Inder Malhotra's series on 1962 war

Anand K · Post by **Anand K** » 06 Nov 2013 09:51

Nehru refused to accept the ceasefire and technically India is still at war with China. India did not accept the ceasefire. This was followed by a unanimous resolution in Parliament in November 1962 that India must take back its territory.

There's a plaque in the Northern Command HQ with a promise to do exactly this right? (And IIRC the Pakis have one in 'Pindi HQ also

) I remember reading about this right here in BRF.... somebody confirm this please?
Anyway, besides Mao's personal khulji, the collective loss of face angle is important. You know, the 1961 report part - I can almost picture the numerous annotations, the crisp and incisive Wren & Martin language on starchy legal size hard copy, CCed all the way from U Thant to Sukarno's 8th wife..... with a "Messrs. PRC, we expect you to do the needful and revert back to us." tailpiece.

Anyone got this piece archived somewhere?

PS: IIRC Gen. Niranjan Prasad was one of the commanders who failed leading the 4th Division in Namka Chu and also in our advance to Lahore in '65. Had to be removed from active command in both occasions. Wonder if he was not provided enough resources or was plain unlucky or was feckless. Wonder what happened to him after '65.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 06 Nov 2013 10:10

He retired unlike the politicians.

KrishnaK · Post by **KrishnaK** » 06 Nov 2013 10:34

ramana wrote:He retired unlike the politicians.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 28 Jan 2014 03:57

ramana wrote:Rohitvats, I don't call it naivety and foolishness. It was their perception at that time. If you do root cause analysis (RCA) you will find that there are many confusing events and small unit actions going on which masked the Chinese intents. In other words strategic deception was going on in addition to many other factors for surprise. Looking back we can trace a straight path that points to human factors that caused the surprise. This is called hind sight bias and makes things crystal clear in the rear view mirror.

Also mirroring was going on i.e. the Indian side looked at the many events and explained it in terms of what they had already seen in the past. Don't forget IB is the grand daddy of the Great Game having been setup by Col Sleeman of Thuggee fame. So to them all these road building, Chinese posing as Tibetian lamas, building outposts etc. all look like small moves in the Great Game. So the response was equal which was the Forward Posts policy. What they were not knowing was the Chinese massing troops to attack. You can see by the many locations of the attack that it was pre-planned and needed a pretext and got one.

In addition the West didn't want it to go out o control and advised non use of IAF which was exactly the IB position also.

X-Post that confirms my Great Game thesis on the Forward Posts policy.

Most likely one of B Ramangaru's last articles in SAAG

28 April 2013:

Leh:Those Magnificient Kaoboys on Mules

gandharva · Post by **gandharva** » 17 Mar 2014 22:19

Journo Neville Maxwell has posted the Henderson Brooks Report on the 1962 India-China war on his blog

http://nevillemaxwell.com/Blog%20Posts/ ... tross.html

http://www.nevillemaxwell.com/TopSecretdocuments.pdf

Anand K · Post by **Anand K** » 18 Mar 2014 07:33

gandharva wrote:Journo Neville Maxwell has posted the Henderson Brooks Report on the 1962 India-China war on his blog

http://nevillemaxwell.com/Blog%20Posts/ ... tross.html

http://www.nevillemaxwell.com/TopSecretdocuments.pdf

Cannot download. I guess Ramnarayanan Goldstein took it down.

Tell me you have already d/led it - and please email to albuzzer at yahoo dot com? Thanks!

Maxwell is a commie a$$ but the report should be dynamite.

Yagnasri · Post by **Yagnasri** » 18 Mar 2014 08:19

also to rlnarayanarao@gmail.com please. I am planing to write something on China soon.

