Inder Malhotra's series on 1962 war

harbans · Post by **harbans** » 21 Mar 2014 21:52

The real reason behind prevalent confusion over the boundaries of Northern India with Tibet today lie not so much with British, Chinese, Tibetan or Indian map makers. They would have tried their best to demarcate what possibly should never have been demarcated in the first place in this manner if China was not present in Tibet. How does one demarcate portions that have never been inhabited except in passing by nomadic tribes that moved between established positions in India, Tibet, Xinjiang for centuries? The answer is not so difficult. Tibet developed in a way that it was culturally, linguistically and religiously a special cousin of India. It contained many places which are considered the holiest of holy spots for tens of millions of Dharmics in India. Kailash Mansarover region for one where pilgrims from India, Tibet, Nepal have been visiting for millennia without Visa’s and border controls. So how should one really demarcate Kailash-Mansarover from Uttarkhand? It would never make sense demarcating the KM region with Uttarkhand based on a Westaphalian concept by a mapmaker in London and Beijing.

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The danger in criticizing Forward Policy alone for the 62 humiliation or using it as a headline also lies in promoting leadership/ Generals that will desist from asking the Army to take tough decisions on the borders when needed on the grounds that it could evoke a 62 like response. The lessons we need to learn is not to appease totalitarian regimes, to stand by Tibet more openly, build our Armed capabilities, offensive and counter offensive abilities, even claim/ make disputed territories well inside Tibet like Kailash and Mansarover. Importantly we also must put a stop to the nonsensical cartographic aggression on our Northern boundaries, on no mans lands and our holiest spots being made by 19th or 20th century people in Beijing and London. The agreements between Beijing and London on our Northern boundaries should have no sanctity in Independent India.

Should Nehru's Forward Policy take the blame

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 22 Mar 2014 05:16

harbans that your blog? I agree with the ideas. To me fundamentally China was expanding right from 1949 and it was matter of time there was clash with India. To blame Forward Policy for what is basically an aggressive Chinese nature is wrong.
Yes Nehru had his faults but Chinese attacking India was not due to him but their own aggression.

He did not anticipate Chinese aggressive behavior early enough and what he did was too little too late. Maybe he had some unwritten assurances for UK and US which were not worth the paper they were written on.

His best option was to go nuclear but if you look at the capability in India at that time it was only on paper. In a way the Chinese attacked before he could work on that option. Recall Second Fiver Year plan was Science and Industry and away from agriculture.

SSridhar · Post by **SSridhar** » 22 Mar 2014 11:03

Lessons from the 'Gate of Hell' - Praveen Swami, The Hindu

From inside India’s western-most outpost, in that bleak winter of 1962, troops would have stared out across the sheet of ice at the shattered ruins of their retreating army, and at their the foes beyond. Murgo, it was called by the Yarkandi tribesmen who guided caravans across the great Karakoram pass, the Gate of Hell. The attack they must have feared never came. Chinese troops reached the line they claimed to be their border, just east of Murgo — and then stopped. For two generations since, soldiers have faced each other, prepared to kill on the roof of the world.

The online release this month of the first volume of the most closely-held 1962 war secret, Lieutenant General Henderson Brooks and Brigadier Premindra Bhagat’s searing indictment of the conduct of operations, has stoked deep fears Indians have nursed for over fifty years.

For critics of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, on the right of Indian politics, the release of the Henderson Brooks report has been an occasion to call for a more muscular military policy — holding him responsible for eviscerating India’s armed forces in the build-up to the defeat. Every historical text, though, has a context, and the context to this one shows that this would be precisely the wrong lesson to draw.

Scapegoating Nehru

The notion that that Mr. Nehru allowed the Indian military to slowly degenerate towards its catastrophic defeat in 1962 is an article of faith for many commentators on the war. Like much faith, though, it sits ill with fact. From 1947 to 1962, the Army expanded from 280,000 to 5,50,000, the doyen of Indian security studies K. Subrahmanyam pointed out in a 1970 paper. Expenditure on defence rose from Rs. 190.15 crore in 1951-1952 to Rs. 320.34 crore in 1961-1962 despite the enormous financial constraints that a fragile, just-born nation faced.

The Army, by the eve of the 1962 war, had acquired a division of state-of-the-art Centurion tanks and two regiments of AMX-13 light tanks which fought at Kameng against Chinese troops who had none, but could not prevent the routing of Indian troops. The Air Force bought six squadrons of Hunter fighter-bombers, two squadrons of Ouragons, and two of Gnat interceptors—all equipment far superior to anything flown by their adversary. The Navy had acquired an aircraft carrier, three destroyers, and eleven spanking new frigates.

Mr. Nehru might indeed, as critics contend, been an instinctive dove, but if this is true, the record suggests he also believed in keeping his talons sharp. Yet, India lost the war. “So long as we cling to these myths to explain away the debacle,”Mr. Subrahmanyam concluded, “the reasons for the debacle will not be adequately investigated and correct lessons drawn.”

The real problem wasn’t that India didn’t have an Army that could fight. It was that it ended up fighting the wrong kind of war, with consequences even the best-resourced militaries have faced.

Lessons to be learnt

So what went wrong? In 1957, China completed driving a road across the Aksai Chin plains, linking Xinjiang and Tibet. Land of little value now became a critical strategic asset for China. Following the 1959 revolt in Tibet, Chinese fears that India was aiding rebels added to tensions. Indian patrols headed to the Aksai Chin were detained, and on one occasion, fired at. In India’s North-East Frontier Area, troops received warnings to vacate their positions.

Then, in October 1959, Chinese troops opened fire on Indian border police at Kongka, in Southern Ladakh, killing nine and capturing 10.

From multiple Cold War sources, among them the Central Intelligence Agency’s declassified history of the 1962 war, it is clear that the Chinese were hoping to push Mr. Nehru to accept a deal: swapping Aksai Chin for what is now Arunachal Pradesh. Mr. Nehru, the evidence suggests, was preparing Indian public opinion for such a swap. The Kongka incident, though, made it near impossible.

Mr. Nehru responded by authorising what has come to be known as the ‘Forward Policy.’ From December 1960, the Henderson Brooks report records that India began establishing small posts deep inside Chinese-held territory, opening up the prospect of “our eventual domination of the Aksai Chin highway.” By the summer of 1962, small pickets of Indian troops, often less than platoon-strength, were holding positions face to face with Chinese positions. India had little logistical infrastructure to support them, and no way to bring forward reinforcements to sustain these positions.

The positions served no military purpose. Their role, instead, was to serve as a bargaining chip in eventual negotiations. Mr. Nehru acted in the belief China would not use force to evict the Indian positions.

His guess was wrong, but not unreasonable. Fearing the United States’ military presence in East Asia, Mao Zedong warned his generals not to “blindly” take on India, despite China’s military superiority.

The Soviet Union was also working to rein in Beijing. In China for negotiations with Mao Zedong in October 1959, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev had delivered a testy message of protest against the Kongka clash. “You have had good relations with India for many years. Suddenly, here is a bloody incident, as result of which Nehru found himself in a very difficult position.” In October 1963, Mr. Khrushchev again told the Chinese ambassador to Moscow to avoid military action, arguing it would push India into the United States’ embrace.

Finally, the Army itself didn’t come up with viable alternatives to the Forward Policy for leaders besieged in Parliament and pilloried by the media. Lieutenant-General Daulet Singh, General-Officer-Comanding of the western Army advocated, the official war history records, that “the only safe course would be to leave for the time being the Chinese in possession of the Indian territory they had already grabbed, and to consolidate the areas still in Indian possession by pushing roads forward, building up strong bases and inducting a division of troops into Ladakh.”

“This strategy,” the scholar Srinath Raghavan has pointed out, “was obviously incapable of countering Chinese incursions near the boundary — incursions that were the main cause for concern to the political leadership.”

Last year, Indian and Chinese troops faced-off near Daulat Beg Oldi in Ladakh, in the worst flare-up of tensions in decades. Fears of growing Chinese nationalism, backed by military might, have spurred Indian military acquisitions. Narendra Modi, who may be India’s next Prime Minister, has cast China as an expansionist threat, a sentiment shared by many in other parties.

Mr. Nehru must take the blame for calling it ‘wrong,’ but responsibility also lies with the ill-informed public debate and media hyper-nationalism that drove his choices. India can’t afford to have to learn the same lessons again.

harbans · Post by **harbans** » 22 Mar 2014 14:14

harbans that your blog? I agree with the ideas. To me fundamentally China was expanding right from 1949 and it was matter of time there was clash with India. To blame Forward Policy for what is basically an aggressive Chinese nature is wrong.
Yes Nehru had his faults but Chinese attacking India was not due to him but their own aggression.

