General MM Naravane. PTI File

New Delhi: Former Army chief General MM Naravane has said that India’s military, for the first time, enjoys an advantage on the Sino-Indian border vis-à-vis China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLC).

“We should negotiate the (Sino-Indian) border with China from that position of advantage,” a Business Standard report quoted him as saying while addressing a New Delhi-based think-tank Foundation for Non-Violent Alternatives (FNVA) at the release of its new report ‘Resetting India’s Tibet Policy 2022’.

Between January 2019 and April 2022, under the leadership of Naravane, the Indian Army experienced border unrest as the PLA made incursions into Indian territory at many locations in Eastern Ladakh.

For the first time since 1975, Indian soldiers were killed during a fierce hand-to-hand battle between the two forces in the Galwan river valley.

While New Delhi admitted deaths of 20 Indian soldiers in the clash, Beijing said they only lost four PLA soldiers.

According to the report, Naravane said the Indian Army gained a major moral advantage, stemming from the fact that, for the first time in decades, an adversary had inflicted casualties on Chinese soldiers.

“It doesn’t matter whether four Chinese soldiers were killed or 40. What is material is that we stood up to the PLA and inflicted casualties,” the report quoted him as saying.

Naravane said the PLA and the Chinese leadership had received a message that any future action by China would come in with a cost. “It won’t be a small price, but a heavy one,” he added.

The former Army chief further asserted that India held an advantage over China since Chinese troops currently stationed on the Sino-Indian border had to be resupplied from sites located far away on China’s eastern shore.

“The PLA’s lines of communication to their western border with India are 4,000 km long, while India’s lines of communication to its Himalayan border are barely 400-500 km,” said Naravane.

With inputs from agencies

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