Dividing Lines

India and China – the inheritors of two ancient civilizations and aeons of neighbourly bonds cemented by Buddhism and the bridge-building missions of Fa-Hien, Huen Tsang, Tagore and Kotnis – never witnessed strife between themselves till the fateful autumn of 1962, when they fought a short but bitter border war on the desolate heights of the Himalayas. Mutual suspicion and sporadic face-offs have ever since bedevilled relations between the two Asian giants, based on their still-unsettled borders