Dance, bonhomie, liquor replace gun in roof of the world

Bumla, Tibet, Oct 3 (UNI) Dance, bonhomie, liquor, exchange of currency replaced guns in the roof of the world as Indian army in a historical move crossed the border to Tibet in China to celebrate the 57th Chinese national day.

There was no sign of a single weapon, as 200 odd Indian and Chinese officers, jawans, civilians and media persons mingled freely and spent a day with dance, bonhomie and lots of excellent Chinese food in a bitter windy cold 15500 feet plains overlooking the huge Himalayas.

There is ''absolute peace on the border'', Indian troops say .

They fought a bloody war and followed it with 40 years of tension, but things are a little more relaxed for Indian and Chinese troops on their Himalayan border now.

'' Today the soldiers of both the countries are jokingly fighting over the currency notes anything exchangeable from biscuits to chocolates, '' said Brigadier Sanjay Kulkarni, the head of the Indian delegation.

Back in 1962 it was here, in the Tawang-Bumla area, where the Chinese army broke through. Indian defence and reached all the way to Bomdilla. The rest is history.

The Indians now attend the Chinese national day celebrations at their border posts on October 1 and the Chinese reciprocate on Indian Independence Day on August 15.

Cultural troupes join celebrations of national days.

Cultural troupes enliven the celebrations and even families of Indian and Chinese officers meet each other and exchange gifts.

'' I did not see the war or the tension that persisted for almost four decades after it, but now the mood is clearly one of friendship, '' says Brig Kulkarni.

As one climbs into Bumla, a board warns the visitor - ''You are now under enemy observation''. The army officer accompanying our vehicle us, he keeps referring to Chinese positions across the border as ''enemy locations''.

But such language is only a reminder of the past history of border tensions that nearly brought Indian and Chinese armies to the brink of war on two occasions after the 1962 war.

MORE UNI MT SJCian troops play an occasional game of volleyball and score points with light banter rather than with guns.

The Chinese have moved away their regular troops from the border and deployed light-armed border defence regiments in recent months.

The army source said that border has become so peaceful, Indian military formations have been able to deploy much of their strength to fight insurgencies in north-east Indian states like Assam.

But as India and China push ahead with negotiations to find a durable settlement of their border problem and their armies scale down tension on the frontier, the war memorials on either side of the border are the only reminder to the years of conflict gone by.

MORE UNI MT SJC AKP1148