Word: assam
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Whatever the reason for the Chinese attack in the east, the Indians have good cause for alarm. South of the NEFA lies Assam, with its oil reserves and potential hydroelectric sites. This land-locked area is east of East Pakistan, and is connected to the rest of India by a neck of land which in one place is only about 20 miles wide. If the Indians cannot stop a Chinese advance through the Himalayas, they cannot hope to stop it once it reaches the plains. From there, the Chinese could drive on to East Pakistan and close off Assam...
This is not to say that the Chinese necessarily intend to seize Assam in the current military operation. Even if they merely occupied the area which they now claim, they would be in a position, at any time, to resume their advance. There is no doubt why, aside from any questions of the legality of the McMahon Line, India refuses to accept Chinese claims in this area...
...Chinese attack in the east was intended to divert Indian attention from Ladakh, it has failed miserably. The threat to Assam has focused Indian attention on its border problems with China and, if anything, increased the Indians' determination not to accept Chinese occupation of Ladakh. On the other hand, the attacks may be designed to slow up Indian economic development or to demonstrate that China, in comparison with Russia, is an aggressive fighter for socialism. Finally, the Chinese may, indeed hope to annex Assam. Chou's latest message to Nehru, however, which seems to offer a Chinese withdrawal...
Greedy Banyas. The entire region lay open to the Chinese as far as Tezpur on the Brahmaputra, 100 miles from Towang. Indian planters who had displayed unruffled British calm began shipping their families south. Forty-five U.S. Baptist missionaries in eastern Assam began to pull out, turning over mission schools and hospitals to Indian assistants. Some imported food was in short supply, and India's banyas (village shopkeepers) took advantage of the situation to boost prices. The evidence of the Chinese advance came, oddly enough, from transistor radios. At first it was possible to tune in on Indian army...
...DELHI, India, Oct. 27-A 10,000-man Red Chinese invasion force was reported driving down a jeep trail from Towang today in a possible effort to break through the eastern Himalayas into India's thickly populated plains of Assam...