NEW DELHI: Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan on Friday claimed that former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru recognised Tibet as a part of China because he wanted to build a good relationship with China.While addressing the Bharat Himalayan Strategy Forum in Dehradun, General Chauhan recalled how the Panchsheel agreement was signed between India and China and said, “On independence, the British left, and it was for India actually to decide where a front is. Nehru probably knew that we had something, as the McMahon Line was in the east, and we had some kind of a claim in the Ladakh area, but it was not here. So that’s why he wanted to go in for a Panchsheel agreement, and for the Chinese also. When they had kind of liberated Tibet, they had moved into Lhasa. This particular area was extreme at both ends.”“So they wanted stability, probably in this particular region. Independent India was keen to build a good relationship with China. In 1954, India recognised Tibet as part of China. Both countries signed the Panchsheel Agreement,” he added.General Chauhan also said that the India must rethink how it views Himalayan boundary, particularly in Uttarakhand’s middle sector.“Himalayas have functioned more as a zone of interaction rather than a border of exclusion. Uttarakhand is a civilisation landscape where the sacred and the strategic have been coexisting for ages,” CDS said.The right place actually to have a think tank like BHISM because in Dehradun, it is uniquely positioned to develop static thought that is terrain conscious, system oriented, and long horizon in its character,” he added.
