No passport or visa, but I stepped into China

By Vishnu Makhijani Nov 1, 2006, 10:11 GMT

Bumla (On the Chinese side), Nov 1 (IANS) I am one of the very few Indians who have set foot in China, specifically Tibet, without a passport or a visa - not by stealth but in broad daylight. It was a 100-metre walk of a lifetime, one that is not likely to be repeated in a hurry but the memories of which will linger for a long, long time.

'Is this for real?' I wondered as I sat on a rock 50 metres inside Chinese territory at this border crossing in Arunachal Pradesh as senior officers of the Indian and Chinese armies conferred inside a specially erected tent at their biennial conference on maintaining peace and tranquillity on the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

I was part of a group of 20 journalists who had undertaken a seven-and-a-half hour journey from New Delhi to Bumla by aircraft and helicopter and finally by road to report on the Border Personnel Meeting (BPM), an event that was opened to the media for the first time since it began in 1999.

These meetings are held twice a year - on May 30 and Oct 30 - the first 50 metres inside Indian territory from the LAC and the other at an equivalent distance on the Chinese side.

Thus, at 10.30 a.m. on Monday, the Indian Army's Brigadier Sanjay Kulkarni and the rest of his six-member delegation formed up and marched briskly to the LAC as the media group followed.

The Chinese delegation was waiting at the frontier. The two groups saluted and Kulkarni and Colonel Li Ming An of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) each placed a rock on the 'Heap of Stones' peace memorial on the LAC before the delegations marched into Chinese territory and into the conference.

'How peaceful it is,' I thought to myself as I surveyed the snow covered pass and the clear blue sky of a hue that one rarely sees in a city. It was biting cold - not because of the three degrees Celsius temperature but because of the stiff wind that was blowing.

Cotton puff clouds flitted overhead and the sun set off the snow on the forbidding peaks that surround the pass, making it look more like icing on a cake.

It seemed hard to imagine that it was through this pass 44 years ago that wave upon wave of PLA soldiers had swept through, overcoming the weak Indian defences and penetrating some 250 km into Assam state before declaring a truce and withdrawing.

As my group soaked in the surroundings and took photographs, PLA soldiers suddenly came forward offering to exchange currency and sell cigarettes. They found us tough nuts to crack.

A colleague asked a PLA soldier how much he wanted for his fancy digital camera. The soldier pointed to the colleague's mobile phone.

'Okay,' I thought to myself, 'let's give it back to them.' Pulling out my credit card, I told the soldier in slow, clear English: 'You keep this card and give me your camera.'

He seemed puzzled, thinking I was offering him a gold biscuit. Then another soldier whispered in his ear and he looked sheepishly at me before bursting out in a loud laugh.

By then the first part of the BPM was over and the delegations moved into the mess tent for lunch as we followed. We were slightly hesitant about the food but more than made up for this by imbibing vast quantities of a cider-based Chinese red wine as our hosts insisted that our glasses could never be empty.

The delegations returned for the final session and then emerged for a photo opportunity, linking their hands and raising them high in the air as the photographers clicked away madly.

Back at the 'Heap of Stones', Kulkarni and Li hugged warmly, salutes and handshakes were exchanged with a promise to meet again on May 30 next year.

We walked back and sat down for a press conference where Kulkarni declared the meeting a tremendous success. Then he noticed me smiling and raised his eyebrows.

'It feels good to be home,' I replied.

Even so, it was an experience I wouldn't have missed for anything in the world.

© 2006 Indo-Asian News Service