US-India relations from 15,000 feet

Tawang, the regional center of a tiny slice of India wedged between Bhutan and China in a far-flung corner of India’s northeast Arunachal Pradesh state, is off the beaten track for foreign visitors. But from here the promise and complexity of the U.S.-India relationship are easy to see.

Our local host was the India Foundation, which has close relations with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. Thanks to the foundation, a small delegation organized by the Hudson Institute (my think tank base in Washington) had been cleared to visit this sensitive border region. After about a three-hour flight from New Delhi, we boarded a helicopter for a 70-minute flight over Bhutan before landing at Tawang.

Disembarking, we were greeted by dignitaries bearing wooden bowls brimming with the locally produced alcoholic spirit. While four people performed an energetic and surprisingly lifelike yak dance around us, our hosts gave us some basic facts about the region. The predominant ethnic group, the Monpa, has about 50,000 members who are subdivided into six smaller groups each with its own language.

Monpa, we were told, means “lowland dwellers.” With Tawang a mere 11,500 feet above sea level, the real mountain dwellers consider the Monpas the next thing to flatlanders. Even so, life in Tawang can be rugged. Fermented yak cheese is a challenging condiment to wrap your tongue around, yak meat is both tough and on the gamey side, and yak butter tea is an acquired taste that I, sadly, failed to acquire. Happily, non-yak options abound.

It was to Tawang that the current Dalai Lama came as a refugee in 1959. Over these same roads in 1962 came Chinese invaders, not stopping until they reached the fertile plains of Assam. The invasion shocked then-Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru into asking the U.S. for military aid, and although the Chinese returned to Tibet after several weeks of occupation, the attack still resonates across the Northeast and in the ministries in faraway New Delhi.

From Tawang it was about a two-hour jeep trek up the rocky Himalayas to the contested India-Tibetan frontier at Bumla. Along the way we passed a mix of pre-1962 fortifications and sturdier, more modern facilities from which the Indian Army prepares to defend the region against renewed Chinese aggression. Once at Bumla, where the mountains yield to the outer reaches of the Tibetan Plateau, we were shown around the facilities at a border post 15,200 feet above sea level. In the thin, clear atmosphere, we could see Chinese troops—said to outnumber the Indian defenders 2 to 1—manning the border post and snow-capped peaks in the distance. The frontier is closed now, though a path across the hills showed where merchants, monks and animal herders once made the trek to Lhasa.

China, our briefers told us as we shivered around the kerosene-burning space heaters in the border post, has invested heavily in new infrastructure on its side of the border. India is doing its best to match the buildup, but the terrain on the Indian side is far less favorable, and keeping the narrow and winding Bumla road open is a major endeavor.

The northeast is a hard place to defend. Arunachal Pradesh’s population (1.4 million in the last census) is divided into dozens of tribes and ethnicities, some smaller than the Monpas. Other northeastern states like Manipur and Nagaland are equally complex. With the civil war in Myanmar creating refugees and making both arms and drugs widely available and ethnic and religious tensions rising in this volatile landscape, India’s hands would be full even without the threat from over the mountains.

That threat draws India closer to the U.S., but everything is complicated in this nation of 1.4 billion-plus people. Religion is one issue. Arunachal Pradesh’s population was 10% Christian 30 years ago, we were told. Today there are more Christians than any other religious group in the state. The official estimate is that 30% of the population is Christian, but the real figure may be higher. Hindu India, conquered successively by proselytizing Muslims from Central Asia and British Christians, wants the proselytization to stop, and those wishes often clash with American ideas about religious freedom.

Then there is Bangladesh. India’s northeast is nearly indefensible without access to Bangladeshi airspace. The former ruler Sheikh Hasina worked closely with India. Many Americans cheered when a student-led protest movement forced the increasingly autocratic Ms. Hasina from office in August. Many Indians believe an equally authoritarian but less pro-India government will ultimately emerge from the chaos and blame American meddling for Ms. Hasina’s fall.

As seen from Tawang, a strong U.S.-India relationship is both necessary and problematic. Only America can help India keep China on its own side of the border, but America is a difficult friend.

In New Delhi and Tawang, Indians mostly cheered Donald Trump’s election. They hope he will give India the support against China it seeks without making a lot of noise about human rights.

We shall see.