Though Brahma chelani is a hawk and his opinions are always in complaint of GOI which is lesser than his expectation. However unless we have undeclared bargaining chip somewhere in form of big strategic peace of land awas where chinese have entered they are not going back. Depsang has to be vacated before it becomes defacto border. Hope army have some plans up heir sleeves if talks fail.
Bramha Chellany's write up, in spite of his reputation of being a hwak, is spot on so far as Foreign Policy culture in India is concerned.
Every Prime Minister is India starting from Nehru has been his own Foreign Minister. Leave aside his understanding of India, all PMs have been trying to prove that they understand the world better than all others. Be it India Gandhi who created Tamil Terrorists or her son Rajiv Gandhi who sent in IPKF to dismantle what Indira created, be in Morarji Desai, or Gujral everyone fucked around with Indian national interest as if they were the best guardians of it.
Foreign Office mandarins just jump in to fulfill all the wishfulness of the power that be rather than act as an institution of continuity and stability. The same has been the case with India's intelligence establishment. Proximity to Power, personal indulgence has been the norm with MEA and intelligence bureaucrats rather than an aberration.
Even the institutions like Nationa Security Council, Joint intelligence Centers have failed to provide stability and continuity in managing National Security issues. Armed forces have been deliberately kept out being not manageable politically ( not subject to whims and fancies of politicians and bureaucrats).
Indian Foreign policy has been one of the biggest failures areas of independent India with a series of managed failures right from partition time giving a disproportionate share to Pakistan. Every neighbour of India is unmanageable working against Indian interests. China did not have to do much. Our MEA and intelligence agencies actively worked for De- Hinduisation of Nepal because of the Pseudo Parsi/ Muslim/Christine King and Queen of India. China simply exploited the opportunity.
When MEA's main foreign policy objectives become garnering Muslim votes for the ruling party, what more one expects more MEA than giving them everything including Hazipir, 98000 POW, all waters, money and even Siachin, 370 for Kashmir.
India does need second independence - independence from the lanky bureaucrats, independence from "committed bureaucracy" - that is committed to the perpetuation of one party and one ideology and independence from Darbari educationists and anti-national ideology of Communism.
Nation-building is too serious a business to be left to Vote bank politicians and bureaucrats.