The crossroads at the Doklam plateau :

The crossroads at the Doklam plateau :

(Building of Crossroads)

Context :

• Bhutan and India share a special and unique relationship, but none are as strong as the ones laid down on the ground: 1,500 km, to be precise, of roads that have been built by India across the Himalayan kingdom’s most difficult mountains and passes.

Background :

• Since 1960, when Bhutan’s King Jigme Wangchuk entrusted the then Prime Minister, Jigme Dorji, with modernizing the country, that had formerly stayed closed to the world, those roads built and maintained by the Indian Border Roads Organization (BRO) under Project Dantak have brought the countries together for more than one reason.
• All the new roads that Bhutan proposed to construct were being aligned to run southwards towards India from the main centers of Bhutan.
• Not a single road was planned to be constructed to the Tibetan (Chinese) border.
• When the Chinese presented a fork in the road, Bhutan stood firm maintaining an independent stand.
• Within some years, during the India-China war of 1962, Bhutan showed its sympathies definitely lay with India, but it still wouldn’t bargain on that independent stand.

Current situation :

• India seeks to understand the Chinese government’s intentions in the Doklam stand-off.
• Seen in the context of deteriorating relations between New Delhi and Beijing for the past three years, or in terms of China’s own global ambitions, and India need to show its Asian neighbours its muscular might.
• But any explanation that does not consider China’s desire to draw space between India and Bhutan in the ongoing stand-off will be inadequate, and simplistic at best.
• With the latest stand-off, that includes the cancellation of the Nathu La route, China appears to be back in the eastern great game that Bhutan has become, or an “egg between two rocks”, as a senior Bhutanese commentator described it.
• By triggering a situation where Indian soldiers occupy land that isn’t India’s for a prolonged period, Beijing may have actually planned to show up India’s intentions in an unfavourable light to the people of Bhutan.

All eyes on India :

• India must also be mindful that other neighbours are watching the Doklam stand-off closely.
• It would be short-sighted not to recognize that Bhutan is at one tri-junction with India and China, but Nepal, Myanmar and Pakistan too have tri-junctions with both countries, and China’s reference to “third country” presence in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir is putting a spotlight on all of these.
• Bhutan is also the only country in the region that joined India in its boycott of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s marquee project, the Belt and Road Initiative.
• In China’s thinking, any reassessment of Bhutan’s unique ties with India, forged all those decades ago in asphalt and concrete, would be not only a prize, but possible payback.
• While Indian commentary has focused on the Modi government’s bilateral problems with Beijing, India must calibrate both its message and its military moves in order to keep Bhutan on track with the special ties they share.