Yes that's my blog Ramanaji. China was indeed the aggressor and even today with multiple agreements and no forward policy we see encroachments, hostile activity and a plethora of demands of what is already and has been in India's possession. Crux is discussing what went wrong with the Forward Policy is different from blaming Forward Policy itself as a counter measure to Chinese aggression. The danger in endorsing the latter version is in encouraging a large section of the Institutionalized left policy makers in taking a softer approach when aggressive moves are being made on our borders. These conflicts will continue as we try and understand maps endorsed by representatives of Emperors in Beijing and London in the 19th and 20th century. Why do we need endorsements of where we should be wrt Kailash and Mansarover when for millenia our pilgrims and devotees have been visiting the place without permission from London, Beijing or even Lhasa! It was our religious-cultural tradition that gives such immense respect and considers holy this region not the inhabitants of London or Beijing who never heard of this place. So our whole approach needs to shift focus to Forward policy only in terms of what went wrong with FP in context of military planning and supplies. But the thrust of our focus should rightly be on how our Tibet policy created this China-India problem. We need to reject not inspect maps endorsed by reps of Beijing and London drawn in thick pencil or thin. We need to draw up agreements with only elected representatives of the Tibetan people. Till we focus there, we are searching for solutions in the wrong place.

Sanku · Post by **Sanku** » 22 Mar 2014 18:14

SSridhar wrote:Lessons from the 'Gate of Hell' - Praveen Swami, The Hindu
For critics of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, on the right of Indian politics, the release of the Henderson Brooks report has been an occasion to call for a more muscular military policy — holding him responsible for eviscerating India’s armed forces in the build-up to the defeat. Every historical text, though, has a context, and the context to this one shows that this would be precisely the wrong lesson to draw.

So what went wrong?

I am sorry this article by PS is nothing but a tissue of lies, and a case of apologist for accursed and wretched murderer of Indian servicemen called Nehru.

It also does in-justice to the HBR

In 1959, when the first border incident happened, IA was very clear that it had INSUFFICIENT troops on both Ladakh and NEFA areas -- EVEN in 1959.

The Western command, and the XXXIII corps were crying hoarse since 1959 for more troops, logistics build up and air support to meet the threat perception as of 1959 (they needed a division each)

By 1962, the Chinese had TRIPLED their effective strength -- and Indian had WEAKENED its position by moving troops from NEFA to Nagaland.

To add to the wonderful situation, Nehru ordered forward policy, where NEW DELHI DIRECTLY DICTATED troop movement up to POST LEVEL -- and the already existing inadequate post was splintered as penny packets platoons strung across the cold and high peaks without food, logistical support and contact and backup.

The commanders who opposed this on the ground were moved out.

All the while the OFFICIAL statement from Delhi was that the chinese were merely posturing and will not attack.
So it was okay to whatever idiotic behaviour since the chinese wont do anything --- and this was EVEN after multiple firing incidents had ALREADY taken place.

Murder is a small word for forward policy.

Sanku · Post by **Sanku** » 22 Mar 2014 18:15

Some one should type up the HBR and post it. We can directly quote from it and all the apologists and liars would be exposed in one stroke.

ShauryaT · Post by **ShauryaT** » 23 Mar 2014 02:26

The Henderson Brooks morality play: Srinath Raghavan

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 23 Mar 2014 12:22

Forward policy cannot be lauded and excused simply as a sign of "resistance" as compared to supposed "leftie" softness - because it came too late and with too little preparation. No military posturing can be excused in any possible way, if done on insufficient preparation - especially given that warnings had been sounded from before - from long long before.

But much more than that - forward policy was inconsistent and farcical given that Mao had indeed been treated "leftie-soft"ly by the same policy-maker until even 1959 first half. Time and again, from Bandung "cleanser of colonialism" dramatics to Korean war and UN-recognition dramatics - it was the same "forward-policy"ist who had done all he could to habilitate and raise Chinese profile in world fora, and in a sense participated in the shaping up of the Maoist policy of territorial expansion at the cost of Tibetans by trying to force Tibetans to accept Chinese overlordship and giving up Indian claims on Tibet.

He has to be blamed for this foreign policy failure, because all evidence points to a maniacal hogging of all foreign policy decision-making even to the level of micro-management and bypassing of regular channels in dealing with other countries - especially China - by him under personal authority. He decided "everything" based on his own fancy notions, and put key diplomatic/military/intel persons in place on his personal fancies again, who could be disposed off easily to take the blame when things went wrong.

rohitvats · Post by **rohitvats** » 23 Mar 2014 12:59

Read this for what the army thought.

http://theindiansubcontinent.com/index. ... ese-attack

And to put the matter in perspective, Menon termed such assessments as 'war-mongering'.

As for articles by PS and other fellow, Srinath Raghavan - well, it seems people can quote facts and figures selectively.

If Nehru fought the 'wrong war' in 1962, what the fvck is the use of quoting the expansion of army and air force and navy from 1947 onward? As for 'wrong call' by Nehru, well that wrong call happened over a decade. And nothing was done in the intervening period to prepare for the contingency. It was one man and his coterie which decided on everything and drove the nation towards catastrophe.

When Srinath Raghavan talks about IA leadership and generals not providing alternate operational options or being too defensive, he should also do an assessment of the military capability in the sectors. The theater and local commanders had much better idea of what could be done and what should be done - given the ground realities.

But at the end of the day - one marvels at the foresight of the person who directed that report be restricted only to military aspect of 1962 war. It does not provide material on follies committed by Nehru and his coterie - it would have absolved/prevented criticism of Nehru in 1962 and it has done so now.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 23 Mar 2014 16:48

publishing a few photos of that era from fbook.
while our sickular nawab of lucknow was settling back to his sundowner on the ample lawns of his delhi property look what real people had to go through.

wife and kids of assam rifles personnel in tezpur prior to evacuation

motor pool somewhere in arunachal
https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/ ... 4334_n.jpg

ShauryaT · Post by **ShauryaT** » 24 Mar 2014 06:19

rohitvats wrote:Read this for what the army thought.

http://theindiansubcontinent.com/index. ... ese-attack

And to put the matter in perspective, Menon termed such assessments as 'war-mongering'.

As for articles by PS and other fellow, Srinath Raghavan - well, it seems people can quote facts and figures selectively.

If Nehru fought the 'wrong war' in 1962, what the fvck is the use of quoting the expansion of army and air force and navy from 1947 onward? As for 'wrong call' by Nehru, well that wrong call happened over a decade. And nothing was done in the intervening period to prepare for the contingency. It was one man and his coterie which decided on everything and drove the nation towards catastrophe.

When Srinath Raghavan talks about IA leadership and generals not providing alternate operational options or being too defensive, he should also do an assessment of the military capability in the sectors. The theater and local commanders had much better idea of what could be done and what should be done - given the ground realities.

But at the end of the day - one marvels at the foresight of the person who directed that report be restricted only to military aspect of 1962 war. It does not provide material on follies committed by Nehru and his coterie - it would have absolved/prevented criticism of Nehru in 1962 and it has done so now.

The Pravin Swami article has its sources in an old critique of Maxwell by none other than K. Subramanyam, linked by Ramana previously in this thread. Srinath Raghavan also uses the same source material.

The Lt. Gen Thorat assessment, was evidently never provided to the defense minister before the war, as it seems the system at that time was, the area commanders reported into the CGS (current COAS) and it is not known (at least to me) if Thimaya presented this assessment to Menon or JLN in 1960? This particular aspect of the structure was corrected soon after the war and its results could be seen in the successful prosecution at Khem Karan in 1965, where area commanders view of the matter was taken into account.

Another key aspect that was evidently broken is the mixing of external and internal intelligence and the extreme mistrust that the military brass held for such intelligence reports. To make matters worse many such intelligence reports were never processed for the benefit of army headquarters or MoD. Such crucial failures explain why and how even after having a considerable force and continued investments in defense, commensurate with the competing priorities of an emerging nation, we were unable to respond adequately.

There are many such pieces that need to be understood and the HBR does provide some crucial understandings of the operations side of the picture. While the political and military leadership will have to accept their part, it is important to understand all dimensions.

Attached is an understanding of the buildup and status of forces on the Indian side.

ShauryaT · Post by **ShauryaT** » 24 Mar 2014 19:09

But at the end of the day - one marvels at the foresight of the person who directed that report be restricted only to military aspect of 1962 war. It does not provide material on follies committed by Nehru and his coterie - it would have absolved/prevented criticism of Nehru in 1962 and it has done so now.

The person responsible for that "foresight" was YB Chavan, with precisely that purpose in mind, to save the executive. This is how YB Chavan gained the trust of JLN. The non-separation of the executive from the legislature, remains a lacuna of the accountability systems of our polity.

ShauryaT · Post by **ShauryaT** » 24 Mar 2014 20:07

Henderson Brooks report on 1962 debacle, “top secret” in India but posted on internet, blames generals more than politicians

Critics of the Congress Party have accused it of keeping the HBR secret because it allegedly blames political miscalculation by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru for triggering a war with China. That is not the case; while Maxwell’s HBR blogpost notes bureaucratic interference in decision-making, especially the miscalculations of Director of the Intelligence Bureau (DIB) BN Mullick, it apportions blame primarily to the army.

