Root problem of border tension between India and China is poor mapmaking by the British, says US scholar

The British empire can’t escape the blame for India’s recent clashes with China in Ladakh, says Kyle J Gardner, author of the forthcoming book, ‘The Frontier Complex: Geopolitics and the Making of the India-China Border, 1846-1962’. A non-resident scholar at the Sigur Center for Asian Studies at the George Washington University, he tells Manimugdha S Sharma that the territorial claims of both countries rest on faulty maps
India didn’t inherit a troubled northern border but a border without clear delineation and proper maps.Is that assertion correct?
It is fair to say that. In the precise sense of the term ‘border’, India did not inherit a complete northern border at all. Particularly in terms of Aksai Chin, the series of proposed lines (Johnson and Macartney-MacDonald lines) and borderless maps India inherited from the British reflected limited surveying and a faulty belief that the edge of the Indus watershed aligned with a clear ring of mountains. By the early 20th century, colonial officials like Henry McMahon (of McMahon Line fame) made a distinction between “delimiting” and “demarcating” borders. Delimitation was the general description of the path of the border, usually in writing, and usually following a general border-making principle such as the limit of a watershed (the “water-parting principle”). Demarcation, in contrast, required a team of surveyors and boundary commissioners to go out and actually lay down the border using detailed maps and boundary pillars at specific plotted coordinates. Very little demarcation was actually done in what is now known as the western sector.
Has that lack of clarity in Ladakh manifested itself in India’s recent confrontation with China? Is India suffering because of British mistakes?
Yes. We are seeing this summer a tragic manifestation of the absence of an agreed border. Despite the name, in practice the Line of Actual Control has functioned more like a frontier: a vague zone liable to shift depending on the ability of each side to occupy and control it. China has taken advantage of that continued lack of clarity; perhaps India has, too, at other times. But it is fair to say the root problem here — the absence of an accepted border — is largely the fault of the British Empire. If the British Empire still existed, it would undoubtedly deserve to be hauled into international court for this and many other reasons.
What do you think about India making its territorial claims today based on colonial surveys done in the 19th century?
Many of today’s borders around the world are direct or indirect products of colonialism and now-defunct empires. That the Republic of India should carry the territorial claims of its political predecessor is not surprising. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is doing the same, insisting as it does on claims (to Tibet, for instance) that harken back to the Qing Empire. But unfortunately, the claims to Aksai Chin and the eastern boundary of Ladakh rest on sketchy maps that in some cases depicted geographical features that simply don’t exist. So, claiming a territory the shape of which comes, above all, from a solitary 1865 map with vague and dubious geographical features is bound to produce problems. That doesn’t mean that the PRC had any right to take Aksai Chin, it simply means that much of the territory in dispute was genuinely “no-man’s land” that needed to be sorted out by the two countries. That, of course, did not happen.
What is this 'water-parting principle' of boundary making that you talk about?
In the 19th century, European empires used geographical science to help further their claims to territory and depict those claims on authoritative maps. To prevent conflicting claims, officials developed a range of border-making principles designed to yield precise and mappable borders. In mountainous areas, the ideal geographical feature to use for a border became the water parting: the line separating the limits of different watersheds. Frequently following the range of highest mountains, the water parting was deemed to be scientific and precise. Unlike rivers, it wouldn't change course when flooded, and unlike straight lines of longitude and latitude, it could be traced along natural features. But in some places, like the Aksai Chin, there is no neat water-parting line falling along a range of mountains. The topography of the high-altitude western Tibetan Plateau affords no neat natural line to follow.
This principle, you say, wasn't always adhered to as the military opinion tended to be different at times. Can you elaborate?
Some military strategists worried about employing a border-making principle that could grant equal access to the heights to both sides of a border. However, in general, this problem was of less concern to the British in terms of the Aksai Chin and the Himalayas because they assumed these highest points to be largely inaccessible. I suspect none of the 19th-century geographers and military theorists envisioned a standoff, for instance, on the Siachen glacier.
India doesn’t take it lightly when maps that don’t show territories held by Pakistan and China as part of India are published. It calls it ‘cartographic aggression’. What is your take?
Past empires like the British could generally tolerate a degree of ambiguity in the outlines of their territory. But for nations like India, borders have become sacred things worth sacrificing lives for. That said, it may be that Aksai Chin’s greatest value to India is cartographic. Nehru was basically right when he said that “not a blade of grass grows there”. There’s a reason no one ever permanently occupied it. Who would want to live there? The winters are brutal, there’s little water, and it’s mostly above 15,000 feet in elevation. If even Ladakhis accustomed to harsh mountain conditions never settled it, it’s probably not worth living there. Unlike the eastern sector, the problem of claiming the Aksai Chin was having no one to effectively occupy it. It has no rich resources either.