Chimera

Of course, New-Delhi was not entirely blind to the plight of the Tibetans. And while the government could hardly provoke war with China for their cause, they were willing to look the other way as the Tibetans began gathering covert support across their population in India for manpower and finances. The threshold that had not been crossed was with regard to supplying the Tibetans with arms. At least, not visibly anyway…

There were many in the corridors of power in the Indian capital who wished to see China brought to its knees over this affair. 1962 had not been forgotten. Neither had the scars gone away. But the question remained: how to proceed? Arming the Tibetans was a start, but to what end? Unless the Indian government went on a massive arming initiative, the rebellion would sputter and spark but would die a cold death in the end. As it had in 1959. The average Tibetan rebel, despite his martial heritage and build, was not trained for the intricacies of modern combat. And unlike 1959, when the PLA had been little more than a people’s army, the current army was a mature and modern force. So what else could be done? After several meetings between senior officials in the Indian foreign intelligence agency and the secretive strategic operations cell of the Department of Defense within the Ministry of Defense, it had been decided that China would be made to bleed as much as possible while the rebellion lasted. They would be forced into a situation where their control over Tibet would seem tenuous and perhaps force them into more compromising terms with India.

Special teams of soldiers would be sent inside Tibet disguised as Tibetan rebels and would wage covert war alongside them against PLA forces. The soldiers would be of Tibetan ethnicity for the most part and would speak the language to allow them to merge within the locals. But where would such soldiers come from? The Special Frontier Force, or SFF, trained from Tibetan refugees who had fled to India over the years, had become too public over the years thanks to their employment in various operations and wars. They were too closely watched by the Chinese and posed a security threat to the entire objective. Instead, the men had been gleaned from other sources and regular units of the newly formed Indian Special Operations Command, or SOCOM, as it was called. They had been covertly trained over the year and were armed and equipped for combat. And having entered Tibet within a few months of the start of the initial protests, were now waging covert war against the PLA regular forces deployed in the region.

Their entire objective depended on secrecy and deniability. The Indian intelligence services had ensured that these men had been removed from all records and for all intents and purposes had been given Tibetan pseudo-identities. Their ranks prior to their selection no longer applied, even though military protocols were applied within the units. They were being supported by intelligence data and electronic assets as and when they could be diverted without drawing too much attention within the Indian Army echelons. If the planners within the DOD were not careful, they could trigger war with China and they knew it.

Hell… Gephel thought. All it would take is one mistake. Just one…

But at some dark, deep inner level, he wondered whether that was necessarily a bad thing? Gephel came from a long line of Tibetan generations before his grandparents had rushed along with thousands of others from Gyantse in Tibet, their original hometown, to India via Nepal during the rebellion of 1959. He had heard the stories countless times from his parents, who had been toddlers when they had arrived to welcoming hands in India. The Red-Cross gave them food and shelter, and gave Gephel a home. He had considered himself and his future generations in debt of this country ever since. Just like his parents had taught him to do. So when he had applied for the Indian Army and was denied, only to be taken up on that offer by the RAW, he had felt no qualms in offering his services to go back across the Himalayas numerous times on very high risk intelligence missions over his career. He had been trained along the lines of the Indian Paratroopers and had been allowed to join the Army by a grateful RAW Director after his repeated requests to do so.

And he had done well. He had risen to the ranks of Lieutenant-Colonel within the army under what his peers considered to be mysterious circumstances. But everybody left him alone once they realized his background through rumors. He hated the looks of suspicion from the senior commanders he worked with in SOCOM once they all had a chance to look at his career-service-vitae. So in a way it had given him pleasure when the RAW operations officers had dropped by his office a few months ago about taking part in the upcoming plans for Tibet.