Sanku · Post by **Sanku** » 18 Mar 2014 11:22

Report blaming Nehru for India's defeat in 1962 war made public

New Delhi: A large section of the still classified Henderson Brooks Report which indicts former Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru and top government officials for India's failure in the 1962-Sino Indian war has been made public.
The report on the 1962 Sino-Indian War has been uploaded on the internet by an Australian journalist Neville Maxwell. Maxwell was a war correspondent during the 1962- Sino Indian war. The report supposedly contains details of India's humiliating defeat at the hand of China.
....................
The request for the report to be declassified had earlier been made by Bharatiya Janata Party president Rajnath Singh. Although Defence Minister AK Antony in Parliament had stated that the report could not be made public as it contains sensitive information and also because the contents of the report had current operational value.
The report on the war was submitted in 1963. Maxwell has stated that the reason for not making the report public must be "political, indeed partisan and probably even familial," he had said in an explanatory note on his website.

gandharva · Post by **gandharva** » 18 Mar 2014 16:18

Anand K wrote:Journo Neville Maxwell has posted the Henderson Brooks Report on the 1962 India-China war on his blog

http://nevillemaxwell.com/Blog%20Posts/ ... tross.html

http://www.nevillemaxwell.com/TopSecretdocuments.pdf
Cannot download. I guess Ramnarayanan Goldstein took it down.
Tell me you have already d/led it - and please email to albuzzer at yahoo dot com? Thanks!

Maxwell is a commie a$$ but the report should be dynamite.

Here is new and faster link

http://www.indiandefencereview.com/wp-c ... ments2.pdf

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 18 Mar 2014 17:31

According to TV channels,Nehru was responsible for our '62 defeat.No great revelation that! The first mistake was to refuse the UNSC seat offered to us by the US,but moralistic Nehru wanted it to be given to China.His patronising attitude towards the Chinese and Mao ,second mistake. Third mistake to "sabre rattle" without having a sword in his scabbard ,metaphorically speaking,ordering an il-equipped Indian Army to fight in the snow covered Himalayas without even boots,and the last one,after the sh*t hit the fan,not realising that he had a weapon in hand,not using the IAF when it could've stopped the Chinese in their tracks.

Rahulji and his UPA,"Useless Party of A*seholes",have left us in a similar precarious situ of weakness.No ammo,arty,etc.,etc.The Dear Lord forbid that there are no surprises for us this year, before and after the elections.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 18 Mar 2014 21:36

Philip, Yes mistakes were made. the UNSC refusal was to ward of PRC enemity which came anyhow. Mao had a inferiority complex and mistook Nehru's solitictious attitude as patronizing. This mistake was the major one. However please read Rudyard Kipling's Kim. The NEFA small unit patrols were from the NWFP playbook which was backed with large expeditionary forces in India. Only in NEFA there were no large forces to back up the patrols. Unfortunately the British emptied the sterling reserves which could have paid for the large forces. Hence he had to cut the forces to pay for development and maintain bluster. So he was fighting with a knife where guns were in play.
The big picture is PRC realized India was not its opposition and moved away from Soviet Union and that finally brought the latter down ~30 years later to the year.

----

Atleast now GOI should find out how the H-B report was given to Maxwell atleast in memory of the fallen soldiers.

There are notations in on the scanned pdf with highlights and addedd missing words.

Varoon Shekhar · Post by **Varoon Shekhar** » 19 Mar 2014 07:38

Anand K wrote:
gandharva wrote:Journo Neville Maxwell has posted the Henderson Brooks Report on the 1962 India-China war on his blog
...

Maxwell is a commie a$$ but the report should be dynamite.

I've heard this claim many times, but to what degree is it true? If Maxwell is a commie, why then do we never hear him strongly denounce NATO, the British, Pakistan, Australia( his native land) and European colonialism in general? He really should be raving at them, and calling them oppressors, but he doesn't. His worst bile is saved for India.

Because Maxwell is simply anti-India, and shares that British dislike and resentment of India for ending the empire. He doesn't want to see India become a power centre and make its progressive influence felt. He's just fine with the idea of China extending its own power, because he's comfortable with the idea of an oligarchy dominating the world. The other possibility is that he's simply a passionate Sinophile. But not a communist.

