Inder Malhotra's series on 1962 war

[ramana]

Revisiting 1962, with ifs and buts

Many years ago, Air Marshal B.D. Jayal (Retd), former Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief, South Western Air Command, one of the most thoughtful airmen around, recalled how he and his mates of 1 Squadron sat in their transonic Mystere IVA fighter-bombers lined up on the Tezpur airfield in Assam, their frustration mounting by the minute, awaiting the order to take off against the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) that never came. Jayal’s experience came to mind when reading Air Chief Marshal N.A.K. Browne’s comment on the 50th anniversary of the 1962 war that but for the non-use of Indian Air Force (IAF) India might not have lost. It is an arguable thesis.

Had the IAF been ordered into action, the advance of PLA across the Thag La Ridge would have been hindered but not halted. Indian planes would have fought unopposed in the air, leaving the pilots to concentrate on releasing the on-board ordnance at the right moment in their dives, but only until the Chinese interceptors and bombers arrived on the scene. Air intelligence passed on by the British to the Indian government had indicated no active Chinese air activity in Tibet, and indeed very few serviceable air strips — no more than three or four on the entire plateau. But the IAF aircraft would have had to contend, especially in the East, with steep mountainsides, and the bomb drops very likely would have missed their targets, most of the time. It wouldn’t have helped that the targets were mainly infantry columns, foot soldiers making up the “rifle and millet corps” comprising the PLA at the time. For reasons of terrain, the IAF aircraft might have been more effective in the West in the Aksai Chin, where the relatively gentler mountain topography would have permitted sustained strafing runs to negate swamping PLA infantry tactics.

The outcome of the war, in other words, may not have been very different even with the IAF in full cry. But this assumes Mao Zedong, who had invested his personal political capital in “teaching India a lesson”, would have desisted from deploying the PLA Air Force (PLAAF) once it became clear that affording the IAF a free run could cost him success. In that situation, the IAF would have had to deal with the more numerous Chinese MiG-15s as against the fewer, but more advanced, Hawker Hunter and the Mysteres — MiG-17 equivalent — in its own employ. One cannot be too sure how that face-off would have turned out, considering the Chinese Air Force had greater, and more recent, operational experience of flying against the US Air Force and carrier-borne US Navy aircraft in the Korean War (1950-53).

This to say that the result of using the IAF might not have been all that clear-cut as Browne suggests, even with the other advantage Indian pilots had of taking to the air, fully fuelled and loaded, unlike their Chinese rivals who, because of the thin air of the Tibet plateau would have compromised on ammunition (for on-board 23mm canons on MiG-15s) and quantum of fuel. The only way India could have secured a distinct tactical advantage is, if in the first hours of the Chinese invasion, New Delhi had sanctioned IAF bombing runs on the PLA staging areas in Tibet with the Canberra medium-bombers, 70-80 of which aircraft were in the Indian inventory by then. That would have had a devastating effect of taking out pre-positioned stores for the planned invasion. It would have demoralised the PLA troops going into battle but also, most definitely, have brought the PLAAF in and the region would have witnessed a major air war. The IAF Canberra medium-bombers would have outshone the Chinese Illyushin-48s, and the Indian Hawker Hunters — one of the finest fighter aircraft of its generation — and Mysteres might have had the better of the Chinese MiG-15s, the first of the swept-wing fighters that had given the American F-86 Sabres a run for their money in Korea. But one cannot be certain. It is an interesting scenario to game to determine the “what might have-beens”.

Even better, though, would be to game the exact situation, but update the gaming parameters by incorporating the latest aircraft in the two air forces and the rival border infrastructures. The question in 1962, however, as in all conflicts the Indian military has been involved in since, remains the same — the infirm political will of the Indian government. On the Chinese side was Mao, a stalwart military leader of repute and resolve. On this side was Jawaharlal Nehru with, and this is not widely known, a keen military sense — his take on the Indian Army progress or the lack thereof during the 1947-48 Kashmir operations are incisive, but non-existent will. He was collaterally unnerved by the prospect of Indian air action broadening the war, perhaps, inviting retaliatory Chinese bombing raids on Calcutta, which the then chief minister of West Bengal, B.C. Roy, warned would lead to the end of the Congress Party rule in that state come the next state elections.