The key army villain turns out to be Gen BM Kaul, who was Chief of General Staff (CGS) --- a key operational post in Army Headquarters (AHQ) --- before being appointed on the eve of war to command 4 Corps, which failed miserably in defending NEFA (North East Frontier Agency), as Arunachal Pradesh was called.

The HBR blogpost reveals that the government wanted a Forward Policy, but left the implementation to the generals. Yet a supine AHQ, under a weak army chief, General Thapar, and pressured by a gung-ho General Kaul, overruled valid cautions presented by HQ Western Command (HQ WC), which insisted that a forward move must have adequate troop numbers, combat support and logistics.

The belief that pushing forward would not encounter Chinese resistance came from the Intelligence Bureau, but was accepted by AHQ. The HBR blogpost cites a meeting held in the PM’s office on November 2, 1961, attended by the defence minister (KV Krishna Menon), the foreign secretary (MJ Desai), the army chief (General PN Thapar) and the Director of the Intelligence Bureau (DIB), Mullick, when the decision to push forward troops into contact with the Chinese was taken. Countering the army’s earlier stated view that “the Chinese would resist by force any attempts to take back territory held by them,” Mullick argued that “the Chinese would not react to our establishing new posts and that they were NOT LIKELY TO USE FORCE AGAINST ANY OF OUR POSTS EVEN IF THEY WERE IN A POSITION TO DO SO” (capitals in original).

The AHQ operated in the lead up to war on a flawed army assessment of Chinese strength --- an outdated 1960 operational instruction, never updated, that said the Chinese could scrape together a “regiment plus” (about 4000-5000 soldiers) against Ladakh. Yet Lt Gen Daulet Singh, who headed WC, was far more realistic. On August 17, 1962, it wrote to AHQ that the Chinese had a “well equipped division (15,000 soldiers) with supporting arms deployed against LADAKH. Further, the Chinese had developed roads to all the important areas they held and thus could concentrate large forces at any given place. As against this, we were thinly spread out, with no supporting arms (i.e. artillery, engineers, etc) worth the name and with poor communications between the various sectors. Thus, in case of hostilities, we would be defeated in detail.”

A week later, Lt Gen Daulet Singh further pressed this view in discussions with top AHQ generals. Whether army chief, General Thapar, conveyed the HQ WC assessment to the government remains unknown. On September 5, AHQ reiterated the Forward Policy, telling HQ WC that it “did not consider it likely that the Chinese would resort to any large scale hostilities in LADAKH.”

The HBR blogpost recounts that eastern army commander, Lt Gen LP Sen, was told by a senior AHQ officer in September 1962 that “experience in LADAKH had shown that a few rounds fired at the Chinese would cause them to run away.”

Simultaneously, tensions were rising in NEFA, where Indian troops established the Dhola Post across the Namka Chu River. The Chinese surrounded Dhola on September 8, and firing began daily. This situation was reviewed on September 22, by Defence Minister Krishna Menon. While General Thapar warned that action at Dhola would invite Chinese retaliation in Ladakh, Foreign Secretary MJ Desai felt “that the Chinese would not react very strongly against us in Ladakh. He considered that operations for eviction of the Chinese from NEFA should be carried out, even at the expense of losing some territory in LADAKH.”

The AHQ seems to have accepted this military assessment from a diplomat. The HBR blogpost says, “Defence Ministry then, on the request of the Chief of Army Staff, issued the following instructions:-… Army should prepare and throw the Chinese out, as soon as possible. The Chief of the Army Staff was accordingly directed to take action for the eviction of the Chinese from… NEFA, as soon as he is ready.”

With the government ready to accept some loss of territory in Ladakh, AHQ told HQ WC that “Chinese may attack some of our forward posts… (which) will fight it out and inflict maximum casualties on the Chinese.”

Criticising these “unrealistic” orders to “far-flung, tactically unsound and uncoordinated small posts”, the HBR blogpost damningly wonders, “Whether General Staff Branch Army Headquarters were in touch with the realities of the situation. It appears that events controlled actions rather than actions events.”

Slamming the Chief of General Staff (CGS), Lt Gen BM Kaul, for not advising the government on “our weakness and inability to implement the ‘Forward Policy’”, the HBR blogpost notes: “There might have been pressure put on by the Defence Ministry, but it was the duty of the General Staff to have pointed out the unsoundness of the ‘Forward Policy’ without the means to implement it… Apparently, however, the General Staff at NO stage submitted to the Government an appraisal on the consequences of the ‘Forward Policy’ or the basic requirement of troops and resources required before it should have been implemented.”

Hinting at General BM Kaul’s absence of military qualifications, and his cultivation of a clique within the officer cadre, the HBR blogpost states: “The General Staff, particularly the CGS (Gen Kaul), Deputy CGS (Maj Gen JS Dhillon) and the DMO (Brig Monty Palit) went a step further and permeated this belief into the Army, with the disastrous result that even field formations were infected with a sense of complacency.”

Recognizing perhaps that Lt Gen BM Kaul, with his proximity to Nehru, had superseded the army’s command, the HBR blogpost exempts Gen Thapar, and the eastern army commander, Lt Gen LP Sen, from his sharpest criticisms. Frontally attacking Lt Gen BM Kaul, the document notes: “This lapse in Staff Duties on the part of the Chief of the General Staff, his Deputy, the DMO, DMI, and other Staff Directors is inexcusable. From this stemmed the unpreparedness and the unbalance of our forces. These… are key appointments and officers were hand-picked by General KAUL to fill them (sic).”

ShauryaT · Post by **ShauryaT** » 24 Mar 2014 20:12

The Henderson Brooks Report, Part II: Defiant Henderson Brooks pursued his own enquiry rather than a whitewash job

In the very first page of his report, Henderson Brooks makes the startling disclosure that the army chief --- General JN Chaudhuri, who was appointed after the 1962 debacle led to the resignation of his predecessor, General PN Thapar --- advised him not to review the functioning of Army Headquarters (AHQ) while carrying out his inquiry.

ShauryaT · Post by **ShauryaT** » 24 Mar 2014 20:17

Henderson Brooks Report Part III: Blame-games, vested interests, ensure Henderson Brooks’ lessons of 1962 remain unlearnt

India’s difficulties in defending Ladakh in 1962, Henderson Brooks concluded, stemmed from the fact that we did not have a strong defensive line. The army tried to defend “cold war” outposts all along the border, established by troops that moved forward in accordance with the Forward Policy. Instead of that, says the HBR blogpost, “In LADAKH we should limit our commitments in war to the holding of LADAKH Range at the few focal points that give access to Leh.”

On similar lines, the HBR blogpost terms a “fundamental error” the army’s decision to occupy a defence line on the Sela Ridge after withdrawing from Towang. Admitting that Sela --- a dominating natural obstacle just south of Towang --- was “a strong natural tactical position”, Henderson Brooks believes that Sela should have been ignored and the next stand made at Bomdila, even though that meant withdrawing 70 kilometres and leaving that territory to the Chinese. The HBR blogpost concludes that defeat “would have been averted had a clean break been made at TOWANG and the withdrawal to BOMDILA had been carried out as planned.”

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 24 Mar 2014 20:23

What is startling about that? Very clearly the HBR is ment to be an after action report(AAR) and not to go into the goings on or lack of that in Army HQ and MoD and the Cabinet.
KS garu made sure he gets to all aspects in Kargil Report Committee. BTW after he returned from his LSE sojourn he set up the JIC.

AP Venkateshwaran, IFS and MEA Secy, wrote his PhD thesis on MoD reorganization after 1962. It was very widely available (more than 5 copies) in IIT Madras Library.

ShauryaT · Post by **ShauryaT** » 24 Mar 2014 20:25

Henderson Brooks Report, Part IV: Dhola Post, which triggered 1962 war, was on China’s side of McMahon Line

One of these new posts was Dhola Post, which eventually triggered the war. In one of the HBR’s revelations, it emerges that Dhola was accidentally established on China’s side of the McMahon Line. For 52 years, India has held that by attacking Dhola Post, China committed aggression and started the war.

Before New Delhi ordered the “Forward Policy” in December 1961, the army moved carefully along the Sino-Indian border. According to the patrolling policy, “NO patrolling except defensive patrolling is to be permitted within two to three miles of the McMAHON Line (capitals in all quotes in original).”

This changed on February 24, 1962, when Tezpur-based XXXIII Corps, commanded by the respected Lt Gen Umrao Singh, ordered nine new border posts, included one between Tawang and Bhutan, at the Tri-Junction of Tibet, Bhutan and India. This post became famous as Dhola.

Discrepancies in the maps available then depicted an arbitrary border running due west from the border outpost of Khinzemane to Tri-Junction, rather than the watershed boundary that constituted the McMahon Line. Operating with those faulty maps, Captain Mahabir Prasad of 1 SIKH established Dhola Post on June 4, 1962, on what Henderson Brooks reveals was China’s side of the McMahon Line.

The HBR blogpost says that, in August 1962, XXXIII Corps admitted to Eastern Command that its post was wrongly sited, but not that it was on Chinese territory. Aware of the consequences, XXXIII Corps suggested that the army plays innocent. It wrote, “…to avoid alarm and queries from all concerned, it is proposed to continue using the present grid reference.”

