Line of Actual Control

WHY IN NEWS?

Army chief Gen. M.M. Naravane has said that maintaining peace and tranquility on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China can set the stage for an eventual solution to the border issue.

ABOUT LAC

• The Line of Actual Control (LAC) is a demarcation line that separates Indian-controlled territory from Chinese-controlled territory in the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, formed after the 1962 war.
• There are two common ways in which the term "Line of Actual Control" is used.
• In the narrow sense, it refers only to the line of control in the western sector of the borderland between the two countries.
• In the wider sense, it can be used to refer to both the western line of control and the MacMahon Line, in which sense it is the effective border between India and the People's Republic of China (PRC).
• The entire Sino-Indian border (including the western LAC, the small undisputed section in the centre, and the MacMahon Line in the east) is 4,056 km (2,520 mi) long and traverses one Indian union territory - Ladakh and four Indian states: Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh.
• On the Chinese side, the line traverses the Tibet Autonomous Region.

ORIGIN OF LAC

• The demarcation existed as the informal cease-fire line between India and China after the 1962 war until 1993, when its existence was officially accepted as the 'Line of Actual Control' in a bilateral agreement.
• But it is said that the Chinese Prime Minister Zhou Enlai used the phrase in a letter addressed to Indian Prime Minister Nehru dated October 24, 1959.
• In a letter dated November 7, Zhou told Nehru that the LAC consisted of "the so-called McMahon Line in the east and the line up to which each side exercises actual control in the west".

Prelims Question

Q. Line of actual control forms the effective boundary between India and which of the following countries?
a. Afghanistan
b. Pakistan
c. Bangladesh
d. China

Answer to the Prelims Question