Update the scenario and we have Hu Jintao in China — not as bloody-minded as Mao for sure but no shrinking violet either when it comes to using force. Political commissar, Hu, dealt ruthlessly with the helpless Tibetans in their benighted country under Chinese military occupation since 1949. And in New Delhi, we have Manmohan Singh who, as a senior official in the National Security Council secretariat told me, believes it is good for the country to possess hard power — latest guns, ships and combat aircraft — but not to use it. If conventional military capability, too, is to be reduced to the same unusable deterrent status as India’s nuclear weapons, then it will face the same dilemma — what happens if it fails to deter? The conventional military, fortunately, can be fielded; it just needs a bit of prime ministerial spine. Indian nuclear armaments, in contrast, have no such fallback position what with over-zealous adherence to the “no first use” principle and Indian government officials and military Chiefs of Staff iterating the self-defeating view that these are not weapons for war fighting, reducing what little credibility they have.

[harbans]

X-posted from Managing China Thread:

Long time no say this..best way to change the GoI mindset. The present mindset is based on reducing 'disputed' territories. I say let us increase 'Disputed' territories. Let us broaden the areas of dispute. Once that is accepted, GoI will put in it's claim on Kailash and Mansarover. That is legitimate and historical Indian territory and in no way Han, or even Tibetan. Not that it would matter if Tibet was independent, but Han no way. That is where all major river systems in Asia originate, Indus, Ganges, Brahmaputra, many Thai river systems and so on. It also is the abode of Lord Shiva..whose nationality now is Chinese. If we accept that, then it is OK not to stake claim on K-M. If we don't, a clamor must start for the K-M region that is almost the size of J & K. Every time China mentions Arunachal we must make sure we mention K-M 8 times.

[ramana]

harbans,
What 1962 did was to show India, despite all the rhetoric, that they are all alone when faced with a larger foe.
This realization guides their world view.

[harbans]

What 1962 did was to show India, despite all the rhetoric, that they are all alone when faced with a larger foe.
This realization guides their world view.

That is a perception yes. However it is true only to a certain extent. But we do find throughout history that geographically different entities have supported others against a larger enemy also. That happen though only when the person fights with conviction of defending a particular value system that can be manifested in a Governance/ political system, a religious likeliness or even sheer grit in the face of an arrogant greedy land grabbing onslaught. India has to leverage it's vision of the world with other nations that share those similarities and vision. India failed to learn that lesson from the China war. Militarily yes, tactics yes, we did learn something. The 62 war also importantly shut up the Nehruvian psycho romantic dream of a nation that needed no Army, a political leadership that looked down upon it's own Army and it's needs. That did change, though it tried hard with part success to be self dependent on it's arms supply.

The big thing to learn is not only have the will to fight back, counter claim but also to have steady value friends in the international sphere where we could get key help short of boots on the ground or even that in the event of conflict conflagration, but certainly diplomatic, economic pressure on the invading country can be brought about. Isolationism in the economic and ideological/ value levels is not going going to get us to gain such alliances. At best it will be my enemy's enemy is my friend. An alliance that is fraught with danger and much consequence. This is important to understand. wrt China we have a massive advantage and they a week underbelly in Tibet and K-M. 1962 did not teach us to 'exploit' that. That remains a major weakness and flaw.

[vasu raya]

That is where all major river systems in Asia originate, Indus, Ganges, Brahmaputra, many Thai river systems and so on.

There are international treaties on water sharing and if illegally damming them is foreign policy, breaking the dam gates as needed is also valid response. DPSA like the maritime Jaguars should be able to put few light weight torpedoes in the dam waters to break the gates. Perhaps Rafale can do that even better.

If the gates are too much for conventional explosives (never heard about bunker busting torpedo let alone it being able to be loaded on a aircraft) then tactical nukes with non-contaminant radioactive fallout will have to be researched

If its not the gates but the dam itself is the target such as the three gorges, then the nuke torpedo would have to enter the water shaft to the turbine sections, with multiple torpedoes one in each shaft, its more like synchronized detonations usually seen during building demolition along with massive directional blast wave towards the dam structure from within the water body triggered by another nuke, wireless synchronization can only be achieved with atomic clocks

btw, its just deterrence

[sum]

Exclusive: What provoked the India-China war?

Colonel Anil Athale (retd), the official historian of India's 1962 war with China, pin-points the reasons for the clash between the Asian giants 50 years ago and the series of blunders that led to India's military humiliation.

October 12, 1962, on his way from Madras (now Chennai) on a visit to Sri Lanka [ Images ], India's then prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru [ Images ], when harried by reporters about the clashes on the China border, remarked that his government had directed the Indian Army [ Images ] 'to free our territory in the northeast frontier', implying, incorrectly, that India had decided to engage China in a full-scale war.

On October 14, China's People's Daily quoted Nehru and told its readers to expect an invasion of China by India. One author would later write 'Nehru's casual statement only served to precipitate the Chinese attack on India.' Many in India have swallowed this canard.