Henderson Brookes is frank in his assessment: “This, in effect, meant that the post was actually NORTH of the McMAHON Line.”

The consequences were not long in coming. On September 8, Dhola Post was surrounded by some 600 Chinese soldiers. Instead of wriggling out from this uncomfortable position, the army chose an aggressive response. The HBR blogpost recounts that, on September 12, four days after Dhola was surrounded, the Eastern Command chief, Lt Gen LP Sen, told Lt Gen Umrao Singh, and GOC 4 Division, Maj Gen Niranjan Prasad that the “Government would not accept any intrusion of the Chinese into our territory. If they come in, they must be thrown out by force.”

Sen “clarified that the Government had always maintained that McMAHON Line was based on the watershed principle and, therefore, it ran along the THAGLA Ridge. Thus DHOLA was well inside the McMAHON Line.”

The countdown to war had begun. The day after Dhola Post was surrounded, the ill-fated 7 Infantry Brigade was ordered to the Namka Chu, while the Chinese too intensified their force build up. The HBR blogpost notes, “In fact, their build up behind the THAGLA Ridge was far greater than ours.” On September 20, the first exchanges of firing began in the Namka Chu valley.

On September 22, the government ordered army chief, General PN Thapar, in writing: “The Army should prepare and throw the Chinese out as soon as possible. The Chief of Army Staff was accordingly directed to take action for the eviction of the Chinese in Kameng Frontier Division of NEFA as soon as he is ready.”

Meanwhile, laughably given that India knew about China’s build up in the area, XXXIII Corps formulated a plan to evict the Chinese from the area of Dhola Post, using three infantry battalions to attack across the Namka Chu. This was to begin earliest by October 10.

On October 4, Army HQ announced the formation of IV Corps, bringing Lt Gen BM Kaul in direct command of the operations. The HBR blogpost recounts how Kaul personally moved from headquarters to posts, railroading 7 Brigade to the tactically and logistically unviable Namka Chu positions, with just 50 rounds of ammunition per man, one blanket, no winter clothing, and without even minor medical supplies.

Says Henderson Brooks evocatively, “The retribution was to come.” He quotes Sir Alfred Tennyson’s immortal lines from Charge of the Light Brigade, “Their’s not to reason why; Their’s not to make reply; Their’s but to do and die.”

Astonishingly, Kaul seemed oblivious of the possibility that the Chinese would actually attack. The HBR blogpost says, “On 14 and 15 October, the Corps Commander had discussions with the Divisional Commander. The theme of the discussions was how and when and with what more preparation could we attack THAGLA Ridge (across the Namka Chu). Curiously, in these discussions the possibility of the Chinese attacking us SOUTH of the NAMKA CHU was never considered.”

Sachin · Post by **Sachin** » 24 Mar 2014 21:58

Gents, a .PDF file which I got is around 128 pages - and I guess it is an incomplete version of even Part I of the report. Any links/references to the complete report (or to what is available at present)?

ShauryaT · Post by **ShauryaT** » 24 Mar 2014 22:10

Sachin wrote:Gents, a .PDF file which I got is around 128 pages - and I guess it is an incomplete version of even Part I of the report. Any links/references to the complete report (or to what is available at present)?

I have the same one 128 pages. Seems the conclusion is missing.

Sanku · Post by **Sanku** » 24 Mar 2014 22:11

Sachin wrote:Gents, a .PDF file which I got is around 128 pages - and I guess it is an incomplete version of even Part I of the report. Any links/references to the complete report (or to what is available at present)?

This is the one that seems to be available. It is a summary, and covers all parts of 62.

member_28502 · Post by **member_28502** » 24 Mar 2014 23:36

Can somebody point me to signature tunes of AIR ie Aakshvani for the specials broadcast during India China war

Like BBC used to have this lillibulero

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 25 Mar 2014 03:09

rohitvats wrote:Read this for what the army thought.

http://theindiansubcontinent.com/index. ... ese-attack

And to put the matter in perspective, Menon termed such assessments as 'war-mongering'.

If Nehru fought the 'wrong war' in 1962, what the fvck is the use of quoting the expansion of army and air force and navy from 1947 onward? As for 'wrong call' by Nehru, well that wrong call happened over a decade. And nothing was done in the intervening period to prepare for the contingency. It was one man and his coterie which decided on everything and drove the nation towards catastrophe.

When Srinath Raghavan talks about IA leadership and generals not providing alternate operational options or being too defensive, he should also do an assessment of the military capability in the sectors. The theater and local commanders had much better idea of what could be done and what should be done - given the ground realities.

But at the end of the day - one marvels at the foresight of the person who directed that report be restricted only to military aspect of 1962 war. It does not provide material on follies committed by Nehru and his coterie - it would have absolved/prevented criticism of Nehru in 1962 and it has done so now.

The Pravin Swami article has its sources in an old critique of Maxwell by none other than K. Subramanyam, linked by Ramana previously in this thread. Srinath Raghavan also uses the same source material.

The Lt. Gen Thorat assessment, was evidently never provided to the defense minister before the war, as it seems the system at that time was, the area commanders reported into the CGS (current COAS) and it is not known (at least to me) if Thimaya presented this assessment to Menon or JLN in 1960? This particular aspect of the structure was corrected soon after the war and its results could be seen in the successful prosecution at Khem Karan in 1965, where area commanders view of the matter was taken into account.

Another key aspect that was evidently broken is the mixing of external and internal intelligence and the extreme mistrust that the military brass held for such intelligence reports. To make matters worse many such intelligence reports were never processed for the benefit of army headquarters or MoD. Such crucial failures explain why and how even after having a considerable force and continued investments in defense, commensurate with the competing priorities of an emerging nation, we were unable to respond adequately.

There are many such pieces that need to be understood and the HBR does provide some crucial understandings of the operations side of the picture. While the political and military leadership will have to accept their part, it is important to understand all dimensions.

Attached is an understanding of the buildup and status of forces on the Indian side.

What is not mentioned is the effect of the Cuban War crisis between USSR and US

PRC was supposed to be without any friends in 1962. They created a small window when PRC could attack India and get away with it.
So PRC had a international group which helped it to take care of India in the border.

Assessment of many of the people during that time explaining that PRC will never attack was based on low international support to PRC. PRC took the cue based on the international situation and attacked India blaming Nehru for the forward policy.
COndition was made favourable for PRC to take action. No report talks about this in all of them.

member_28502 · Post by **member_28502** » 25 Mar 2014 03:17

Also all along the build up to war with India, PRC learned battle hardened lessons in Korean war.
They also took a cut of their in Arms shipments to NoKo (free of cost).

Mrs IG to some extent took advantage of Khan saab being busy bombing Laos and Combodia (1970 to 1972 as Paris talks were under way) in the liberation B Desh war. We just gave away the territory we gained on the west unlike PRC or Pakis

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 25 Mar 2014 04:28

Okay - so the army "top brass" "mistrusted" all forms of intel, internal and external and the field view from below was never presented by the top brass to the civilian side, or presented even to themselves i.e., army top-brass to top-brass.
(1) Now why would such hesitation and mistrust at all develop?
(2) What were the signals the civilian side had given to the army that made the army hesitant to share such intel from the army side with the civilian side? Or mistrust the civilian side intel?
(3) who chose this all-mistrusting closeted, "non-sharing" army top brass? the army "itself" entirely -or these choices were influenced by the civilian side?
(4) why did the army top-brass distrust its field-commander feedback? This could have been the case for the BIA - and there is concrete evidence that the BIA top-brass distrusted the field so much so that combing and snooping of personal communications were undertaken at a wide scale [supposed free flow encouraged] to assess accurately what was going on at the ground level. But the IA was supposed to be a completely fresh patriotic restart - wasn't it - where colonial era hangovers of rank and class did not translate into thinking of the field aam's intel as of no value?
(5) why would the civilian intel misread the situation so much? especially given that the chief prancers of capabilities in that arena appointed to the "top" were known to have satisfactorily and extremely well serviced their previous British superiors? What caused this sudden loss of capabilities or fogging of sharpness onlee in case of Chinese aggression?
(6) Is there any guarantee - that just because paper trail of some conversation/forwarding of report/intel briefing appears not to exist in acknowledgment to the public - that they never existed before, or that all such briefings always take place with a paper trail? Or that like many files which exist at some time point, then become, rumours, then become myths, and then become "missing" - that information of a "sensitive" nature, which in India can mean anything from personally damaging to genuine "public interest" (when public must be kept in the dark for the public's own good as defined by the non-public) will be acknowledged to have been forwarded if it is deemed to hurt ego's and political or even military personnel's images?

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 25 Mar 2014 04:36

Bji, Try to read TS George's biography of Krishna Menon. It casts light on some of your questions.

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 25 Mar 2014 07:10

ramana ji, I read it. I have long before come to the conclusion that he has been more vilified than he is really responsible for, and that he was chosen and maintained to for certain gaping black holes in his life and character, that made him easily pliable at the hands of the supreme leader to shift blame on to.

