While in my mid-twenties, working in 1978-79 for Gammon India Ltd, a construction company renowned for bridge construction in remote areas of India, I was posted for six months to the ADB-funded East-West highway construction project in Nepal, on the portion running from Hetauda to Narayangarh. The complete east-west highway connection was designed to run all the way to Nepalganj, past Lumbini, the birth place of Lord Buddha, across from Gorakhpur district in India. The highway was essentially located along the foothills and plains of Nepal, a simple artillery shot away from the Indian border. For this project, quite a few Chinese bridge and highway contractors secured contracts along various segments of this highway, and some were very close to the Indian border. Though their design standards and construction methods were old-fashioned and traditional (not as high-tech as Gammon’s), and I wondered why the hell was India scared of the Chinese when India possessed the better technology, the troubling feature was their proximity to the Indian border. I saw the Chinese companies first-hand at close quarters; I also witnessed first-hand on a visit to Lumbini how porous the Indo-Nepal border was and how easily the Chinese could slip through into India. I am intuitively quite certain that China infiltrated numerous spies through that route. China found, in a legal way, an opportunity to come close to the Indian border, and has always eyed the Indo-Nepal border for numerous opportunities of intelligence gathering since that time, 30 years ago. I do recall that the Indian government later protested those Chinese camps close to our border, and the Nepalese government responded favorably to our protests. However, the dismantling of those camps took a few years till the Chinese projects were over, because no one could prove the Chinese were doing anything wrong.
I continue to feel today that if there were a full-blown, no-holds barred war between China and India, the Chinese would come through Nepal and Burma, where we are least prepared. Remember, the Chinese wrote the book on the art of war. I might add that in March 1979 (I don't recall that it could be 1978), I rode in on my Java motorcycle into the well-guarded Chinese embassy in Chanakya Puri, where two guards opened the door for me very quickly (with respect) without stopping me. I parked the motorcycle below the stairs to the main entrance, and walked up to the reception asking for a visa to travel to Mansarovar. This I did at a time when China did not grant travel visas for Mansarovar. My father had cautioned me not to do this or anything like even entering the Chinese embassy, trying to emphasize that I would be entering "enemy territory" if I were to go into their embassy compound. Moreover, hardly any Indian nationals ever went into their compound those days, if at all. However, I was adventuresome and somewhat fearless (or foolish) when young, and so I didn’t care much for my father’s advice on this occasion, though I did listen to it and pay heed.
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Dr Amarjit Singh is a professor at the University of Hawaii and Manoa. Expert on Highway Construction Engineering. He also writes on India's national security.Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Dr Amarjit Singh: Personal webpage
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