Still Losing to China in the Border Infrastructure War," I argue that a year after the Doklam crisis, New Delhi faces the same old challenges in this realm.

It has been a year since India and China ended the 73-day border crisis in Doklam. And for all the focus on the crisis itself and its implications for Sino-Indian relations, it is worth recalling that along their border, Doklam is arguably an exception where the Indian military may be perceived to have a slight advantage over the Chinese military because of its slightly better infrastructure there.

Relatively speaking, however, the infrastructure on the rest of the border is quite appalling. Indeed, unless India accelerates the pace of the physical border infrastructure build-up, New Delhi will face serious difficulties in any future confrontation with China.

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The Indian vice chief of army staff, in his statement to the Indian parliament’s Standing Committee on Defense, voiced serious concerns on the lack of adequate allocation of funds for the Army for 2018-19. He pointed to the “large number of Chinese strategic roads and infrastructural development along the northern borders” and made a case for bigger resource allocation, given that the sanctioned budget for infrastructure development was running massively short.

The current state of affairs with regard to the border infrastructure is the result of a flawed policy that was in place for several decades. The political, civil bureaucracy, and military leadership in India believed that building infrastructure in the Sino-Indian border area would actually compromise India’s security because it would facilitate any Chinese invasion.

In a testament to this line of thinking, the former defense minister, A.K. Antony, while addressing a function of the Border Roads Organization (BRO) in 2010, stated that “Earlier, the thinking was that inaccessibility in far-flung areas would be a deterrent to the enemies.” Acknowledging that this was an “incorrect approach,” he added that the government is now taking a number of measures to upgrade roads, tunnels, and airfields in the border areas.

Similarly, the BRO director general, Lt. Gen. A.K. Nanda, too went on record to say that the poor infrastructure in the border areas is by design but that “our approach has changed and we are building it on our capacity, modern equipment, and workforce.”

This policy underwent a change in 2006 with the Cabinet Committee on Security, a key policymaking body on national security issues within the government, taking a decision to develop 73 strategic roads along the LAC.

But more than a decade later, there is very little evidence to show on the ground. This is surprising considering that the BJP government has stressed infrastructure building, especially along the Sino-Indian border.

Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju stated in the Parliament earlier this year that infrastructure development along the border is “taken up based on threat perception, availability of resources and various other factors like terrain, altitude etc.” Speaking about the state of the Sino-Indian border areas, the director general of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), Krishna Chaudhary, said that 172 of the 176 new Border Out-Posts (BoPs) are now raised and that the work has picked up pace. He too acknowledged that India has been late in waking up to the border infrastructure requirement, but now “work has been ‘fast paced’ to build border roads in the states of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh, that share their borders with China.”

Still, in the middle of the Doklam crisis, the minister of state for defense, Dr. Subhash Bhamre, while responding to a question in the Parliament, said that “73 Indo-China Border Roads along Northern Borders are approved for construction [back in 2006]. Out of this 27 roads have been completed and balance roads are planned for completion by December 2022.” The BRO, which is responsible for building strategic infrastructure in border areas, has missed several deadlines, raising questions about the BRO’s assurance about the 2022 deadline.

The minister went on to say that the delay in the construction of these projects is “due to delay in forest / wildlife / environment clearance, hard rock stretches, limited working season, delay in land acquisitions, difficulties in availability of construction material, and damage due to natural disasters such as flash flood.” Despite changes in governments, the excuses remain the same.

Reports suggest that incursions on the Sino-Indian may be coming down – there were reportedly about 500 transgressions in 2015, 350 in 2017, and around 200 up to July this year. Still, in addition to infrastructure problems, India also faces other difficulties For example, a multiplicity of agencies — the Army, the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), the Border Security Force (BSF) and the Assam Rifles– managing the border on the Indian side is an issue. This means that both the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and the Ministry of Defense have jurisdiction and India is not particularly known for good coordination between different departments and ministries.

On China’s side of the border, on the other hand, a single unified commander for the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) forces is responsible for the border areas. It must also be noted that China has further strengthened the military command on the border by elevating the rank of the Military Command responsible for the border “by putting it under the jurisdiction of PLA ground forces.”

Though India’s infrastructure development is slow, this has not stopped Chinese media outlets such as Global Times from arguing that New Delhi is being provocative in building border posts and other infrastructure. But New Delhi has little choice but to continue pushing its border infrastructure, though there is little hope that it will very much faster.

India’s Border Infrastructure: Beyond the BRO

Here's my short essay on the Sino-Indian border infrastructure, published by the Diplomat..It is time that we look beyond the BRO if we need to get somewhere in the next decade... Even as there is a beefing up of capabilities on the border with new combat units, the biggest challenge is going to come from the poor state of border infrastructure. For instance, it takes 20 hours to drive a distance of 500 km (300 miles) from Guwahati to Tawang – a reflection of the severe condition of the road network in the region. the BRO served a useful purpose in the initial decades after India’s independence, but infrastructure delays over the years call for a debate on the utility of this organization. The BRO’s acute staff shortage is a big impediment. It is losing people faster than it is able to recruit, which is a reflection of low morale. There has to be a new commanding authority under the Prime Minister’s Office that will address India’s infrastructure problems. Even as there are different ministries involved in the construction of the road and rail networks, there has to be a single authority to enable the quick completion of these projects...