They wanted the apparatus of state power dependent on the apparatus of personal power - a British model, adopted by the communists in full under Lenin, and hence likely to show up for the setup then being planned for handover of power.

My questions were to pick the holes - really.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 25 Mar 2014 19:37

So that means Nehru and his coterie wanted dynastic succession right from the beginning and all that Syndicate picked Mrs Gandhi as gungi gudiya is all bakwas. It was like that from the begining under Nehru, the great democrat per Distortian Guha.

ShauryaT · Post by **ShauryaT** » 25 Mar 2014 22:00

A Short History of Indian Division Deployments Against China 1961-2001

Prior to 1961 no division was deployed against China.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 26 Mar 2014 02:53

Nijalingappa wrote:Also all along the build up to war with India, PRC learned battle hardened lessons in Korean war.
They also took a cut of their in Arms shipments to NoKo (free of cost).

Mrs IG to some extent took advantage of Khan saab being busy bombing Laos and Combodia (1970 to 1972 as Paris talks were under way) in the liberation B Desh war. We just gave away the territory we gained on the west unlike PRC or Pakis

Similar to this PRC did something more than what other powers did. They were asked seretly for help during the Cuban crisis against the SU

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Indian_War#Motives

Two of the major factors leading up to China's eventual conflicts with Indian troops were India's stance on the disputed borders and perceived Indian subversion in Tibet.
It was, nevertheless a major reason for China's going to war. However, he argues the Chinese perception of Indian aggression to be "substantially accurate".[2]
The CIA's recently declassified POLO documents reveal contemporary American analysis of Chinese motives during the war. According to this document, "Chinese apparently were motivated to attack by one primary consideration — their determination to retain the ground on which PLA forces stood in 1962 and to punish the Indians for trying to take that ground". In general terms, they tried to show the Indians once and for all that China would not acquiesce in a military "reoccupation" policy. The secondary reasons for the attack, which had made it desirable but not necessary, included a desire :

to damage Nehru's prestige by exposing Indian weakness.[28]
to expose as traitorous Khrushchev's policy of supporting Nehru against a Communist country.[28]

Another factor which might have affected China's decision for war with India was a perceived need to stop a Soviet-U.S.-India encirclement and isolation of China.[2] India's relations with the Soviet Union and United States were both strong at this time, but the Soviets (and Americans) were preoccupied by the Cuban Missile Crisis and would not interfere with the Sino-Indian War.[8] P. B. Sinha suggests that China waited until October to attack because the timing of the war was exactly in parallel with American actions so as to avoid any chance of American or Soviet involvement.

Although American buildup of forces around Cuba occurred on the same day as the first major clash at Dhola, and China's buildup between 10 and 20 October appeared to coincide exactly with the United States establishment of a blockade against Cuba which began 20 October, the Chinese probably prepared for this before they could anticipate what would happen in Cuba.[26] Another explanation is that the confrontation in the Taiwan Strait had eased by then.

China had made the perception that India was militarily weak and hence India was not a threat to PRC on the border. The only reason was Mao was asked a favor during that time to help USA to create a diversion against Khrushchev. Mao and Chou En Lai asked for a price secretly. They wanted the price of Nehru and India in 1962. This covert understanding between PRC and US is the only explanation which is reasonable.
PRC were prepared for war and they took action during the Cuban crisis to undermine Khrushchev.

Cuban Crisis timeline
http://www.softschools.com/timelines/cu ... eline/108/

Date Event
October 15, 1962 A U2 spyplane discovers missiles in Cuba.

Air Force Pilot Richard Heyser flies a spyplane over Cuba and takes photos of Russian medium-range missiles. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev has asked Cuba President Fidel Castro if he could put them there in May.
October 16, 1962 Ex-Comm has its first meeting.

Ex-Comm, a group of American political leaders, meets for the first time to discuss the Soviet missiles. Ex-Comm would meet several times throughout the crisis and the members rarely agreed on what to do.
October 17, 1962 Photos show evidence of long-range missiles.

More photos of the missile sites are analyzed and show that Cuba also has long-range Soviet missiles. These missiles are capable of traveling 2,200 miles.
October 18, 1962 Robert Kennedy meets with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko.

Attorney General Robert Kennedy keeps a previously scheduled meeting with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, but does not mention the missiles. Gromyko tells Kennedy that the only help the Soviet Union is giving to Cuba is assistance growing crops and missiles that are only for defense.
October 19, 1962 Ex-Comm suggests quarantining Cuba.

Ex-Comm meets and discusses sending U.S. ships to Cuba to prevent Soviet ships from reaching the island. They are careful to call it a quarantine because a blockade is an act of war.

October 20, 1962 Robert Kennedy gives Ex-Comm's recommendation to the president.

After meeting all day the previous day, Robert Kennedy tells the president that Ex-Comm recommends a quarantine. President Kennedy was in Chicago, but lies about having a cold so that he can return to Washington to deal with the crisis.
October 21, 1962 Ted Sorenson writes one of the most important speeches President Kennedy will ever give.

Attorney and advisor to the president, Ted Sorenson, writes the speech that Kennedy will give to the nation. Informing Americans that the Soviets have missiles in Cuba that are pointed at the U.S. will be an important moment in American history and one of the most frightening speech as president ever gives.
October 22, 1962 President Kennedy gives a televised speech to the nation.

President Kennedy gives a speech that is carried live on television stations across the country to inform Americans that missiles have been discovered in Cuba. He tells Americans that he has ordered a Navy quarantine around Cuba and orders the Soviets to remove the missiles.
October 23, 1962 Soviet ships on their way to Cuba are stopped.

Khrushchev orders Soviet ships on their way to Cuba to stop in the Atlantic about 750 miles away. This prevents a confrontation with U.S. ships that are around Cuba, although Soviet submarines trailed behind the U.S. ships as they moved into place.
October 24, 1962 Khrushchev refuses to remove the missiles from Cuba.

Saying that the U.S. will not intimidate the Soviets, Khrushchev refuses to remove the missiles from Cuba. He also accuses Kennedy of putting the world at risk of a nuclear war by ordering the quarantine.
October 25, 1962 Kennedy orders increased flights over to Cuba.

Making no progress with his communications with Khrushchev, President Kennedy orders flights over Cuba to be increased from once to twice per day. Pilots also prepare to begin night flights as the U.S. monitors the Cuban missiles.
October 26, 1962 The U.S. begins discussions about invading Cuba.

Concerned that the Soviets may not remove the missiles from Cuba, Ex-Comm begins to discuss plans to invade Cuba to take control of the missiles. Doing this would most likely result in war.
October 27, 1962 An American pilot flies off course into Soviet airspace.

Charles Maultsby, an American pilot, gets lost flying a mission to Alaska and ends up in Soviet airspace. An American jet rescues him and leads him back to the U.S. before the Soviets can shoot his plane down.
October 27, 1962 President Kennedy agrees to not invade Cuba.

After Khrushchev says that he will remove the missiles from Cuba if Kennedy promises not to invade Cuba, Kennedy agrees to the proposal. He also secretly agrees to remove U.S. missiles from Turkey. The world goes to bed that night waiting to see if Khrushchev will accept the arrangement and bring the crisis to an end.
October 28, 1962 Khrushchev agrees to remove the missiles.

Khrushchev gives a speech on Radio Moscow and says that he has agreed to Kennedy's arrangement. The missiles will be removed, Cuba will not be invaded, and the crisis comes to an end.

ShauryaT · Post by **ShauryaT** » 26 Mar 2014 21:49

ShauryaT · Post by **ShauryaT** » 26 Mar 2014 22:54

Henderson Brooks Report on 1962 War: ‘Secrecy’ an Ostrich Act - Professor B. R. Deepak

It could be gleaned from these facts that the collision course was set in a self-destructive move. It was foolish to think that the Chinese would not launch a massive strike in the territory they considered belonged to them. According to a Chinese account (Shi 1992: 210-11) India shot dead two Chinese soldiers on 20 September 1962 in picket south of the Bridge II on Namka Chu river [called Kejilang river by the Chinese]. This according to China was the first incident of firing by Indian troops in the Eastern Sector, which broke the dead silence of the Namka Chu area. In another meeting in September Mao, Lin Biao, Zhou Enlai and Chen Yi deliberated on “Operation Leghorn” and reported a possible date of Indian action as 10 October 1962. Mao was furious and spoke emphatically, ‘we have fought with Chiang [Kai-shek], the Japanese and the American, and have never been cowed down, rather we have defeated them all. If the Indian people want to fight us, of course we are not afraid. We will not compromise; compromise would mean the occupation of an area equal to Fujian province [of China].” Zhou added, “We do not want to fight a war with India, we had all along endeavoured and hoped that we would solve our boundary issue with India in a friendly manner as we have done with Nepal, Burma and Mongolia etc. countries. But Nehru has shut all the doors for such a resolution; the only option left out by him is the war. I think to fight a bit has also its advantages, it could prove an eye opener to some people.”

