Are the Indian government, politicians, and patriots more vocal against Pakistan rather than China?

Question

I have a feeling that the Indian government, national institutions, and politicians, in general, are more vocal in the case of anti-Pakistan rhetoric, rather than anti-china rhetoric.

For instance, whenever they had an issue that involved Pakistan, the entire ecosystem seemed to be very loud. On the other hand, they seem to be handling Chinese cases either quietly or trying to hide their failures. The most famous example was PM Modi's denial about Chinese intrusion. One of the later examples was the silence regarding Chin's renaming of villages in Arunachal.

Also, if anyone visits any Twitter handle or YouTube channel of any Indian ex-army official, he will find almost 90% of posts are about Pakistan.

Are the Indian government, politicians, and patriots more vocal against Pakistan rather than China?

If YES, why?

Answer 1

Are the Indian government, politicians, and patriots more vocal against Pakistan rather than China?

Yes.

If YES, why?

While India technically shares a border with both Pakistan and China, India and Pakistan's border is long and close to huge populations on both sides with myriad connections across the border and a long and tumultuous history culminating in the conclusion in 1947 that India and Pakistan couldn't shares a self-governing democratic state together that led to mass population transfers in a violent partition moment that led Hindu's in Pakistan to believe that their lives and livelihoods faced existential peril and led many Muslims in India to believe the same thing.

There are still plenty of people alive today in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and India who grew up on the other side of the partition and relocated in 1947 or at some later date when living on the side that they were on provided untenable.

There are also ongoing territorial disputes between the two countries, especially in Kashmir, that are still unresolved. And, there are plenty of other issues in which they have dealing with each other that can lead to dissatisfaction, from purely cultural ones (like India-Pakistan cricket matches), to substantive policy fights that impact each other (like environmental, mineral, trade, and fishing right disputes).

In contrast, the small border between India and China is in high mountains with barely breathable air where almost no one lives, deep in the peripheries of both countries.

There isn't nearly the volume of relationships that cross this national border, and while there are occasionally shots fired in anger between the countries in that region, the fear of invasion or military interference between the two countries is mutually very low. The direct border based conflicts are fights over nearly vacant land that neither cares much about far from their urban and population cores. They don't have cultural ties to each other close enough for one side to be invested in cultural issues in the other, or a shared history of hundreds of years under a somewhat united administration and a mostly shared national history.

Historically, there has never been major Chinese aggression directed at India except the Chinese conquest of Tibet, which was not India specific and is now a fait accompli, which India is effectively powerless to do anything about at this point.

China does not have many strongly ethnically identifiable ethnic or national interests or economic investments in India that are widely known (e.g. there is not a large Chinese expatriate community in India as there is in many places in Southeast Asia), and there is likewise not a large Indian or even South Asian lowland expatriate community in China.

Answer 2

Yes, Indians tends to express more hostility towards Pakistan than China. The reasons for this are:

Historical Grudges

When colonial rule ended, British India was partitioned into three countries - India, West Pakistan and East Pakistan. This resulted in the largest displacement of humans between these countries in the 20th century, with many Hindus and Sikhs choosing to move to India while many muslims voluntary opted to move to Pakistan.

Unfortunately, during the British colonial rule, the British had deliberately flared communal tensions between Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims to keep Indians from uniting against them. This policy had created many religious fundamentalists in India and Pakistan that wanted to create a theocratic state. During partition these Muslim religious fundamentalists attacked the Hindus and Sikhs who had opted to stay in Pakistan, to force them to move to India, while Hindutva religious fundamentalists did the same against the muslims in India who desired to stay in India. All this resulted in many bloody communal riots on both sides with Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs raping, pillaging and killing people out of hatred or in self-defense. Millions of people died, were forcefully displaced, and 100's of thousands of people arrived penniless facing potential poverty in a country that was already impoverished due to British imperialism.

Partition is central to modern identity in the Indian subcontinent, as the Holocaust is to identity among Jews, branded painfully onto the regional consciousness by memories of almost unimaginable violence ... In 1941, Karachi, designated the first capital of Pakistan, was 47.6 per cent Hindu. Delhi, the capital of independent India, was one-third Muslim. By the end of the decade, almost all the Hindus of Karachi had fled, while two hundred thousand Muslims had been forced out of Delhi. The changes made in a matter of months remain indelible seventy years later. - The Great Divide - the violent legacy of Indian Partition.

India's historians assign blame for this whole tragedy - the partition and the massacre - on Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, (and thus in general to Pakistanis) as it was under his leadership that many Muslim leaders broke away from the freedom movement under Gandhi. While India too had Hindutva religious fundamentalists, Nehru and other leaders of the Indian National Congress had managed to subvert them and form a secular nation. Indians thus tend to minimise and disregard the role of their own religious fundamentalists in this tragedy.

Territorial dispute and Indo-Pak wars

The partition of the Indian subcontinent was done hurriedly. Thus, India and Pakistan still had some unresolved disputes about their territories and boundary. Key among this was the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Long story short, as soon as they became independent, India and Pakistan fought a war due to the dispute over Jammu and Kashmir. In total, India and Pakistan have fought 4 major wars - in 1947, 1965, 1971 and 1999. So every generation of indians, since independence, has grown up amidst some war or conflict with Pakistan. Thus, the idea of Pakistan as the "enemy of India" has become entrenched in every generation.

Terrorism

When Pakistan couldn't militarily defeat India, and found that the west were not willing to aid them against India, Pakistan decided to weaken India by a "thousand cuts" by fostering and supporting terrorism in India. This has further continued to antagonise many Indians against them.

Pakistan sees jihad as a low cost option to bleed India. The security apparatus views terrorism as irregular warfare. Islamabad feels this is the only way to ensure some form of military parity. -  Husain Haqqani, Pakistani diplomat in 2016

Cold War

During the cold war between the superpowers, Pakistan allied with the US and was part of SEATO. India chose to be non-aligned and was a founder of the Non-Aligned Movement. This resulted in political hostility against India from the US in the international arena, which was partly attributed to the Pakistanis too.