Cartographic passions are undoubtedly the most potent of all invisible elements of maps, and both India and China suffer from the same neurosis that reflect deep, hard-to-resolve and enduring discrepancies, with each trying to validate its claim over large swathes of territory.
Since before and long after the disastrous 1962 border war between the two countries, this persistent neurosis has marked Indian practices of state and nation building a shade more than it affected the Chinese.
Domestic production of maps is often marked by the official caution that “the external boundaries of India as depicted are neither accurate nor authentic.” After all, maps are a peculiar kind of visual text – not just a mere instrument of utility, but which reflect “invisible ingredients” that render every map, contested or otherwise, a Pandora’s box.
Driving Home a Point
Even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi was shaking hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping in the latter’s hometown of Xi’an in Shaanxi province, China’s state-owned television CCTV showed India’s map without Jammu and Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh over which Beijing has laid territorial claims in an unresolved border dispute between the two countries.
In June last year when China released a map showing Arunachal Pradesh as a part of it, the Indian ministry of external affairs took little time to trash it with its spokesperson claiming that “cartographic depiction doesn’t change facts” and that “Arunachal Pradesh is an integral part of India and has already been raised at higher levels.”