ShauryaT · Post by **ShauryaT** » 26 Mar 2014 22:59

Phantoms of the mind: Declassify Henderson Brooks to overcome lingering trauma of 1962 war - Ashok Malik

That explains the political diffidence over the Henderson Brooks report, but there is an institutional disquiet as well. Events of the time reveal a split in the military top brass, between ramrod-straight generals who were true to an older army tradition and politically connected generals who represented Bonapartist tendencies. Among the latter was Lieutenant General B M Kaul, of whom it was said that he answered the question "After Nehru, who?" by pointing to himself.

Kaul is the target of justified criticism in the Henderson Brooks report. Even so, he was not alone. He was part of a clique in the army who told political bosses what they thought the politicians wanted to hear, who conspired with defence ministry officials and New Delhi fixers to marginalise and discredit fair-minded and correct soldiers, and who began the slow politicisation of the army.

This tension - between professional soldiers and political yes-men - stays in the Indian military. It is apparent even in the current jockeying for the naval chief's position. Henderson Brooks' findings make it impossible to ignore this phenomenon. No wonder generations of defence secretaries and army generals have preferred the report stay locked up.

Finally, there is the role of 1962 in the national psyche. That war remains a lingering humiliation; and to middle India, China remains not just a once-and-forever foe, but also a fear that dare not speak its name. The search for a 1962 mythology — with Henderson Brooks as its Homeric epic - answers to that sentiment.

A nation should not forget its defeats, though it should not be obsessed with them to the point of paranoia either. Of course, the risk of not forgetting a defeat is to focus on the enemy that inflicted that defeat rather than the reasons for the defeat. These may have little to do with the enemy. India's 1962 China problem was largely self-caused. Indeed, India's 2014 China problem is also largely self-caused.

Nobody told the government then to send soldiers to a forbidding Himalayan terrain, equipped with canvas shoes and .303s. Nobody tells the government now not to build border roads to match those of the Chinese and not to facilitate Indian soldiers easily patrolling areas that India sees as its own. Keeping Henderson Brooks in hiding cannot redress that reality; clear-headed governance can.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 27 Mar 2014 00:14

What about Nathu La in 1967? I think one should not be lost in prose.

India's China problem is Nehru-Gandhi family self-caused. In 1962 and in 2014. if we want to name names.
And behind that is the Brown EIC hubris.

1962 was not a defeat or a lingering humiliation for the Indian military. A defeated forces needs a decade to recover and we have modern examples in US after Vietnam and Russia after Afghanistan. On the contrary India recovered very quickly and brought TSP to the knees despite the 'Operation Gibraltar' being war gamed in US as Sidney Griffin's book Crisis Games shows.

So while self-flagellating lets do it intelligently.

harbans · Post by **harbans** » 27 Mar 2014 00:33

So while self-flagellating lets do it intelligently.

Completely agree with that sentiment. I try and see why border disputes, clashes, show of military domination through establishment of posts is needed in the first place between good neighbors. The reasons are all manifest in China's presence in Tibet. A Bhutan, Nepal have never presented these kind of options. One cannot appease a totalitarian bully in the neighborhood. One has to arm itself to the teeth. Nehru unfortunately believed in appeasement. Also it's appalling to see some representatives of Emperors sitting in Beijing and London with no local connect wither with Tibet or India deciding how the border between Kailash/Mansarover region and Uttaranchal shall be. Analysts just are not addressing these issues.

KLNMurthy · Post by **KLNMurthy** » 27 Mar 2014 03:43

Has anyone seen this incredibly partisan and contentious wikipedia entry on the Henderson Brooks report? Doesn't read like a normal wikipedia entry at all. Wonder who wrote it. To me it has a typical snooty DIE tone.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henderso ... gat_Report

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 27 Mar 2014 10:33

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archive ... tion=false

After the PRC attack on India and entire generation became freinds of China

Indignation over India
Stanley Plastrik MAY 18, 1972 ISSUE
In response to:
A Passage to Pakistan from the March 23, 1972 issue

To the Editors:

Your reviewer Neville Maxwell [“A Passage to Pakistan,” NYR, March 23] is back at his old stand hawking the tiresome news that India, once more, is “breaking up.” Tiresome, because Maxwell has been at it now for about two decades. He may not be the loudest in the group of writers periodically announcing India’s demise, but surely he is the most insistent. To the old Raj cliché he smugly cites, that “there is not, and never was, an India,” Maxwell seems determined to add, and, by God, there never will be….

By “breaking up” Maxwell, to be sure, means “breaking down, disintegrating, the end.” No one will ever charge him with wishing India well in its struggle for survival and nationhood. Nor does fact, historic or otherwise, deter him from his Cassandra-like prophecies—“the inevitability of it all.” Mrs. Gandhi’s sweeping victory in recent state-wide elections (70 percent of the representatives in a campaign based upon a call for national unity and a strengthening of the center, a victory which, comparable to her national electoral victory of last year, cut across caste, linguistic, and ethnic lines) will scarcely impress Maxwell. One can hear him echoing the cries of the routed West Bengal Maoist-Communists—“phony election,” “bogus Indian democracy,” “one-party regime,” etc.

Reviewing a spate of new books on India and Pakistan, some of which, at least from their titles, appear not to have the remotest connection with his pronouncement of impending doom for India, Maxwell manages however to extract from each at least one excerpt suitable to his purpose. To top matters, the clincher, he cites his compatriot Germaine Greer, who, passing through New Delhi one evening last year, announced that West Bengal is to India what East Bengal was to Pakistan! One wonders what the explanation of Ms. Greer will be when she learns of the trouncing received by the West Bengal communists at the hands of Mrs. Gandhi’s Congress Party. That is a clear repudiation precisely of any form separatism by the voters of that state.

Further, Maxwell states that India will “inevitably” fall apart (he does not hazard an opinion as to what will become of it) because of “the same centrifugal force of nationalism that destroyed Pakistan.” This statement, which implies that the two states, India and Pakistan, were built upon similar foundations and premises, is malicious nonsense. Malicious because Maxwell knows better; nonsense because false.

Pakistan, acknowledged now by all, was an artificial creation of the Jinnah-led Muslim League without a solid national base. It rested upon a deceptive “two-nation” theory (i.e., that Hindus and Muslims constituted two separate national entities incapable of living together). Held loosely together (on paper, that is) by a theocratic Islamic ideology it never evolved any significant democratic institutions. The army ruled, the army rules, as Mr. Bhutto is learning.

India, by contrast, was secular from the start. It developed a functioning constitutional structure in which relations between the states and federal center were clearly defined, the powers of the state (agriculture, education, etc.) laid down, and provisions made for settling inevitable tensions that would arise between center and state. In addition, the principle of linguistic and ethnic states was accepted and carried out. With the exception of a minority political group in Kashmir demanding union of that state with Pakistan, there is no significant political movement in all of India that wishes to opt out of the Indian union. I challenge Maxwell to name a separatist independence movement in India today. He is even wrong about Kashmir, where the real problem is not separation or independence but the demand for greater autonomy within the Indian framework, a demand which, in my opinion, has not been properly met by the central government. Has the Indian democratic structure succeeded? By and large, yes. It has survived any number of shocks and stresses, it is stronger than ever, it is operable, it is flexible. What possible contrast with Pakistan?

One knows that India has more than its share of problems. Mass poverty, the need to extend the agrarian reform, the slow progress of industrialization, caste heritage, etc. It needs the detached and critical eye of those who wish it well. I find it laughable, however, when Maxwell complains that India is “hailed” in the West by liberals and intellectuals. The truth is that the Indian way meets with contempt, disdain, and indifference among Western intellectuals, particularly those of the “left.” It is as if they are saying—you Indians fumbling around there with your democracy, your sloppy and corrupting democratic procedures (the “soft” state), don’t you know any better? Don’t you know we’ve turned our backs on all that? Mao’s way, not Gandhi or Nehru liberalism.

India will survive the ill-concealed hostility of the Maxwells. The tragedy is, however, that it will lack the useful and helpful criticism of trained, professional intellectuals who, through abstaining, add but another burden to an already impossibly heavy load.

Stanley Plastrik

New York City

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 27 Mar 2014 10:36

Verdicts on India
http://www.hindu.com/mag/2005/07/17/sto ... 140300.htm
By Ramachandra Guha

In early 1967, The Times of London ran a series of articles on `India's Disintegrating Democracy'. In contrast to this gloominess was a more contemporary estimate, this time provided by The Guardian ... . A comparison.

PHOTO: THE HINDU PHOTO LIBRARY

DEEPLY PESSIMISTIC: It was predicted that with the problems then, the ordered structure of society would collapse ... . Here, Madras in 1967.
IN the first weeks of 1967, the Times of London carried a series of articles on "India's Disintegrating Democracy". Written by their Delhi correspondent, Neville Maxwell, these assessed the upcoming General Elections, the fourth held since Independence, and the first since Jawaharlal Nehru's death. The articles were deeply pessimistic about the prospect for democracy in India. As Maxwell wrote, "famine is threatening, the administration is strained and universally believed to be corrupt, the government and the governing party have lost public confidence and belief in themselves as well". These various crises had created an "emotional readiness for the rejection of Parliamentary democracy". The "politically sophisticated Indians" whom Maxwell spoke to expressed "a deep sense of defeat, an alarmed awareness that the future is not only dark but profoundly uncertain".