A true communist is pro-worker and pro-peasant. To the extent that he criticises countries like India, it is because he sees them as arms of the global capitalist empire employed to suppress, ultimately, worker and peasant rights and freedoms. India is just a link in the chain of capitalism, and not even a very strong one. So communists globally have not spiritedly attacked India, because they view it as on the periphery of global capitalism. One branch of communists("International Socialists"), more socialist than communist, actually supported India vis-a-vis China in the post 1970's world, because they felt that China was compromising too much with global imperialism and capitalism. Maxwell hardly fits in with this world view. He's criticised India all along, pretty consistently, and been quite sympathetic to Pakistan, when there's a question of a dispute between the two countries. This smacks much more of geo-politics and geo-strategy, than of being pro-worker and pro-farmer.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 19 Mar 2014 08:07

varoon to me he is brutish turd.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 20 Mar 2014 07:50

LOL. But a sad ironic LOL

If a country has weak indecisive leaders who trust other nations we simply get fcued

Makes sad reading. I was a little boy. My mother explained that the Chinese are trying to capture the HImalayas.

member_28502 · Post by **member_28502** » 20 Mar 2014 09:32

My mother told me that Chinese PM visited India to eat Idly Wads instead of cockroaches and wanted the Indian territory to grow them

There were programs on AIR like Indiaand the dragon
NDF were raised and gold was donated to buy arms

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 20 Mar 2014 10:01

shiv wrote:

As far as I can tell the above image says:

1. Nov 1950: India says China good country
2. Dec 1950: Nehru says China should be let into UN
3. May 1951 :China grabs Tibet
4. May 1954 : India says India-China bhai-bhai ("brother-brother")
5. Feb 1955: India says China has rights over Taiwan
6. 1955-1961: China aggressively claims Indian territory. India whines
7. 1962: China starts kicking somnolent Indian ass. Nehru does not know what hit him. Someone else dies instead.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 20 Mar 2014 20:24

One aspect we dont understand is why the Chinese claimed Indian territory when India already recognised China's rights over Tibet and Taiwan.There is hidden play we dont understand.

H-B Report (H-BR) starts the timeline from mid 1959. His Holiness DL trekked to India in March 1959 but Chinese claimes pre-date that by exactly four years.

Again GOI had a different perception of China than a realistic one. On the other hand thanks to the denuded Treasury and the woeful underdevelopment, having cut the military down they couldnt have done much.

We don't know what assurances they were getting from the Old Lion and the Eagle.

Sachin · Post by **Sachin** » 20 Mar 2014 21:41

Folks... do not know if this has been debated before. The timing for the leakage of Neville-Maxwell reports at this point (when elections are near), seems to be a good move (What an Idea Sir-ji, No Uloo banawe..). These reports for sure would be a blow to our Gandhi-Nehru clan.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 20 Mar 2014 21:55

Sachin wrote:Folks... do not know if this has been debated before. The timing for the leakage of Neville-Maxwell reports at this point (when elections are near), seems to be a good move (What an Idea Sir-ji, No Uloo banawe..). These reports for sure would be a blow to our Gandhi-Nehru clan.

But who wants to do that.
If he intention is to damage the Indian political system then it is a grave threat. INC is party of India and it will be needed for the country. Even in the opposition. But why would media cover it in a big way to damage India, Indian history and Indian image at this time.
It can only be a group which wants to damage India inside the core.

No country allows foreign interest to run campaigns like this against its own parties. Indians have to do their debate inside India and cannot allow any foreign interest to bad mouth India and Indians

But this group seems to know when to do the damage, Seems it is more like a inte l agencies which has decades of knowledge about India and Indian history including 1962. There are only few agencies which know India deeper. One of them is the British one. Maxwell may be connected to them and these guys may be the culprit in this.

Sanku · Post by **Sanku** » 20 Mar 2014 21:56

ramana wrote:One aspect we dont understand is why the Chinese claimed Indian territory when India already recognised China's rights over Tibet and Taiwan.There is hidden play we dont understand.

The report covers it, there was a HUGE mismatch in understanding of the line within India itself, at numerous points of time, different messages were sent to IA regarding our claims at different points of time. The ground situation, the maps, the historical basis of local people on which McMohan line (watershed principal).

