‘The world’s against China’: India’s ICFA comrades keep the faith

Amid the burning of Chinese flags, the banning of Chinese apps, and demands for a boycott of Chinese goods in response to a brutal border clash that left 20 Indian soldiers dead, at least one untiring flag-bearer of India-China friendship remains.

While the tensions that have built up since the deadly fight 4,400 metres up in the Himalayas in June are some of the worst since the two countries went to war in 1962, veterans of the India-China Friendship Association (ICFA) see no reason to sever ties.

The nature of the soldiers’ deaths, in a clash that involved hand-to-hand combat between men fighting with fists, rocks and nail-studded batons, has inflamed public opinion in much of India, but the veteran activists Valiyara Bhaskaran and K. Gopi Achari cannot fathom the logic of those trying to reframe China as the enemy of the Indian people.

The pair, both from Kerala, have been promoting people-to-people contacts with China for more than 50 years. They are living reminders of the heyday when India’s ruling Congress party dovetailed with China’s communists before the advent of liberalisation and globalisation.