`Crisis is upon India'

Maxwell's own view was that "the crisis is upon India — he could spy `the already fraying fabric of the nation itself", with the states "already beginning to act like sub-nations". His conclusion was unequivocal: that while Indians would soon vote in "the fourth — and surely last — general election", "the great experiment of developing India within a democratic framework has failed".

The imminent collapse of democracy in India, thought Maxwell, would provoke a frantic search for "an alternative antidote for the society's troubles". Three options presented themselves. The first was represented by the Jan Sangh (forerunner of today's Bharatiya Janata Party). This would play the Hindu card but fail, since it was as corrupt and faction-ridden as the other parties, and because the South would reject its over-zealous promotion of the Hindi language. The second possibility was an army coup, but this too "seems out of the question in India" because of the complex federal system. To succeed, there would have to be 17 simultaneous coups in the States, as well as one in the centre.

`Army coup'

While a straightforward coup was unlikely, Maxwell thought that the army would nonetheless come to rule India through indirect means. As he predicted, "in India, as present trends continue, within the ever-closing vice of food and population, maintenance of an ordered structure of society is going to slip out of reach of an ordered structure of civil government and the army will be the only alternative source of authority and order. That it will be drawn into a civil role seems inevitable, the only doubt is how?"

Maxwell answered his query by suggesting that "a mounting tide of public disorder, fed perhaps by pockets of famine", would lead to calls for a strengthening of the office of the President. The Rashtrapathi would be asked to literally act as the Father of the Nation, "to assert a stabilizing authority over the centre and the country". Backing him would be the army, which would come to exercise "more and more civil authority". In this scenario, the President would become "either the actual source of political authority, or a figure-head for a group composed possibly of army officers and a few politicians ... ".

Reality today

Forty years down the road, we can perhaps say that Maxwell's predictions have been fulfilled in part, modest part. The BJP has been shown to be as corrupt and faction-ridden as (say) the Congress, the army has been called in more often to quell civil disorder, and the President is no longer a complete figure-head. Yet his (Maxwell's) extreme scepticism about parliamentary democracy, his announcement of its imminent demise, has turned out to be very mistaken indeed.

Rather than use the benefit of hindsight, let us contrast to Maxwell's gloominess a more upbeat contemporary estimate. This was provided by an anonymous correspondent of another British journal, The Guardian. His assessment of that election campaign of 1967 began by mentioning how "the Delhi correspondent of a British newspaper whose thundering misjudgments in foreign affairs have become a byword has expressed the view that Indian democracy is disintegrating". Then he added: "My own view after three weeks travelling round the country and talking to all and sundry, is that Indian democracy is now for the first time coming fully alive".

The Guardian man dissented from the patronising assumption that whereas democracy was deeply rooted in the West, "in India it is only a superficial plant". He pointed out that the "immemorial structure of Indian life was shaken to its foundations by the national movement". For "the Indian national leaders, especially Gandhi, saw that India needed to be emancipated not only from the British, but also from what was debilitating in her own tradition". Thus they turned to social reform and democracy, to forces of change that might effectively "challenge the forces of inertia".

India's problems remained huge, said the Guardian correspondent, and "not all of them have been tackled wisely or well. But all of them can best be tackled within the framework of a democratic system which is one of the supreme achievements of modern history and from which we [Britons] ourselves have quite a lot to learn".

Perhaps the praise in this last sentence is somewhat hyperbolic.

Still, corrupt and corroded as it might be, parliamentary democracy in India has so far outwitted (and outlasted) its numerous obituarists.

ShauryaT · Post by **ShauryaT** » 28 Mar 2014 05:22

Henderson Brooks & the 1962 war in historical context -- By Zorawar Daulet Singh

After 1959, there appears to be one worldview embodied by Nehru and Krishna Menon favouring non-alignment, resisting Pakistan, and avoiding conflict with China, and another worldview from the right calling for an entente with the West, a common defence pact with Pakistan and a more robust policy vis-à-vis China. This was not simply a dichotomy of ideological threat assessments but a real military dilemma since given fixed force levels the challenge was finding an appropriate deployment mix for the Pakistani and Chinese frontiers.
...

Strategic culture
The HBR reveals that assumptions about Chinese non-use of force had permeated the national security system. The perceptual roots were, however, deeper.

Overestimating Chinese weakness
The economic and ideological crisis after the debacle of the Great Leap Forward led India to overestimate China’s internal problems. The assumption drawn was that given China’s deteriorating strategic and domestic environment after 1959, China would bark but not resort to overwhelming force. The 1961 forward policy of probing disputed pockets and showing the flag up to India’s perception of the border in the western sector probably emanated from this overall geopolitical assessment that was perceived as advantageous to India.

The real reason was that since the end of 1959 China had reduced the intensity of its patrolling and this only resumed in the summer of 1962. After two bloody skirmishes in the eastern and western sectors in August and October 1959, Mao instructed the PLA to cease patrolling in the forward zone within 20 km of China’s line of actual control. Using this limited time range as their reference, the Intelligence Bureau estimated that the Chinese were unlikely to use force against any Indian post even if they were in a position to do so. It was during this phase that the forward policy found expression.

The HBR shows that the Western Army Command did alert Delhi on Chinese activities during this time but did not receive the resources or a re-appraisal to modify the forward policy.

India’s no-negotiation stance with China, however irrational in retrospect, was exacerbated by the careless and reckless implementation of the forward policy. It was this latter development that converted what would have probably remained confined to a political argument into a military confrontation with Mao’s China.

ShauryaT · Post by **ShauryaT** » 28 Mar 2014 05:34

A little dated but relevant.
Claude Arpi

Some truths about the 1962 China’s War which are not often mentioned in history books or government Reports.

1. The precise location of the border
In the Army HQ in Delhi as well as locally in the NEFA, nobody was really sure where exactly the border (the famous McMahon Line) was. It is the reason why the famous Henderson-Brooks report has been kept out of the eyes of the Indian public for fifty years. Till the fateful day of October 20, 1962, the Army bosses in Delhi were unable to tell the local commanders where the border in Tawang sector precisely was?

2. There was no map
Lt. Gen. Niranjan Prasad, GOC 4 Infantry Division wrote in his memoirs (The Fall of Towang): “It is hard to understand how any purposeful negotiation could have been conducted with Communist China [in 1960] when even such elementary details as accurate maps were not produced; or, if they were in existence, they were certainly not made available to the Army, who had been given the responsibility for ensuring the security of the border.”
The Army had no map.
There is the story of Capt. H.S. Talwar of the elite 17 Parachute Field Regiment who was asked to reinforce Tsangle, an advance post, north of the Namkha chu on October 16. Without map, he and his men roamed around for 2 days in the snow; they finally landed a few kilometers east at a 2 Rajputs camp (and were eventually taken PoWs to Tibet with Brig. John Dalvi on October 21).

3. Some troops fought extremely well
Take the example of the 2 Rajputs under the command of Lt. Col. Maha Singh Rikh who moved to the banks of the Namka chu river byOctober 10 as a part of 7 Infantry Brigade. The brigade was stretched out along nearly 20 kilometers front beside the river. It was a five-day march to walk from an end to the other (the confluence with the Namjiang chu). Not a single man from the Rajputs was awarded any gallantry medal, because there was no one left to write the citations; all the officers or JCOs who were not killed or seriously wounded were taken POWs. Out of 513 all ranks on the banks of the river, the 2 Rajput lost 282 men, 81 were wounded and captured, while 90 others were taken prisoners. Only 60 other ranks, mostly from the administrative elements got back.

Major B.K. Pant of 2 Rajput displayed exemplary heroism while wounded in the stomach and legs. Though his Company suffered heavy casualties, he continued to lead and inspire his men, exhorting them to fight till the last man. When the Chinese finally managed to kill him, his last words were “Men of the Rajput Regiment, you were born to die for your country. God has selected this small river for which you must die. Stand up and fight like true Rajputs.” Ditto for 4 Rajputs under Lt. Col. B. Avasthi in the Sela-Bomdila sector

The Indian troops fought pitches battles in the Walong sector of the NEFA and Chushul in Ladakh where the Chinese were inflicted heavy losses.

4. A complete intelligence failure
A flamboyant new Corps Commander, Lt. Gen. B.M. Kaul planned Operation Leghorn to ‘evict’ the Chinese by October 10. Kaul took over Corps IV, a Corps especially created ‘to throw the Chinese out’. On his arrival in Tezpur, Kaul addressed the senior officers: “The Prime Minister himself had ordered these posts [near the Thagla ridge] to be set up and he had based his decision on the highest Intelligence advice.” The ‘highest intelligence’ inputs from Mullik turned out to be a sad joke on the 7 Infantry Brigade.

Till the last fateful minute, the arrogant IB Chief, B.N. Mullick said the Chinese would not attack, they don’t have the capacity. Such a blunder!

