IndiaPost.com - Chinese, Indian army teams meet in A'chal

ITANAGAR: Amid the storm over the issue of visit of 107 IAS officers to Beijing and Shanghai from May 26, armies of the two Asian giants participated, as scheduled, in the border meeting at Bumla, Arunachal Pradesh on May 30 as part of the confidence building measures.

The visit by IAS officers was cancelled by India following denial of visa by China to one of the officers Ganesh Kayu who is from Arunachal Pradesh. Kayu is the Education Secretary of Arunachal and it is believed that China denied the visa as it treats the eastern most state as its territory.

The trip to China of so many IAS officers of 1991 batch for their mid career training was conceived by the prime minister and its cancellation to show solidarity of the nation with Arunachal Pradesh and to buttress the Centre's stand to treat the state as an integral part of the country, came as a moral booster for the ruling Congress in the state.

The new Chief Minister Dorjee Khandu, who hails from Tawang district bordering China, which bore the brunt of the 1962 war, described the denial of visa to Kayu by China as an indication of China treating Arunachal Pradesh as its territory.

He urged the Centre to take up the matter with China. People of the state believe they are the proud inheritors of the legacy of Lord Krishna, Rukmini, Parasuram and Buddha from time immemorial, he said. 'Malini Than' of a popular tourist spot of the state is named after Goddess Durga as legend had it that the goddess received Lord Krishna and Rukmini after their marriage with a garland (mala) at the spot.

The state also has Parasuram Kund and Tawang monastery which attract lots of tourists even from abroad. This is not the only occasion when China denied visas to Arunachalis. Earlier some official and politicians of Arunachal were also denied visa by China and some of them visited places across the McMohan Line on tourist visas.

However, the cancellation of trip of such a large contingent of IAS officers on the ground of denial of visa to Kayu has hogged headlines in the media. The opposition BJP MP Kiren Rijiju representing Tawang and other parts of western Arunachal in the Lok Sabha was for a nationwide campaign on the issue. But he was dissuaded by party leadership.