Bharat Rakshak

Had it not been Nehru, but rather EL more military-minded man who occupied the post of prime minister in late October 1959, a priority program to prepare I n d i a eventually to f i g h t would have been started. In the course of two months, India had been humiliated by two military defeats *and the public and government officials had been aroused to anger against the nation's enemy as never before in its short history , But Nehru insisted that war with China was out of the question, and apparently did not think the challenge justified the economic burden of increased military spending. A man of different temperament and background, no less aware of the hard facts of Indian military inferiority , might nevertheless have felt that the country must be mobilized to prepare for long due military revenge against the Chinese at all costs. Guts and action , not words, was the military man's attitude in late October. This was not Nehru's way, however, and his authority and prestige in the country (although questioned more extensively than ever before) were still sufficiently great to reject preparedness for an eventual recourse to arms.

Went through one of the three pdfs and I am not really sure if all of it is credible . Despite most of the stuff about Nehru being more or less along expected lines , the article has a tenor about it in which virtually the entire blame is shifted on the Indians for incompetent political policies . I find it hard to believe that Nehru committed all his blunders just because of pressure from " amateur " opposition members - some of them just journos they say...

Basically its a pretty damming revelation and it certainly is not fun to read it . Wonder whats changed in the corridors of power today ? Laymans impression doesn't make me feel that MMS has anymore spine than Nehru to tackle similar situations today.

Kartman,
Nehru, for all his bluster about democracy/anti-colonialism/power-to-the-people, was extremely dictatorial in his functioning.

In September {1950}, the Communist radio asserted that Tibet was a part of China and that "the British and American imperialists and their running dog Nehru are now plotting a coup in Lhasa for the annexation of Tibet". I asked Nehru for his comments and he told me this was the Communist Chinese reaction to his permitting a Kuomintang mission to pass through India. He said he would not quarrel with China over Tibet. He would not take over Curzon's role and establish Indian influence in Lhasa. Patel and Prasad, to whom I spoke later, reacted differently. They felt Tibet was India's northernmost outpost in the Himalayas and that the Communist radio comment was a danger signal which New Delhi must heed

Their basic view seem to have been: if Nehru has be- come less conciliatory and moved t othe "right,"the real political cause
is a voluntary s h i f t by Nehru himself-- by his own top advisers) which has been encouraged by the U.S. Even
i f the alternate possibility seriously suggested it- self-e.g. that Chinese political and military actions caused the change i n
Nehru's thinking about Peiping's intentions--it seem to hsve been rejected. For it is logically neater, less complex, indeed more inwardly self-assuring t o reject their actions as the cause and see Nehru as the arch enemy because of h i s- own change in attitude toward China.

As for considering India as a major m i l i t a r y threat, the Chinese leaders seem to have acted throughout the period BY though it were not, and as though they could handle It when it became one.
They may have had temporary misgivings, feeling at times that he might swing India unequivocally toward the West and into the U.S.
t f c p f t ,but Nehru's f o r n f u l reaffimma- tions of his policy of non-alignment may have dispelled these fears.
Nevertheless, his growing distrust of the Chinese leaders led then. in turn'to view him as a two-faced neutral
--one who professes neutralism generally but is anti-Chinese on key issues, the definition of a real neutral being one who
opposes no Chinese policies, like Sihanouk. Nehru, therefore, was no longer China's "friend."

Be was, of course, still better than the "rightist" leaders in India, and the Chinese hoped that by calling for negotiations on
the border dispute they could p u l lhim back from the swing to the right. By fall 1959, the Chinese leaders had decided t oswitch from a policy of no negotiations on an overall border settle- ment, coasting along on the basis of the existing status quo, t oone of preliminary iscussions w i t ha view to an eventual overall settlement The respective Chinese and Indian posi- tions regarding such a prospective settlement nd the prelimin- ary discussions which took place i n1960 w i l lbe discussed in Section I1 of t h i s paper.

http://www.foia.cia.gov/cpe.asp

The 147 documents in this collection, amounting to over 11,000 pages of analysis, were written between 1953 and 1973


7. The Sino-Indian Border Dispute Section 1: 1950-59 2-Mar-63
http://www.foia.cia.gov/CPE/POLO/polo-07.pdf

8. The Sino-Indian Border Dispute Section 2: 1959-61 19-Aug-63
http://www.foia.cia.gov/CPE/POLO/polo-08.pdf

9. The Sino-Indian Border Dispute Section 3: 1961-62
http://www.foia.cia.gov/CPE/POLO/polo-09.pdf

Is there a realistic apparisal of the US growing near to India during that period which could have triggered the PRC wariness? I mean there were many US citizens who acted as interlocutors for the Dalai Lama issue. And what was PRC view of the First Five year plan of India?

One thing I know is most of whats written about JLN is what is seen. There is no analysis as to what was he doing and why?
----------------

I think the timing of the release of the Indian related parts is psy-ops.

