A Complex Saga
Gunjan Singh
THE FRACTURED HIMALAYA: INDIA • TIBET • CHINA• 1949-1962 by Nirupama Rao Penguin/ Random House India, 2021, 683 pp., 799.00
August 2022, volume 46, No 8

It would sound like a cliché to say that India and China share a long and disputed border, are neighbours by geography and are entangled with each other through a long historical and civilizational connection. History and geography are the two prominent catalysts which dictate the direction of this bilateral relationship, a relationship which is very pertinent today for peace and stability in Asia as well as the world. India and China are today strong economic and military powers, and the existing conflicts make the situation highly tense. These are the facts which are known and often repeated.

However, it is also known that India and China did share a very cordial relationship for a few short years. It was the time when India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai ‘seemed’ to understand each other. This period of cordial relationship or as the author describes it as ‘Friends with Benefits’ did not last long. Things went downhill or into a ‘steep decent’ very soon. What and why the situation deteriorated is a question which several scholars, diplomats and policy makers have attempted to analyse and explain. The book under review attempts to understand and explain through detailed archival research, this very question. The author writes, ‘A settlement of the “outstanding boundary question” which is the terminology used by Indian diplomats over the years and is the “area of darkness”
in the relationship, eludes both countries’
(p. xxv).

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