THE assertion by President Mrs. Droupadi Murmu that the country has a special feeling of respect and affection for Ladakh and its people for their great contribution to national security, makes tremendous sense in the current situation. The President travelled to Ladakh at the onset of winter and assured the people there that the country always thought about them with so much affection and sense of belonging. This visit has a special significance from multiple angles. The Northern border has always posed much challenge to India from many angles. Thanks to the tough conditions there, the whole border of thousands of kilometers requires a special approach not just from the security point of view but also from the angle of governance. Lip service apart, the Northern border areas got rather a casual treatment from the country for more reasons than one for decades. That was the principal reason why the Chinese could muster courage to invade India way back in 1962. That time, India suffered a terrible setback in military terms, but learned its lessons quickly and properly. In subsequent years, the entire experience was reversed completely. Despite the lessons India learned in Ladakh post-1962, China has continued to follow a blow-hot-blow-cold policy with India on the Northern front as well as in the Indo-Pacific.

 

It has also played unfair and undesirable economic games with India. No matter all that, India has been playing its role with certain professional coolness and self-confidence, thanks to its dynamic strategic approach. President Mrs. Droupadi Murmu’s visit to Ladakh is one symbolism of that comprehensive strategy the country had adopted towards China. Though this has not been stated in words, the President’s visit to Ladakh was not an accident, so to say. Much to the contrary, it was a planned affair so that the world gets a clear message that the President went to Ladakh as the head of a sovereign power with a complete writ in its own geography beyond any question. This observation has a specific background, so to say. For, China has often viewed such VIP visits to forward areas with a clear hostility. Beijing has often objected, too, to such visits to Ladakh or to Arunachal Pradesh or other forward areas. No matter all the Chinese writhing, India has continued to conduct itself ‘normally’ unbothered by what Beijing may feel. For, Beijing has no locus standi in this matter at all.

 

When President Mrs. Droupadi Murmu is visiting Ladakh, Army chief General Manoj Pande is on an official visit to Siachen in the Himalayas -- particularly when it is time for us to revisit the lessons the nation learned at Kargil where a major conflict took place about 25 years ago (in 1999). As the nation reminds itself of the Kargil episode, ‘The Hitavada’ also is taking a look-back on the military as well as political issues. It is currently running a series of first-hand reportage from Kargil mountains to study the issues in depth. That is why ‘The Hitavada’ views the visits of the President and the army chief to the forward northern areas with deep-seated interest. Ladakh, as the President said, has always been a land of tremendous strategic and cultural importance to the nation. Not only has it acted as a buffer between the nation and the invaders from the north, but also has acted as a reminder of the nation’s diversity of culture and pluralism of faiths. That is also the reason why India has often invested so much attention in Ladakh and the neighbouring areas on the very long Northern border. President Mrs. Droupadi Murmu’s visit spells all that without spelling out.