In fact, it appears (still re-reading the report) -- that in Aksai Chin area, there was no real difference between what Chinese claimed and went up to, and what we thought our line was then.

This status-quo/balance was disturbed by the forward policy -- the question essentially is, why did the position of GoI w.r.t. lines change so late.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 20 Mar 2014 22:18

Sanku, Plese read it H-B R again. Its sphere is only the Army formation that were at the brunt of the attack. Army HQ, MoD and Cabinet are out of scope. So its a guided/limited review. It helped to reorganize the Army and weed out bad officers.The advanteages can be seen in 1965.

I suggest we dont know everything.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 20 Mar 2014 22:25

ramana wrote:One aspect we dont understand is why the Chinese claimed Indian territory when India already recognised China's rights over Tibet and Taiwan.There is hidden play we dont understand.

H-B Report (H-BR) starts the timeline from mid 1959. His Holiness DL trekked to India in March 1959 but Chinese claimes pre-date that by exactly four years.

This is the hand of the retreating British Empire which has cast a shadow on Indian state. We need to remove all these constraints.

Sanku · Post by **Sanku** » 21 Mar 2014 08:57

ramana wrote:Sanku, Plese read it H-B R again. Its sphere is only the Army formation that were at the brunt of the attack. Army HQ, MoD and Cabinet are out of scope. So its a guided/limited review. It helped to reorganize the Army and weed out bad officers.The advanteages can be seen in 1965.

I suggest we dont know everything.

Ramana -- what I said, about borders, is discussed in HBR very much in context of the Army formations that were at the front that bore the brunt of attack.

For example, while choosing where to situate the Dhola post, the report indicates the frantic back and forth between the units at front/division, the Eastern command, and the AHQ.

Similarly in Ladhakh the report dwells on the communication between the formations and HQ in deciding where the claims where and what should be protected, and what was to be defined as forward.

So while I fully agree that we dont know everything, I am only sharing what I gleaned from my reading.

rohitvats · Post by **rohitvats** » 21 Mar 2014 10:57

The coveting of Indian territory - especially the Aksai Chin area - was more from strategic requirement of the Chinese to build the Xinjiang-Tibet highway than anything else. All their claims of boundary position in Ladakh were thereafter made with the express purpose of safeguarding their infrastructure. Historical claims were invented and these were propagated by Chinese apologists abroad and in India.

The tragedy of the situation is that foreigners like Neville Maxwell and Indian apologists like Noorani have argued in favor of China's historic possession of land in Aksai Chin and how we were wrong to challenge this claim. Facts and information have been selectively quoted and presented to build a case of Indian intransigence.

People like Noorani have no shame in stating that they explored the boundary issue from the premise that Indians 'inherited' India from Britishers (as against Independence - power was transferred as against grant of independence) and hence, all the treaties and agreements made by them needed to be honored by India and GOI howsoever detrimental to our cause - he simply does not present information about how Britishers agreed on some of these treaties like boundary in Ladakh solely based on their strategic and political requirements and not on the historic rights of Kingdom of J&K. This when ample documented evidence exists of British perfidy and has been presented by other authors.

Sanku · Post by **Sanku** » 21 Mar 2014 11:26

^^^ The Chinese position is quite clear, they will claim what they can, when they can and as they can.

I dont understand why GoI was behaving so heedlessly.

rohitvats · Post by **rohitvats** » 21 Mar 2014 14:13

Ajai Shukla's articles on HB-B Report are quite pompous and full of innuendos...instead of doing some sort of critical analysis he quotes from blogpost by Neville Maxwell and does a hatchet job of it...one was hoping that he brings his professional military training to bear on the subject to address the issue in a more deeper manner. Alas!

harbans · Post by **harbans** » 21 Mar 2014 15:15

Everyone is blindly criticizing Nehru's Forward Policy. Fact is it is the only sensible thing he did. Everything prior to that he did was stupid. HIs appeasement of China, nodding over Chinese aggression of Tibet, trying to do Hindi-Chini bhai bhai, denuding the Army of spirit and armour. Everything he did was wrong. But his Forward policy was not. Asking troops to take back what you think is yours is not wrong. That was correct. China had been following Forward policy since their aggression of Tibet more than a decade ago. Yet the whole media is saying Nehru's Forward policy was wrong. NO! That was the ONLY right thing in spirit he did!