It looks like Zhou made deep study of Nehru, Indian political system and tendency of Nehru to ask for help from US during crisis. And looks like he got instruction from outside sources for these subjects ( Uncle?)

Tibet campaign is a overt operation of China with a covert helping hand of US. They had common goals of making sure that Soviets do not take over Tibet.

The confidence of China in doing what it was doing in Tibet can comeup only with a strong support of mafia group.

I think the timing of the release of the Indian related parts is psy-ops.

Acharya, may be I am not wise, either educate or at least move beyond these innuendos.

Okay, I see some contradiction in the claims being made about these documents.

So which claim are the CIA documents asserting? India the naive, or India the belligerent? Are they asserting that India was both naively romantic and also belligerently hardline all at the same time?

Are conflicting spin-doctors attempting to draw conclusions that the CIA documents don't support?

Read the connection of Divinity school, Mao and George Marshall visit to China before the communist CPC victory in China.
Also read the history of CPC and Chaing Kai Shek relationship with US.

Read Kissinger book - My WHite House years . His contact with China before 1972 is recorded clearly.

Dont blame other if you have not read all the different view point published in the last 50 years.

India China war was not an isolated war. It was connected to Soviet US - Cuban crisis and US CHina relationship.

Also one more point.
If you think that Soviet revolution in Russia by Lenin was an independent revolution then you are way behind. Read the funding of Lenin by the Jewish bankers in London to understand the real history.

If you are the expert, who has figured the seemingly co-related events, I am asking for the expert to lay it out to the layman in a language the layman can understand.

ShauryaT: I thought this would be the assessment. But to me it's one thing to misread the enemy's capabilities, and another thing to misread the enemy's intent. So I'm not disputing that we underestimated PLA capabilities,

but the contradiction I see is that Indian leadership is being accused of having been naive about Chinese intent (ie. accepting Chinese explanations that their maps would be corrected), while on the other hand it is being accused of taking a hard line towards the Chinese.

Are you saying that we did a Musharraf? Just as Musharraf took an aggressive posture in attacking Kargil and underestimated Indian resolve to fight back, then we similarly took an aggressive posture and underestimated the Chinese will to fight?

If that's the case, then who was the Musharraf on our side? Which guys were the "hawks"?

Well, China was well on its way to do what it wanted, i.e: build the road through Aksai Chin ---- that by itself should have spoken volumes on chinese intent and what would it take to wrest control of Aksai Chin back from the Chinese. Instead, paltry forward parties was the response - and hence the belligerence tag. IOW: The idea that India was the first to escalate the issue to a dispute to be settled through the force of arms. (PS: I am not justifying the tag but that is the view)

A little different. Nehru's hope was to call the chinese bluff, only to find that they were not bluffing.

No prize for guessing who the Musharraf was. As for the Hawks - members of the Swatantrata party and some in the Congress too but it did not matter - Nehru was able to rough shod over all of them.

Acharya, your theory of the Americans encouraging the Chinese takeover of Tibet and wanting to keep the Soviets out of there makes perfect sense

one issue: Indo-US co-operation directed against China spiralled to new zeniths after the 1962 war - to not only include Chinese activities in Tibet, supporting the Tibetan government in exile, the SSB, monitoring Chinese nuclear activities from the Indian Himalayas - but then all of a sudden hit a roadbloack in 1972.

The 1971 war of Bangladesh liberation was too inconsequential for the US to switch it's allegiance to the Chinese side following the Nixon visit.

Well, that last line sounds like the Chinese were already maneuvering to settle the dispute through force of arms. Did they play a Gulf of Tonkin on us?

Who was the Musharraf on our side?

Our intent did not matter. They had a read of our capabilities and knew that they had the upper hand.

The guy who signs the check - ultimately.

No, really, the quotes I'm seeing above cite a reluctant Nehru being dragged to war by some "hawks" -- so I want to know who were the hawks dragging Nehru to war. As you've said, Swatantra didn't amount to a hill of beans, so who had the power to drag Nehru towards war? Don't tell me Nehru was scared of the army, like Nawaz was.

That is the voice of the Indian nation, which no longer could be suppressed, once the matter was out in the public and the knowledge that China would not budge. So include every other SOB, who demanded action, once the gross violations of claimed Indian territory were a public matter.

Read the connection of Divinity school, Mao and George Marshall visit to China before the communist CPC victory in China.
Also read the history of CPC and Chaing Kai Shek relationship with US.
Read Kissinger book - My WHite House years . His contact with China before 1972 is recorded clearly.

Acharya, your theory of the Americans encouraging the Chinese takeover of Tibet and wanting to keep the Soviets out of there makes perfect sense as the US was the inheritor of maintaining the old British world order following the demise of the British empire -


except for one issue: Indo-US co-operation directed against China spiralled to new zeniths after the 1962 war - to not only include Chinese activities in Tibet, supporting the Tibetan government in exile, the SSB, monitoring Chinese nuclear activities from the Indian Himalayas - but then all of a sudden hit a roadbloack in 1972.

What can be their aim?