A Promise of Trouble

Red China, beset by internal troubles, last week made plain its determination to cause friction and perhaps war all along its southern borders. That intent became unmistakable even to India. The long unrealistic era in which the two largest nations on earth coexisted peaceably because one of them saw no evil or heard no evil seemed at last to be ending.

Rising in India's lower house of Parliament, Jawaharlal Nehru, 69, gripped the teakwood Prime Minister's bench and described, in blunt language he had never used before, the "continuing aggression" of Red China's troops against India's northern borders. The frontier incidents were clearly a Chinese testing of India's willingness to defend itself. "We must not become alarmist and panicky and take wrong actions," cautioned the ever-cautious and neutralist Nehru, but then he added ringingly that "there is no alternative to us but to defend our borders and our integrity." M.P.s in white homespun thumped their benches in stormy agreement.

"Quite Clear." Only days before, said Nehru, 38 Indian soldiers had fought with 300 Chinese invaders and barely escaped encirclement. An Indian plane had tried to drop munitions to the surrounded men but failed. That incident had occurred at Longju in India's North-East Frontier Agency (popularly called NEFA). It was not the first one. A thousand miles to the west, in the Ladakh district of Kashmir, Chinese Communists have repeatedly ambushed and captured isolated Indian patrols, said Nehru. As recently as July an Indian detachment (an officer and five men) was taken prisoner by Chinese troops that had established a camp "well within Indian territory."

Asked why the border was not better defended, Nehru replied that it is 2,500 miles long, remote, mountainous and scarcely accessible. What about Chinese claims to the tiny Himalayan nations of Bhutan and Sikkim? Said Nehru: "Our position is quite clear. Any aggression against Bhutan and Sikkim will be considered as aggression against India."

The Indian press, which had wakened to Peking before Nehru did, cheered him for taking a strong stand at last. "China's cynical attitude toward India, combined with the hard realities of Communism at home as experienced in Kerala, is forcing on this country an 'agonizing reappraisal' of fundamentals in our foreign policy," said the Indian Express. The Hindustan Times called for a radar screen along the northern frontier.

Some editorialists also turned their attention to Nehru's old buddy and longtime apologist for Communism, Krishna Menon, Minister of Defense. Wrote top Columnist A. D. Gorwala in the Indian Express: "Let it be remembered that in complete contradiction of his usual practice of jumping eagerly into the discussion of any foreign affairs matter, Mr. Krishna Menon has kept his lips sealed in public about Communist Chinese aggression in Tibet. Not one word of condemnation of brutalities practiced, promises broken, suffering inflicted, has escaped his lips. What confidence can the people of India have if their armed forces are left under such direction?"

"Suffering People." India's new posture stiffened spines throughout Southeast Asia. In Burma the government signed a seven-year treaty with the autonomous and Chinese-infiltrated Shan and Kachin states of Burma that would for the first time put the protection of their borders with Red China under army control. The U.S. promised and prepared to deliver airborne aid to the threatened kingdom of Laos (see below). Next week Nehru will confer with Pakistan's strongman, General Mohammed Ayub Khan, who is urging a united defense of the subcontinent. At last Indians are beginning to see China and not Pakistan as their main enemy. Ayub promised last week that Pakistan intends no military adventures against India and wants to settle even Kashmir peacefully.

And another change of attitude seems in the making. The Dalai Lama, sitting in exile in Mussoorie, had been warned to create no embarrassment for India. But he has been increasingly upset by news he has heard from Tibetan refugees making their way to safety in India. They report that thousands of monks have been placed in Red labor camps, that the vast Tibetan monasteries have been left in the hands of a few quislings, and perhaps 80,000 Tibetans have been killed by the Chinese.

The god-king accepts as likely reports that the Chinese Communists have arrested the Panchen Lama, who had been serving as their puppet ruler in Lhasa: "The Panchen Lama is, after all, a monk, and is now witnessing the Chinese atrocities and therefore might protest." This week the Dalai Lama sent an emissary to New Delhi urging U.N. help for Tibet: "The suffering of my people is beyond description." Nehru now plans to meet with the Dalai Lama this week, the first indication that Nehru is about to swerve from his policy of minimizing the tragedy of Tibet.

Informed Indians believe that after Tibet, the Chinese have their eyes on the mountainous buffer state of Bhutan, a poor but contented nation, without electricity, hotels or shops, which gets a healthy subsidy from India. The only direct mule road from India to Bhutan passes through part of Tibet, and in any fighting the Bhutan army of 2,500, equipped with rifles and bows and arrows, would have only the rugged terrain to its advantage. Bhutan is ruled by a handsome, English-speaking, archery-loving young Dragon King who has freed the slaves, discouraged prostration in the royal presence, and decreed equality for women. He is determined to keep his country's independence. Anxious about Bhutan, Nehru has invited its Prime Minister down to talk mutual defense.

Though still speaking softly, Nehru was moving at last with some purpose. At week's end army sources said that regular Indian regiments are on the way to man all the border separating Tibet from India's North-East Frontier Agency and will take over the defense of the region from the civilian Assam Rifles. Red Chinese troops are said to be still in control of the Longju checkpoint, four miles inside India. They will be asked to withdraw peacefully. Suppose they refuse? An army spokesman answered: "Then the Indian army will strive to push them out."

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