Sanku · Post by **Sanku** » 21 Mar 2014 15:23

harbans wrote:Everyone is blindly criticizing Nehru's Forward Policy.

From a burning building, to save a life, asking a person to jump from the 50th floor in the lofty hope that he will flap his arms and fly is indeed a very wise step and criticizing it is wrong.

harbans · Post by **harbans** » 21 Mar 2014 15:29

Sanku, read my post. But then you're more into posting than reading.

That was the ONLY right thing in spirit he did!

Asking troops to take back what you think is yours is not wrong. That was correct.

Sanku · Post by **Sanku** » 21 Mar 2014 15:34

harbans wrote:Sanku, read my post. But then you're more into posting than reading.

What is right spirit about asking people to go and die by jumping off a cliff ? When no-one, including the person jumping off or person asking for the jump knows why that is being done ?

And if you cant handle criticism to vague statements which mean nothing without getting personal, rethink before hitting the post button.

harbans · Post by **harbans** » 21 Mar 2014 15:41

Sanku, if you think it's vague go ahead. Your opinions and analysis interest me in the least. I have made a point and IMO it's valid. Take it or leave it.

Varoon Shekhar · Post by **Varoon Shekhar** » 21 Mar 2014 16:31

Harbans, very good. Yes, Nehru's forward policy was itself a response to Chinese forward aggressive moves in Tibet and Ladakh/NEFA.

Also let's not overlook the obvious, so obvious that it should be embarrassing to all these pompous commentators like Noorani and Maxwell, and their Indian acolytes. Is there even one example of a native Tibetan coming out openly and supporting China in that war? Really, if India were truly the aggressor, you would at least have a significant number of Tibetans proclaiming it. And articulate Tibetans, not brainwashed drones.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 21 Mar 2014 17:50

All reports and comments show that Tibet border is the Chinese border. Nobody questions that China and PLA is a occupying force in Tibet.

PLA with occupation of Tibet has done the forward policy and India has to response.
India responded with HHDL and also giving help to refugees.
Then it had to act on the border. Border encroachment in TIbet is still going on in 2014 and has not stopped since 1950 when PLA moved to Tibet.

harbans · Post by **harbans** » 21 Mar 2014 18:15

Varoon, when folks are criticizing the Forward Policy it's criticizing the act of Nehru to order soldiers to establish posts in what could be considered 'disputable' areas. Yet the point is between Tibet and India exactness of boundary was never an issue. But for the Chinese there would be as many troops manning the Indo-Tibetan border as today man the Indo-Bhutanese one. The fact that someone with a thick paint marker drew some border didn't make India's task easier particularly when Nehru unilaterally acknowledged Chinese aggression of Tibet, urged UN to take in when it was being shunned. But those criticizing Nehru's forward policy don't mention that it was China that was the initiator of the forward policy and India had to respond at some point, make counter claims, counter posts. The fault lay not in Nehru initiating aggressive patrolling and establishing dubious posts (The Chinese were doing all that and more for long), but in all his actions prior to doing so. And the focus on blaming Nehru for his Forward policy is taking away the core focus from the real issues. The left too is vocal in blaming Indian aggression for the war. Not Chinese takeover of Tibet that is the primary cause of pain on our Northern borders and then the policy of appeasement and slow disarming of the capabilities of our armed forces.

But if you notice the focus on Forward policy translates to Nehru's aggressive patrolling and establishment of forward posts = the reason for 1962 Indo-China war = reason for India's humiliation. Hence we need to curb aggressive patrolling and claiming forward posts that can hurt Chinese sentiments. And that is the lesson that we have to learn.

rohitvats · Post by **rohitvats** » 21 Mar 2014 18:16

harbans wrote:Everyone is blindly criticizing Nehru's Forward Policy. Fact is it is the only sensible thing he did. Everything prior to that he did was stupid. HIs appeasement of China, nodding over Chinese aggression of Tibet, trying to do Hindi-Chini bhai bhai, denuding the Army of spirit and armour. Everything he did was wrong. But his Forward policy was not. Asking troops to take back what you think is yours is not wrong. That was correct. China had been following Forward policy since their aggression of Tibet more than a decade ago. Yet the whole media is saying Nehru's Forward policy was wrong. NO! That was the ONLY right thing in spirit he did!

