The present-day Indian Army is not the same as it was in 1962 and ended up losing a war to China, army vice-chief designate M.M. Naravane said on Tuesday, adding that if the Chinese Army transgressed the Line of Actual Control (LAC) 100 times, Indian troops have done so on twice as many occasions.
According to a PTI report, Naravane, the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Eastern Command, said: “The Doklam standoff gave a clear signal that the Indian Armed Forces are no pushovers.”
When former chief of air force, Arup Raha, asked about the lessons from the 1962 conflict and measures taken to rectify the problems, Naravane said: “We are no longer the army of 1962. If China says don’t forget history, we also have to tell them the same thing.”
He said China was caught unprepared during the 2017 Doklam standoff. The reference was to a 73-day-long military face off, seen as the most serious in decades, on Bhutan’s Doklam plateau. “They thought that they would get away by being a regional bully...but we stood up to the bully,” Naravane said at an interaction on ‘Defending our Borders’ at the Bharat Chamber of Commerce in Kolkata. The Indian Armed Forces are capable of taking on any adversary, he added.
Naravane also said that reports suggesting that China has some of its troops at or near the scene of the Doklam standoff was “not totally incorrect”. “There have been developments on either side...which have been throughout the year, year on year. They have made two new barracks, we have also made two new barracks. They have maintained their roads, we have also maintained our roads.”