The new Indian Army Chief General Dalbir Singh Suhag is visiting the Eastern Command after undertaking a trip to the Ladakh area in the western part of the Sino-Indian border, where there have been repeated Chinese incursions. Suhag was also expected to make a trip to the forward bases in Arunachal Pradesh, depending on the weather conditions.

During the visit, Suhag is also expected to take stock of the progress in the establishment of the Army’s recently sanctioned Mountain Strike Corps (17 Corps), which is likely to be ready by 2018-19. Suhag, who was the Eastern Commander for two years prior to shifting to Army headquarters, played a major role in the formation of the new corps. Undertaken at a cost of 64,678 crore[t1] rupees ($10.7 billion), the corps will have 90,274 troops, of which 22 major and minor units were made ready in December 2013. According to an army official, the new corps will have “two high-altitude infantry divisions (59 Division at Panagarh and 72 Division at Pathankot) with their integral units, two independent infantry brigades, two armoured brigades and the like. It will include 30 new infantry battalions and two Para-Special Forces battalions.” While the new corps will be based in Panagarh, West Bengal, the force will be deployed from Ladakh to Arunachal Pradesh, covering all the important trouble spots along the border. During his long tenure, Suhag is also reported to have served in a China-centric unit, the Special Frontier Force, which came up in the wake of the 1962 border war with China. Suhag is reported to have been the inspector general of the SFF before taking over as the Army vice chief.

All this suggests that the new army leadership is more focused on the urgent needs of the border areas. Even as there is a beefing up of capabilities on the border with new combat units, the biggest challenge is going to come from the poor state of border infrastructure. For instance, it reportedly takes 20 hours to drive a distance of 500 km (300 miles) from Guwahati to Tawang – a reflection of the severe condition of the road network in the region. The road density of Arunachal Pradesh is at a significantly low level of 18.65 km per 100 sq km., compared to the national average of 84 km per 100 sq km. Some of the major road projects in the region include making the trans-Arunachal highway from Nechipu to Hoj and Potin to Pangin two lanes, an upgrade of the Stillwell road in Arunachal Pradesh, and four more projects to widen roads including national highway 154 in Assam. The road network in Sikkim, another Indian state on the Sino-Indian border, is no different. The current road density is just 28.45 km per 100 sq km. There is only one road linking the capital Gangtok with the strategically significant Nathu La pass on the border, and one landslide-prone road with a width of 5 meters connecting the state with the rest of India.

While much has been written on the western and eastern sectors of the Sino-Indian border, the middle sector is no different. A recent visit by the author to some of the border areas in the middle sector illustrated the huge gaps in India’s infrastructure plans. It takes three hours to cover a short distance of 30-40 km in Himachal Pradesh, approaching the border areas of Kaurik, Shipkila and Sumdo. Along a stretch of 1200 km in the hills, there were roughly seven or eight places where the Border Roads Organization (BRO) appeared active – the few people working on the road appeared to be unskilled local workers. As long as the BRO has its hands tied by the state government and its local construction associates, including local contractors who have a vested interest in not meeting these deadlines on a timely basis, it is unlikely that the road conditions would improve. However, the net result of this is disastrous from a security perspective.

The railways too have faced a similar fate. The list of pending critical projects is striking. Pending lines in the eastern and northern sectors include the Murkongselek-Pasighat-Tezu-Parasuramkund-Rupai line (256 km), the Misamari-Tawang line (378 km), and the North Lakhimpur-Along-Silapathar line (248 km) in the northeast; and the Pathankot-Leh line (400 km), the Jammu-Akhnoor-Poonch line (223 km), and the Srinagar-Kargil-Leh line (430 km) in the northern sector. These would cover a distance of 3,016 km and cost around $9.2 billion.

So even as India is implementing some of the pending acquisition issues by clearing them on a priority basis and thus strengthening India’s security along the Sino-Indian border, the infrastructure problems could hinder India’s efforts. The reality may be that India cannot afford to wait for the railways or the BRO to complete these projects. Analyze the military order of battle for the region, and a huge discrepancy in favor of China becomes clear. The contrast between India and China is not only in terms of weapons and equipment, but also and more importantly in the physical infrastructure along the border. Today, the Chinese roads nearly reach the line of actual control (LAC) or in some cases go beyond, while on the other hand most Indian roads stop well before the Indian side of the LAC. China has also ensured connectivity in Aksai Chin by air. Thus, India is at least two decades behind China in terms of infrastructure and connectivity in the border region, putting India at a significant disadvantage. Should there be a scenario that calls for a deployment of forces to the border India could be handicapped, resulting in unfavorable outcomes, at least in the initial stages of conflict.

In conclusion, the driving point is that the BRO served a useful purpose in the initial decades after India’s independence, but infrastructure delays over the years call for a debate on the utility of this organization. The BRO’s acute staff shortage is a big impediment. It is losing people faster than it is able to recruit, which is a reflection of low morale. There has to be a new commanding authority under the Prime Minister’s Office that will address India’s infrastructure problems. Even as there are different ministries involved in the construction of the road and rail networks, there has to be a single authority to enable the quick completion of these projects.