In April 1924, standing next to a lifelike statue of an Indian Buddhist monk in Hangzhou, Tagore promised to the Chinese people saying: “We will always stand by you.” Less than four decades later, the Chinese troops attacked India and Tagore’s sincere desire for friendship and brotherhood between the two peoples was lost forever. So, what went wrong? Was Tagore poor in his judgement on the force of the Eastern Civilizational Spirit? Could it be Tagore’s childhood nostalgia for China and Chinese culture? Or is it that China never believed in friendship and brotherhood with India? Let’s find out.
“No matter how the situation changes, as guests, friends, and brothers, we will always stand by you,” Rabindranath Tagore affectionately said these words to young Chinese students on April 14, 1924 during a visit to the beautiful West Lake in Hangzhou, China. He saw a lifelike statue of an Indian Buddhist monk near the lake, and said with emotion: “The mountains of China and India speak the same language, the lakes have the same charming smile on their faces, and the trees in the two countries are also similar. Therefore, they feel very friendly and not at all strange,” the poet-philosopher added.
Notwithstanding the prospects of a momentary easing of tension on the disputed border in eastern Ladakh with the recent India-China agreement to jointly patrol the border, the fact remains that bilateral relations between the two nations have been problematic since they established diplomatic ties in the early 1950s. No wonder, among other things, thanks largely to the long-disputed border they share – some say the world’s longest disputed border, scholars have called the Sino-Indian ties a sui generis relationship. Be that as it may, in their over seven decades-old diplomatic relations, Tagore’s genuine, selfless, and sincere desire a century ago for friendship and brotherhood for the two civilizational neighbors unfortunately has been lost in the long game of simmering tensions along the border.
India-China Relations: Past and Present
Before we look at the current state of the relations between India and China, it is useful to remember what experts have been warning us, i.e., “nurturing sustainable, friendly, cooperative, and mutually beneficial relationships will always be a serious foreign policy challenge for the two Asian powers.” This explains why the new border patrol pact just a few weeks ago – with high expectations to soon put an end to mutually extreme hostile feelings following the bloody fist-fighting in Galwan River Valley in May-June 2020, is being viewed by sceptics as far from leading towards “a reset in bilateral relations.” Therefore, with little or no hope of achieving tangible results out of the latest border pact, the four-year old frozen bilateral ties are likely to drift into the future.
As we examine this current hostile scenario in the India–China bilateral relations against what Tagore said a century ago, i.e., “no matter how the situation changes…we will always stand by you,” what immediately comes to mind is how wrong the great poet might have been in his understanding of and therefore expectations of two ancient spiritual, cultural, and civilizational friendly neighbors. For it was none other than the visionary Tagore himself who first called Indian and Chinese peoples “brothers.” Indeed, for once it did appear the faith Tagore put in the two peoples was proven right when in the mid-1950s both India and China had been caught in the Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai – the Indian and Chinese brotherhood euphoria.
What was even more remarkable in this unprecedented historic celebration of the Asian brotherhood was that this brotherly embrace was happening exactly just 30 years after Tagore’s prophetic words, as cited above. However, as the unfolding of the events would soon prove, the brotherhood euphoria was not only short-lived but was also hollow. In spite of the Bandung Spirit, the Non-Alignment Spirit, and the India–China “brotherhood” Spirit in the early to mid-1950s, the two “friendly” Asian neighbors miserably failed to overcome their border differences, ending up in a disastrous India–China war in 1962. What went wrong with the “friendship” and “brotherhood” euphoria?
Could it be that Tagore was poor in his judgement about the force of the Eastern Civilizational Spirit and was misled by his childhood nostalgia for China and Chinese culture? Or could it be Tagore’s childhood nostalgia for China and Chinese culture? Recall that Tagore was barely 20 years old when he wrote a powerful essay in Bengali, condemning the Opium War. He titled the essay Chine Maraner Byabasay or the “Commerce of Killing the Chinese People.” To this, a former Indian ambassador to China once commented: “It is surprising that though Tagore is revered by the people of China as ‘friend’, no one in China has acknowledged the pain and emotion that led Tagore to become the first and only Asian figure with such great selfless human love profoundly felt for the Chinese people.”
The Indian and Chinese Views on Boundary Stuck in the Past
Let us also briefly explain the nitty-gritty of the long-disputed border between the two giant Asian neighbors. The roots of decades-long strategic rivalry between India and China to gain the upper hand in Asia lies in their 3,488-kilometer-long disputed border in the Himalayan region. While the Chinese tend to regard the border dispute as a British colonial legacy; in India, it is largely viewed as a result of the Chinese “invasion” of Tibet in 1950. After the Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama sought refuge in India in 1959, India and China fought a brief border war lasting over a month in the winter of 1962.
The 1962 border war cast a long shadow on the relationship, leading to continued hostility. Recently, the so-called peaceful or lying-dormant border dispute suddenly erupted into a physical brawl between Chinese and Indian troops in the Galwan Valley — at the south- eastern edge of Aksai Chin along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the high-plateau Ladakh region (the size of Switzerland) — that has been under Chinese control since the 1962 India–China War.
Attributing the border war in the past and simmering tensions along the border today to deep “historical roots” may not be fully justified. However, experts in both India and China and elsewhere agree that one of the main reasons for the escalating tensions is that the “national border is not yet clearly demarcated.” Besides, calling history — in particular the colonial past — as too complicated a factor is only making matters worse between the two fast-growing Asian neighbors. It is precisely this complex understanding of the “deeper and wider historical context” that has enabled both countries to remain stuck in the past.
China Never Believed in Brotherhood with India
Contrast Tagore’s unquestioned faith in the friendship and sincere hope for the brotherhood between the peoples of India and China with the views of a veteran Chinese expert on relations with India, Professor Wang Dehua: “While it is true that New Delhi is unlikely to ever become Beijing’s friend, the long absence of a top Chinese envoy is something very rare in the history of Sino-Indian relations, which makes it difficult for both sides to manage their differences, especially when ties are at a low point.” Let us recall, the position of Chinese ambassador to India remained vacant from October 2022 when Sun Weidong left the post until May 2024 when Xu Feihong assumed office.
Providing a proper context to the rather uncharitable remark by Professor Wang Dehua that “New Delhi is unlikely to ever become Beijing’s friend,” Liu Zongyi, recognized as one of the most influential voices on Sino-Indian relations in China, ruled out a quick turnaround in the bilateral ties amid signs of further geopolitical division among them on top of their border impasse and in the midst of intensifying US–China rivalry. Liu, who is professor and a senior research fellow with the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies’ South Asia and China Centre, further added: “I don’t think the border dispute is too complicated to be resolved…But even if the border issue can be resolved, I am not optimistic that bilateral ties could be improved any time soon.”
As we look back at the India-China relations in the hundredth year since Tagore first visited China, it is sad and unfortunate that both countries increasingly view each other as untrustworthy and a threat to national interests. Despite the recent border pact and the show of “unity” at the 16th BRICS Summit in Kazan, Russia, experts and scholars in the two countries have not stopped casting aspersions on each other’s sincerity. Far from the friendship and brotherhood between the two peoples as desired by Tagore, it was the missing modus vivendi in our bilateral diplomatic and security relations that led to deadly Galwan incidents four years ago. If strategic affairs analysts and military experts on both sides of the Himalaya border are to be believed, it will be nothing short of a miracle to not see a repeat of a Galwan-type bloody melee on the India-China border in the future with a far more serious dimension.