Problem is that only the spirit does not get you results. You require substance for it.

FP without the necessary means to implement it and based on erroneous - and some plain stupid - reasoning was a recipe for disaster. And that is exactly what happened. The country paid for a series of errors and blunders of one man - everything else like not paying attention to requirement of armed forces, allowing Menon to run amok in MOD and playing favorites with Generals and not understanding the gravity of the situation flow from the actions of this one man.

National policies and objectives cannot be decided and then changed at the wimps and fancies of one person - there has to be a long term vision and clarity of thought. Which was lacking sorely in this case.

Indian Army went from 350K strong force to 800K+ strength force post 1962 in a very short-period of time - it required the kick in the nuts by Chinese for Nehru and other decision makers to realize the gravity of situation. Leaders are supposed to foresee these things and prepare accordingly.

None of this was displayed by Nehru.

harbans · Post by **harbans** » 21 Mar 2014 18:38

Rohit, Forward policy is interpreted/ understood as Nehru's policy of establishing posts in areas considered disputed/ having differing perceptions between Chinese and Indians. It also includes the act of some aggressive patrolling along these areas. Whether they did so in VIP underwear with sticks or star wars armor immaterial. Point is this: Is the act of establishing forward posts and aggressive patrolling in response to the Chinese Right or Wrong policy?

By all accounts that is the correct thing to do with a neighbor that has been aggressive over a decade and is doing so itself. Thus we cannot be critical of Nehru's Forward policy but the fact that Forward Policy was initiated with personnel in canvas shoes, half sleeved sweaters and slingshots for arms. Yet look at the headlines and tweets all round: Nehru's Forward Policy to Blame for 1962!

SanjayC · Post by **SanjayC** » 21 Mar 2014 19:15

harbans wrote:Rohit, Forward policy is interpreted/ understood as Nehru's policy of establishing posts in areas considered disputed/ having differing perceptions between Chinese and Indians. It also includes the act of some aggressive patrolling along these areas. Whether they did so in VIP underwear with sticks or star wars armor immaterial. Point is this: Is the act of establishing forward posts and aggressive patrolling in response to the Chinese Right or Wrong policy?

By all accounts that is the correct thing to do with a neighbor that has been aggressive over a decade and is doing so itself. Thus we cannot be critical of Nehru's Forward policy but the fact that Forward Policy was initiated with personnel in canvas shoes, half sleeved sweaters and slingshots for arms. Yet look at the headlines and tweets all round: Nehru's Forward Policy to Blame for 1962!

Generals don't blame the forward policy but the stupidity to start it without backing it with sufficient military force for the expected Chinese reaction. Krishna Menon and Nehru were egg heads and Mao, a hardened and wily military strategist, quickly made mince meat of them.

harbans · Post by **harbans** » 21 Mar 2014 19:35

Sanjay true and agree with all that. Yet i know Brig Dalvi was not convinced we should be fighting at Thag La, my uncle who was in Military intelligence 62 along with other Officers too were blaming Nehru's forward policy. Here are news items being reported in MSM putting the blame on Nehru's Forward Policy:

Sanku · Post by **Sanku** » 21 Mar 2014 20:37

harbans wrote:Sanku, if you think it's vague go ahead. Your opinions and analysis interest me in the least. I have made a point and IMO it's valid. Take it or leave it.

Have you read the HBR harbans ? Yes/no, honestly please.

Sanku · Post by **Sanku** » 21 Mar 2014 20:38

harbans wrote:Whether they did so in VIP underwear with sticks or star wars armor immaterial.

Yes, I suppose creating a condition where your army dies helplessly is quite immaterial.