Doklam couldn’t have led to war: Gen Bakshi

Ajay Banerjee

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 14

Former Eastern Army Commander Lt Gen Praveen Bakshi (retd) tonight said there was “no possibility” of a war with China during the 73-day Doklam stand-off last year.

Literally breaking his silence, Lt Gen Bakshi, who headed the Eastern Command when the Doklam standoff (June 16-August 28, 2017) commenced, said, “I can confess. In my opinion, it was not going to break into an all-out war. It was the wrong place (for China) to initiate a war. We were commanding heights... In a military conflict, these positions would be untenable (for China).”

Speaking at a function, ‘Revisiting Doklam’, organised by the Institute of China Studies and India International Centre here, he said they were quite confident and prepared for a long haul.

Lt Gen DS Hooda (retd), former Northern Army Commander, said there were possibilities of another Doklam-type conflict along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), but it was tough to predict when.

“We will see more of these incidents. Certainly, we haven’t seen the last of it. The big worry will be when such conflicts happen in areas where our infrastructure is not as well built as in Ladakh, or even in Sikkim. Eastern Arunachal is a huge worry.  

“If it happens in some other area where we cannot respond as well, would there be a need to open up some pressure point in another area? May be, we don’t need to do it. But we need to start making plans for that,” he said.

Lt Gen Hooda said the existing protocols for maintaining peace along the LAC needed a change as the “new realities” had to be taken into account. “What is being increasingly witnessed is the Chinese display of force,” he said.