The Prime Minister himself, at Palam airport on his way to Colombo told the waiting journalists that he had ordered the Indian Army “to throw the Chinese out”. He generously left the time to the discretion of the Army. This was on October 12, 1962, just 8 days before the fateful day. He had received intelligence inputs from Mullik.

5. Chinese spies
Just as today Beijing can hack into any computer system, in Mao’s days, the Chinese intelligence knew everything about Kaul’s and his acolytes’ plans.

The Chinese had infiltrated the area using different methods. In his memoirs, Prasad recalled: “From our own Signals channels I had received reports of a pirate radio operating somewhere in our area, but when we referred this to higher authorities the matter was dismissed: we were curtly told that there was no pirate radio transmitter on our side of the border. Subsequently it was confirmed that the Chinese had indeed sneaked in a pirate transmitter to Chacko (on the road to Bomdila) in the Tibetan labour camp. The aerial of their transmitter was concealed as a tall prayer-flagstaff so common in the Buddhist belt of the Himalayas.”

This is probably how Mao was aware of Operation Op Leghorn.
Some war veterans recall that on the way to Bomdila, there was a dhaba manned by two beautiful ‘local’ girls. All officers and jawans would stop there, have a chai and chat with the girls. It turned out later that they were from the other side.
An informant tells me that when Lt. Gen. Kaul was evacuated from the Namkha chu on October 8, having fallen sick due to the altitude, he was carried pick-a-back by ‘local’ porters. It was later discovered that one of them was a Chinese interpreter in a PoW camp in Tibet. The secrets were out!

6. Gallantry Awards
The entire operation theater was plunged in deep chaos due to contradictory orders from the Army HQ (Lt. Gen. B.M Kaul, the Corps Commander was directing the Operation from his sick-bed in Delhi). Adhocism was the rule before, during and after the Operations.

To give an example, the GOC, 4 Division was not informed that Subedar Joginder Singh was awarded the Param Vir Chakra for some actions in Bumla (he later died of a gangrenous foot in a PoW camp in Tibet). The awards were decided by Delhi without consulting the local commanders.

An officer who had run away was given the Maha Vir Chakra, the second highest gallantry award. The Government had distributed these lollipops to each regiment to show that everyone fought well.

7. The Role of some Monpas
A senior war veteran, Maj. Gen. Tewari who spent nearly 7 months as a PoW in Tibet wrote: “In Kameng Frontier Division (Tawang) itself, they had many local people on their pay roll. They had detailed maps and knowledge of the area, how otherwise can you explain that they were able to build 30 km of road between Bumla and Tawang in less than 2 weeks?”
According to local Monpas only a few villages sided with the Chinese under duress (after all they were ‘chinky’ like us, said the Chinese). Tewari recalled: “I was in for a still bigger shock when it was discovered that almost all the secondary batteries had arrived without any acid. I presume that what had happened is that the porters must have found it lighter without liquid and they probably decided to lighten their loads by emptying out the acid from all the batteries.”
It was an indirect collaboration with China, though the majority of the Monpas were rather patriotic.

8. Pensions and Pay
About 500 Indian jawans and officers were taken prisoner in the Tawang sector alone. As Brig. A.J.S. Behl says in his interview: “My family got two telegrams: ‘2nd Lt Behl missing, believed dead’.”
Till the Chinese authorities sent the names of the prisoners to the Indian Red Cross, all those killed and taken prisoners were considered as ‘missing-in-action’ and their salaries were cut. For no fault of theirs, their wives and families had to manage on their own.

9. Mao’s return to power
In early 1962, Mao was out of power due to the utter failure of his Great Leap Forward. Some 45 million Chinese had died after a 3-year man-made famine. Mao Zedong managed to come back on the political scene in September 1962. If he had not managed to return at that time, the war with India would have probably not taken place. Of course, with ‘if’ many sections of world history could be rewritten, but it is a fact that once Mao’s ideological hard-line prevailed in Beijing, it was difficult to avoid a clash.

10. The dirty American Role
Averell Harriman, the US Assistant Secretary of State and Duncan Sandys, the British Secretary for Commonwealth Relations visited India on November 22, 1962. This was the day China declared a unilateral ceasefire in the war with India. The visit was supposedly to assess India’s needs to resist Communist China; but both envoys “made clear their governments’ willingness to provide military assistance to India but pointed out the related need for negotiations to resolve the Kashmir dispute.”
A clear signal was given to India who had hardly recovered from the blackest month of her history: she had to compromise on Kashmir.

Consequently six rounds of talks between India and Pakistan were held to find a solution for the vexed issue, but to no avail. However, Ayub Khan, the Pakistani President, must have taken the Western intervention as an encouragement for his claim.
The Kennedy and later the Johnson Administrations thought of ‘re-balancing’ the assistance to Pakistan, with the condition that India should accept to ‘settle’ the Kashmir issue.

ShauryaT · Post by **ShauryaT** » 28 Mar 2014 20:29

Nehru Era’s Defence and Security Policies and Their Legacy -- Brig (Retd) Vinod Anand, Senior Fellow, VIF

Therefore, this paper seeks to critically examine the defence and security policies of Nehru’s
years and posit that the legacy bequeathed by such policies has left an indelible impression on
the policy making establishment and even today some of our defence policies bear the stamp of
Nehruvian era.

Lt. Gen Henderson Brooks in his report on 1962 War which has been leaked to media in March
2014 observed that “It is imperative that political direction is based on military means. If the two
are not co-related, there is a danger of creating a situation where we may lose both on material and moral sense much more than we already have. Thus, there is no short cut to military
preparedness to enable us to pursue effectively our present policy aimed at refuting the illegal
Chinese claim over our territory”. The Report also critical of military leadership and though
unable to examine the relationship between the MOD and Army HQ as access to their record was
denied Henderson Brooks questioned the poor planning of the then Chief of General Staff Lt.
Gen. BM Kaul who later was to lead newly formed IV Corps to disaster in the then NEFA (now
Arunachal Pradesh). Quality of intelligence input by the then IB Director and his undue
influence on Nehru in instigating him to adopt ‘forward policy’ based on the wrong assumption
that Chinese would not react were some of the other strictures past by Lt. Gen Henderson Brooks
in his report.

While there are some
who have found reasons for Nehru in adopting such policies as he did, they have found it hard to
not to completely disregard Nehru’s role in formulating and implementing India’s defence and
security policies which led to the debacle in Himalayas -- 31.

31. For instance see K. Subrahmanyam, “Nehru and the India-China Conflict of 1962”; he has blamed our decisionmaking
structures and processes rather than Nehru. He also states that from the beginning Nehru had reservations
about China but the moot point is if that was so did he take any measures to guard against such reservations? The
answer is in the negative. He also makes a point that it is difficult to accept the thesis that Nehru neglected the
Chinese threat and offers some unconvincing logic. After defending Nehru completely, in the concluding inference
he does reluctantly agree though with a qualifier that “he failed partly in their (policies) implementation and partly
for reasons which could never have been anticipated, such as local command failure.”

The deficiencies in terms of both military capabilities and defence equipment continue to plague
our forces. Basic wherewithal like ammunition deficiencies, improvement of ammunition
dumps as brought out by the current and previous Army Chiefs, continue to persist. There are
large scale voids which has also been described as ‘critical hollowness’ in the army that includes
tanks running out of ammunition, obsolete air defence systems and lack of essential weaponry,
and lack of critical surveillance and night-fighting capabilities for infantry and special forces.
There is inadequate HUMINT in the border areas and depth and breadth of ELINT, COMINT
and satellite cover for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance needs to be enhanced.
There have been some improvements in defence organization, structures and processes but the
civil-military relations leave lot to be desired. Similarly, there is a lack of integration and
jointness in our armed forces. Even though Naresh Chandra’s Task Force in their report
recommended the institution of the post of a Permanent Chairman, Chiefs of Staff Committee,
the government has shot down that proposal which in any case was a climb down from the
Chief of Defence Staff recommended earlier by a Group of Ministers in 2001. HQ Integrated
Defence Staff created for enhancing jointness and integration does not have adequate powers or
wherewithal to enforce jointness or integration. Even NAM 2.0 report has recommended many
relevant structural changes in the Ministry of Defence to improve civil-military relations but
there seems to be lack of political will to implement such recommendations; the shibboleths of
past that military might somehow establish ascendancy over the civil or political set up fail to go
away.

There is a strong sense of déjà vu that is palpable in the current political approach to defence and
security policies which leave India vulnerable to China’s rising military capabilities and its
assertive policies across the Line of Actual Control. While China has been single mindedly
pursuing its long term objectives in Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh sectors, Indian response to
China’s strategy remains confused and subdued. Further, Pakistan would be too happy to join
China in any adventure against India. While diplomatic approach would be of some help, the
government needs to take urgent action to mitigate the gap in military capabilities along the
Indo-Tibetan borders that is becoming wider with the passage of time. Long historical and
cultural tradition shows that China only respects power and it is only the strengthening of India’s
comprehensive national power that would deter China’s assertiveness along our borders.