New Delhi, Sept. 18: A “loudspeaker war” between India and China has broken out on a windswept slope in southern Ladakh where troops are eyeball-to-eyeball after India objected to a Chinese effort to build a road right up to the border.

Since last night, the armed troops have taken defensive positions on the slope between 14,000 and 15,000 feet against each other after bringing in reinforcements.

The Indian Army is also now clearly waiting for political directions on resolving the stalemate in Chumar because efforts at the tactical level — with two flag-meetings in three days — have failed. The only resolution possible is through simultaneous instructions to the troops from New Delhi and Beijing to pullback to original locations.

The Indians want to stop the Chinese from building a road right up to the Drongmar ridgeline that defines the border here. The Chinese want the Indians to vacate a post named 30R that gives the troops a clear view of Chinese military movements. The Chinese had almost reached the point with bulldozers and engineering equipment when the Indian troops went down and asked them to stop, say sources in the Indian Army.

Chumar, also called Chumur, is in the area of responsibility of the army’s 70th brigade. Troops from the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) are also co-located at the position.

The situation in the Ladakh frontier is further complicated by the involvement of civilians at the pasture in Charding-Ninglung Nullah (CNN) Track Junction in Demchok, east of Chumar. The pasture is claimed by both the Indians and the Chinese.

The current face-off in Chumar has echoes of another, the original “loudspeaker war” at Sumdorong Chhu in Arunachal in 1986 and 1987. Each side rigged-up loudspeakers pointed at the other and asked the troops to vacate their positions and return to original locations.

Since then, through the new border confidence-building measures that have been agreed from 1997, using loudspeakers and unfurling banners is part of the standard drill if Indian and Chinese patrols were face-to-face on the border.

The difference between those incidents and the current one in Chumar is in the scale: India deployed troops from two more battalions opposite the Chinese last night after the Chinese got in more numbers and attempted to outflank the Indian blockade. The standoff is also continuing for a week now even as Chinese President Xi Jinping, who also heads the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Military Commission, is in India.

In June and July this year too there was a face-off between Indian and Chinese troops at almost exactly the same place in Chumar. That was resolved by local commanders. This time so far, their efforts have not succeeded.

The sources indicate that the Indian move was aimed at pre-empting a possible Raki Nala type situation. At Raki Nala on the Depsang Plains near Daulat Beg Oldi in northern Ladakh, a “tent war” broke out after the Indian troops stopped a Chinese patrol that was said to have come 19km inside Indian territory.

“Such things have happened quite a few times before,” says Phunchok Stobdan, a former diplomat and expert on Central Asia with the Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses. Stobdan, a Ladakhi himself, recently returned after travelling to army positions in connection with his research project on frontiers.

“May be this time the government is doing it deliberately to highlight the border issue and is in a way telling the Chinese that we want to do business with you but this issue needs to be resolved first,” he suggests.

The standoff in 1986-1987 in Sumdorong Chhu on the Arunachal frontier was resolved only in 1995. India had lodged a formal protest through diplomatic channels at the presence of the Chinese in that valley.

The Indian Army also deployed more troops at that frontier in manoeuvres called Operation Falcon and Exercise Chequerboard. Not a shot was fired. In 1995, the armies decided to re-locate two posts each to the rear.

Troops withdrawal

Chinese troops tonight started withdrawing from the Indian territory, PTI reported. The Indian Army has also simultaneously started reducing its presence in the area, sources said.