By Vineet Dikshit

The current stand-off between the Indian armed forces and the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) in Eastern Ladhak has once again brought out in open  the quiet role of ITBP i.e. the Indo-Tibetan Border Police force in fortifying the Chinese drop line at the Himalayan border.  https://youtu.be/e7l6-_98Rjs

It is now an open secret. After 20 brave soldiers who were stranded and left to the elements of nature in cold Ladhaki night by the savage PLA, it was ITBP that seconded the repulse and for full one day battled it out with the red army in a hand-to-hand combat. https://youtu.be/ueNsjt3VFEA

The world got to know this only when names of nearly two dozen soldiers from the ITBP were announced for the President’s gallantry medals in dealing specifically with the PLA during face-offs in May and June.

And once again these warriors of the snow lands were indispensable despite almost being made dispensed with. Nearly, not once, but nearly, many times over. And every time they rose like phoenix not from the sandy lands but from the dry ice peaks.

As rightly put it by the EAM Dr S Jaishankar (external affairs minister) the current stand-off at the Depsang Plains and at the Pangong Lake is as bad as scene leafed-out from the 1962 Indo-China war. https://youtu.be/r50Td6P78cQ

If the current eye-ball-to-eye ball situation is not resolved by mid-October when meters snow will pack-up roads leading to particularly both these face-off locations namely the Depsang and Pangong, it will be an expensive affair to service these troubled spots by the air routes.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) as well as the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) had made advance arrangements for a prolonged winter stay of the Army along with ITBP soldiers. Bigtime purchases of winter clothing and provisions for deep freeze required for troops are in stocks.

This time around many high altitude ITBP posts located near the LAC will be operating in the coming winters months. This also goes for Army regular units.

Additional deployment of ITBP  with men in olives had already taken place all along the 17 known disputed spots at the LAC.

Gone are days when during war time scenario border guarding forces used to vacate their locations for the regular army units. Terms of engagement for ITBP and BSF were changed soon after 1971 Indo-Pak war. https://youtu.be/7EbpEWprFSE

As per new guidelines, if escalation takes place along LAC or LOC, neither the Border Security Force nor the Indo-Tibetan Border Police Force will fall back from the attack formations. Now para-military forces (officially known as Central Armed Police Forces – CAPFs) will be deployed on one-to-one basis along with the Army regulars at the frontlines.

The ‘parallel eye’ formation then merges into one combined unit. That’s the true role of ITBP. https://youtu.be/KQYi_wzA21Y

In the present real time war game scenario that is being played out, adequate number of combatants from Indian Army had taken-up positions along side ITBP personnel facing Chinese PLA formations.

The length of India-China border is 3,488 kilometres long extending from the starting point near the Karakorum Pass – from border outpost known as BOP Track Junction (BOP TJ) to all the way up to Jechap La post  – the eastern most guarding point of India in Arunachal Pradesh. https://youtu.be/akKTGe9iDUM

In order to beef-up our eastern flank the government without any further delay should deploy full and complete strength of new strike force in Aurnachal Pradesh. Not in parts. These is no space for a fragmented strike force specially with looming threat from the China is in the changed scene a stark real.

An important decision that government had inordinately delayed is handing over the entire “Burma” border to the ITBP. Sensible deployment of ITBP should also take place along the Mayanmar (Burma) border.  

Everyone knowns at the Raisina Hill that soon or later Assam Rifles will be merged with the ITBP to guard the ‘Burma Border’. Here in this case also, government should take immediate steps to implement the group of ministers decision and ‘just do it’ for the sake of national security.

Sanction orders to raise as many as 35 new ITBP battalions, after adding assets of the Assam Rifles,  are in various stages of refinement.

Created by a special order of the cabinet secretariat on the third day of the Chinese attack on India on 24th October1962, the Indo-Tibetan Border Police was born. The government of the day decided to create and raise a fully decked-up a real guerrilla army. That kind guerrilla force which can flawlessly work behind the enemy line. For this very very special task the ITBP was trained by specials.

As the story goes, and it is a fact: the initial attack formations of ITBP were trained by none other than a small batch of  commandos loaned from the US Marine Corps. They had brought with them smart lessons learnt from their Vietnam operations specially how to deal with militia of the Long March.

Not many are aware of the fact that ITBP’s existence was kept ‘secret’ for 24 years. Normally when a new force or a regiment is raised in the armed forces, the President’s colours are presented within two or three years.

But for ITBP it took quite some time. Their covers were removed only in 1987. Formal existence was acknowledged after a Presidential Standard was presented by the Prime Minister at a function in Kullu, Himachal Pradesh.

One look at the assortment of weapons displayed in the museum of ITBP’s academy in Mussoorie is a good enough answer of  what ITBP is made of.

The black ops of the ITBP contained the best ‘james bond weapons’ of the day.

Between 1962 and 1987, ITBP played havoc with these exotic commando arms  inside the Chinese camps.  

Elsewhere along the border fence in their numerous face-offs  – a tall six footer hardy ITBP lad would act as a formidable opponent in front of a five feet short Chinese soldier. Its was their famous ankle jab swing most feared among the PLA soldiers aimed right at their jaw level.

Well that was the usual scene played-out all along the Line of Actual Control (LAC)  known as ‘world’s highly disputed but peaceful border’. Till the Galwan River incident that was quite so. But not any more.

To journalists filing their despatches with dateline from ‘Somewhere along the India-China Border’, we are routinely corrected by the bureaucrats in the North and South Block that ‘don’t write China as an enemy country or an adversary. Just say ‘China, as a friendly nation’.  

For how long we can hold to this, nobody  knows.