DNA Special: Detailed analysis of Rahul Gandhi's claim of throwing Chinese Army out in 15 minutes

In 1962, India and China engaged in a month-long war in which the Chinese army occupied a big chunk of India's. Jawaharlal Nehru was the Prime Minister of India at that time. He was one of the strongest prime ministers of India, but he could not do anything. But Jawaharlal Nehru's great grandson Rahul Gandhi today said had theUPA been in power, "China would not dare to take a step inside our territory and we would have evicted and thrown out China and it would not have taken 15 minutes to do so”.

Rahul Gandhi said this at a rally of farmers in Haryana's Kurukshetra. Rahul Gandhi, in his speech, used the word ' coward ' for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said the PM is not a patriot. Rahul Gandhi had made such a rhetoric earlier also. What he has said today cannot be taken very seriously. But Rahul Gandhi is a parliamentarian and the Congress party considers him a future prime minister. So, it is necessary to analyse Rahul Gandhi's statement so that you can understand how politics is being done on the issue of national security.

Let's remember the time when his party was actually in power. The then defence minister, AK Antony had admitted in Parliament that since Independence, the Congress party governments have been policy-bound that infrastructure in border areas should not be developed much. Antony also admitted that the policy did not prove correct and China took advantage of it and infiltrated into India.

Rahul Gandhi should remember that when China occupied India's land, his party was in power.

Let's explain this in details:

First in 1962, the Chinese army took over the entire Aksai Chin area of India. It is an area of about 38,000 square kilometres. If you look at the area, it is equal to countries like South Korea and the UAE.

A year later, in 1963, Pakistan gifted about 5,180 square metres of PoK land to China. Both these times, Rahul Gandhi's great grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru was the Prime Minister of India.

Before 1962, China claimed about 90,000 square kilometres of land in Arunachal Pradesh. However, because of the Indian Army's preparedness, China hasn't been able to do much about it.

China has been making infiltration bids in Ladakh from time to time. However, it did not occupy any very large land. Between the years 2010 to 2013, the Chinese army once again intensified infiltration. In 2013, the National Security Advisory Board gave a report claiming that the Chinese army had occupied 640 sq km of eastern Ladakh. There was a lot of commotion on this report, but then the UPA government rejected it.

This was the time when Manmohan Singh was the prime minister and Rahul Gandhi's mother Sonia Gandhi was called super-Prime minister. Rahul Gandhi himself is also in active politics since 2004. He was a parliamentarian in the year 2013 and the Congress party started projecting him as the prime ministerial candidate. In 2013, Rahul Gandhi had the opportunity to throw China 100 kilometres away, but he did nothing.

Rahul Gandhi, when he is in opposition today, is talking about bravery, but what he is saying may not mean him himself. If they were aware of history, they might think once before they speak such things.

Nehru always maintained good relations with China, however, the latter betrayed him. But, the Congress hasn't learnt any lessons from this deception.

The issue was debated in Parliament after the Indo-China war ended. In that debate, the then Congress MP Mahavir Tyagi asked Jawaharlal Nehru what he was doing to get Aksai Chin back, which Nehru replied that it was a barren land and not was not even a straw of grass grew there.

Mahavir Tyagi took off the cap from his head and said, "If nothing rises here, should I cut my head and give it to someone else?" Then there was a thrust in Parliament, but the answer to that question of Congress MP Mahavir Tyagi has not been found in the country even after 58 years today.

Rahul Gandhi's grandmother Indira Gandhi was also prime minister for nearly 16 years. Her first term was about 11 years, while the second term was also about five years. Indira Gandhi's prime ministership saw tense situations on the border between India and China in 1975. But even then Indira Gandhi did not try to chase China back.
Rahul Gandhi's father Rajiv Gandhi was also the prime minister for five years. But during his entire tenure, Rajiv Gandhi did not try to withdraw Aksai Chin from China even once.

In 2008, Rahul Gandhi signed an agreement with Chinese President Xi Jinping, who was general secretary of the Communist Party of China in those days. No one really knows what the agreement was about, but it certainly wasn't about chasing China back.

Such a soft attitude of the Congress governments towards China resulted in the Chinese army continuously infiltrating.

For the first time in the year 2017, the central government had stated under RTI that China has illegal occupation of a total of 43,180 sq km of India.

The border between India and China has remained about 2000 km today due to China's occupation of Aksai Chin. According to the real map that we see, it should be 4,056 kilometres long.

China is rapidly building roads and bridges in its occupied areas, while India has not taken any note of it at all in the Time of Congress rule. Most of the roads and bridges in Ladakh were either in the time of Atal Bihari Vajpayee or after 2014.

So, see for yourself if Rahul Gandhi can really chase the 'powerful' Chinese army back in 15 minutes from Ladakh if he were the PM or his government was in power. If the Congress did nothing when it actually count, how can we expect it to do anything now.