NB Explains | Is "Vibrant Villages Programme", India's huge plan to counter China along border?

On his two-day visit to Arunachal Pradesh, Home Minister Amit Shah will visit the north-eastern state to launch the ‘Vibrant Villages Programme’ in Kibithoo, a border village in Anjaw district of Arunachal Pradesh today amid a border row with China.

 

 

The Modi government has approved the ‘Vibrant Villages Programme’ (VVP) with central components of Rs 4,800 crore including Rs.2,500 crore exclusively for road connectivity for 2022-23 to 2025-26.

 

Vibrant Villages Programme is a centrally sponsored scheme under which 2967 villages in 46 blocks of 19 districts abutting northern border in the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Uttarakhand & Himachal Pradesh and UT of Ladakh have been identified for comprehensive development.

 

In the first phase, 662 villages have been identified for priority on coverage, which includes 455 villages in Arunachal Pradesh.

 

 

The Vibrant Villages Programme will help in improving the quality of life of people living in "identified border villages and encourage people to stay in their native locations" thereby reversing the outmigration from these villages and "adding to security of the border".

 

The district administration with the help of appropriate mechanisms at block and panchayat level will prepare Action Plans for identified village to ensure 100% saturation of central and state schemes. The focus areas of interventions identified for development of villages include road connectivity, drinking water, electricity including solar and wind energy, mobile and internet connectivity, tourist centers, multi-purpose centers and healthcare infrastructure and wellness centers.

 

 

It should be noted that this development comes days after China's "renaming" of 11 places including mountain peaks, rivers and residential areas in Arunachal Pradesh, which it claims to be a part of its territory and calls "South Tibet". However, the Ministry of External Affairs has strongly rejected China's move to rename the places in Arunachal Pradesh saying the northeastern state has been an integral and inalienable part of India.

 

 

Kibithoo is one of the remotest circle headquarters in Arunachal Pradesh. Located at a height of 1,305 metres above sea level, Amit Shah will take a chopper to Kibithoo, which is eleven kilometres south of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and 40 kilometres west of the tri-junction between India, Myanmar and CoT.

 

Kibithoo saw the 1962 India-China war. It was overrun by Chinese troops in the first phase (20 to 28 October) of the 1962 war. Notably, it is one of the five officially agreed Border Personnel Meeting points between the Indian Army and the People's Liberation Army of China for regular consultations and interactions to defuse stand-offs.

 

 

The VVP is India’s response to the 628 model ‘xiaokang’ (moderately well-off) villages built by China along the LAC in China-occupied Tibet (CoT). It started building these villages, which have a dual civilian-military use, in 2017 and completed them in 2021 at a cost of a whopping Rs 3.76 lakh crore.

 

Experts says that this move by the Indian government will to counter aggression because to build xiaokang villages, China is making the mainland Han Chinese to settle down in these villages and also to counter the hostility of the local Tibetans, who look upon the Chinese as ‘brutal occupiers’. Apart from this, China wants ethnic cleansing of the indigenous population in this way in Tibet to keep on eye on pro-Dalai Lama followers.

 

It is pertinent to mention that to make Han Chinese settle down in these villages is not a good move as they are not used to the harsh geographical and climatic conditions in the Himalayan heights along the LAC.

 

However, unlike China, India has been consistently furthering its policy on protecting and promoting distinct tribal identities, their language and culture and taking effective steps to bring them to the forefront.