ABSTRACT

In 1962, India went to war with China over a piece of disputed territory up in the Himalayas. I was in high school at the time and impressionable enough to be swept away by the patriotic fervour. Our cause was right, we believed, because the territory in question was clearly ours: wasn’t there a McMahon Line, drawn on a map solemnly signed in 1914 by representatives of the governments of British India and Republican China? What greater proof did one need to support our claim? Of course, the military campaign went disastrously for India and, along with millions of my compatriots, I smarted under the national humiliation. Later, when the scales of adolescence fell from my eyes, I realized we had been fighting not over territory – after all, the land in question was up in the mountains and completely uninhabited – but over its representation. We had been fighting over maps. The image wielded has far greater power over our imaginations and passions than the real thing.