Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday claimed that the failure of the Union government’s Make in India initiative had allowed the Chinese military to establish a presence on Indian territory.

“Our Chief of Army Staff has said that the Chinese are inside our territory,” Gandhi said in the Lok Sabha, in an apparent reference to the military stand-off between the two sides at the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh. “This is a fact. The reason China is inside our territory is important.”

The leader of Opposition in the Lower House said that “people think wars are fought between armies and their weapons”.

“But the fact of the matter is that wars are fought by industrial systems,” he said. “China has an industrial system that is far stronger, far bigger than our industrial system. And that is why they have the guts to come inside this country.”

“The reason China is sitting inside the country is because ‘Make in India’ has failed,” Gandhi added.

The Make in India initiative was launched by the Narendra Modi government in September 2014 to encourage companies to assemble products and boost investments in manufacturing in the country.

The comment was made during a debate on the Motion of Thanks to the president’s address.

Gandhi said that the reason the Chinese military was “sitting inside this country is because India is refusing to produce…”.

He added: “…and I’m worried that India is going to give up this [technological and economic] revolution to the Chinese once again... If and when we fight a war with China, we will be fighting with Chinese electric motors, Chinese batteries and Chinese optics and we will be buying Chinese motors, Chinese optics and Chinese batteries.”

Border tensions between India and China escalated in June 2020 when a violent face-off between Indian and Chinese soldiers took place in Ladakh’s Galwan Valley along the Line of Actual Control. It led to the deaths of 20 Indian soldiers. Beijing said that the clash left four of its soldiers dead.

Following this, both countries deployed thousands of troops along with heavy artillery in the region.

Since the Galwan clashes, China and India have held several rounds of military and diplomatic talks to resolve their border standoff. In October, the two countries announced that they had reached a patrolling arrangement along the Line of Actual Control, “leading to the disengagement” of the two militaries in eastern Ladakh.

Army chief Upendra Dwivedi said on January 13 that patrolling and grazing in traditional areas has started in eastern Ladakh’s Demchok and Depsang.

Citing India’s strategic partnership with the United States, Gandhi urged Delhi and Washington DC to collaborate in building a robust industrial system. India plays an important role in global manufacturing because of its cost-effective production capabilities, the Congress MP said. “We can build things that the Americans would never imagine,” he added.

Gandhi also said that India has not been able to tackle the problem of unemployment. “Neither the UPA [Congress-led United Progressive Alliance] government nor today’s NDA [BJP-led National Democratic Alliance] government has given a clear-cut answer to the youth of India about employment,” the Congress leader said.

“I don’t think anybody in this room will disagree with it,” he added.

Gandhi said that while conceptually Make in India was a good idea, Prime Minister Modi had failed, adding that manufacturing had fallen to 12.6% of the gross domestic product today from 15.3% in 2014.

The Bharatiya Janata Party criticised Gandhi, saying that the Congress was responsible for India’s trade deficit with China.

“Rahul Gandhi claimed that the manufacturing sector is behind China, but who is responsible for this?” PTI quoted BJP MP Sambit Patra as saying. “There was a trade deficit of 25%, 25 times, [sic] between India and China between 2004 and 2014, when their government was in power.”