So the comparison is not about which country has the support of its citizens, but rather how well can the military in the front line be supplied... and in this case, replying on local villagers is just kind of sad. I know that the PLA was supplied in this exact manner during the Chinese Civil War, but China back then was not industrialized at all, and that was the only way possible (to have hundreds of thousands of local villagers sending supplies to the Florentine in small carts and cattle). But India today still rely on local villagers to carry up some of the supplies, it really is nothing to be proud off.... Unless they can beat China with the villagers as their supply line...
Yes have local support is always a plus point. The PLA won the unequal struggle on the back of enormous support of it's people. One wouldn't want to argue with that.
But I think here the context slightly different. It is really to contrast the backwardness of India's logistics. Not necessary on the use of "locals".
The use of these "locals" was stated by Indian nationalists as to why they are using "locals" to resupply their troops. The message was they are providing work for the local Tibetans, and in any case these local Tibetans are glad to do it because they hated the Chinese for "occupying their land".
Of course , hide away the real reasons for using the "locals" is because their logistics are lacking to say the least.
So to hide their deficiencies, the nationalists dreamt up this using local to help their economy and help them get back at the Chinese. The propaganda is strong with the Indians.