Lieutenant General YK Joshi, the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the Army’s Northern Command, said India had not given any land to China during the faceoff in Ladakh.
In an exclusive interview, Lt. Gen. Joshi spoke about the Chinese casualties at the face-off in the Galvan Valley in June 2020, stating that “China had achieved nothing but facial damage”.
Asked whether India had cited the land, Lt Gen Joshi denied the charge. “No no. Not a very loud one, really. We have to look at it in a way that Finger 8 is our claim line. PLA, the whole army is going behind Finger 8. They did the Finger 4 and 8 in April last year. The infrastructure that was built in the middle is being completely removed to a large extent. Dugouts, trenches, their bunkers and tents, everything is being removed. The entire land between Finger 4 and 8 is pre-April. Will be fully restored in 2020. “
“The last and most important point is that they will not do any activity on the area we claim, that is, towards Finger 8, it will be a military activity or some other activity. So, I think it is a big success. In our claimed territories, we have removed the entire infrastructure. We will not carry out any activity until we have a discussion later. After this process is over, we will arrive at the new protocol and a new patrol policy. “
Concerning the South Bank, India gave a strategic advantage by descending from the Kailash range, Lt. Gen. Joshi said, “The Kailash range was occupied with a purpose. The Chinese initially shocked us by occupying parts of our territories – up to Finger 4 of the North Bank – and negotiations were going on nowhere. We held five flag meetings at the Corps Commander level and we were not succeeding in any way. Then, I got instructions from my chief that we needed to get some leverage. “
“On August 29–30, we began this operation and captured the entire dominating heights of Rejang La, Rechin La in the South Bank, as well as the North Bank, where we dominated the entire PLA deployment. This was done to achieve some success at the negotiating table. This disintegration is happening because we have dominated the Kailash range. Therefore, now that this objective has been achieved, we are going back to the status quo by April 2020. Lieutenant General Joshi.