While speaking to this author in May 2003, Professor J K Galbriath, the influential American ambassador to India at that time, believed that the 1962 Sino-Indian conflict was 'accidental', a sort of escalation that neither side wanted. On the other hand there is clear evidence that the Chinese were well prepared for an armed conflict.

An in- depth analysis of those events is of more than academic interest in the 21st century as India and China rise on the world stage, there is a possibility of clash between the two Asian giants.

Indians lack a sense of history as we tend to think in Yuga or thousand-year cycles, in re-birth and have a taboo about writing or saying anything against a dead person. History if seen as a search for the truth, then in India it is also the first causality of this mindset.

The 1962 clash of arms between India and China was insignificant in terms of troops involved (just three divisions on our side and about six from the Chinese side). The conflict took place in remote, sparsely populated area and lasted only about a month, from October 20 to November 21, 1962. But in terms of its impact on Nehru and India, it was indeed a major event.

At a personal level, it shattered Nehru and India lost self confidence. A nation that was till then being compared with China and was regarded as its competitor in Asia, began to be equated with puny Pakistan.

During the conflict itself, Nehru, the true democrat that he was, bowed to Opposition pressure and ordered an inquiry into the 1962 debacle. The two-member committee consisted of Lieutenant General Henderson Brooks and Major General Prem Singh Bhagat, Victoria Cross.

The report continues to be kept out side public domain till date though the official history, largely based on this report, is now freely available on the Internet.

The initial expectation was that the inquiry would be a comprehensive one and would go into the policy issues and higher direction of war. But Nehru would have none of it and the work of Henderson Brooks and Bhagat was confined to the military aspects of the debacle. In this they did a through job indeed. Bhagat, an old hand at the Military Operations directorate was alert and had all the rooms containing the official files sealed before interested parties could tamper with the records.

The report was in my personal custody for over two years (1987 to 1988) and used fully to write the official history of that conflict. There is very little to add to that and one must keep that issue aside.

Wars are fought for political objectives and foreign policies and calculations of national interest play a major role in decision making. No war history can be complete without assessment of these aspects.

Here unfortunately the war history division met with a solid wall of resistance from the ministry of external affairs. The ministry put such impossible conditions that our director Dr Prasad, gave up any further attempts to access the records.

The MEA insisted that the records can only be seen in their office. All the notes made would be left there and scrutinised by the ministry. Luckily, that did not prove too much of a handicap since the ministry of defence had kept meticulous records of the joint meetings held with the secretary general of the MEA and one can have glimpse of the process of policy making.

Tensions had been rising on the Ladakh front since 1959 when India discovered that the Chinese had built a highway connecting Tibet [ Images ] with Sinkiang through the Indian territory of Aksai Chin.

To counter this Nehru in consultation with Lieutenant General B M Kaul (of the supply corps and his cousin) embarked upon a 'forward policy' of establishing small posts with 5 to 10 men in the areas claimed by the Chinese as theirs. These posts were militarily and logistically unviable and showed Nehru's legalistic bent of mind.

When this led to several armed clashes between the two sides, the military command carried out a major brainstorming exercise, code named 'Sheel' on October 15, 16, 1960 (a full two years before the actual Chinese attack). The professional assessment of the military was that a minimum of seven battalions would be needed and if these are to be withdrawn from the Pakistani border then additional troops would have to be raised.

The government brushed aside the army's apprehensions, turned down the request to raise additional battalions and ordered the army to establish posts as ordered.

As the situation on the border began to worsen, the Western Command wrote to the headquarters on August 15, 1962 that in view of the Chinese military superiority on the border, war must be avoided at all costs.

But less than a month before the attack, army headquarters replied that the 'forward policy' is a success as borne out by the facts as Chinese exercised restraint.

'We must show our flag' was the order.

As Nehru faced a hostile Opposition and wanted the army to 'do something', General Kaul, an ambitious general who even figured as a possible successor to Nehru, proposed a bizarre idea of offensive action in the eastern sector, nearly 1,000 kilometres away from Ladakh. The situation there was even worse than in Ladakh in terms of logistics.

Thus, it is India that activated the eastern sector. The army headquarters had no idea of the situation on ground.

Lieutenant Colonel Eric Vas (later a lieutenant general) who led the first battalion that was inducted in Tawang tried to highlight the problems by dramatically writing a letter on a Chapati as there were shortages of everything from ammunition to clothing and even stationary! But Vas was sacked from his command.

It was only in the last week of September that the nation woke up to the reality when the Chinese mauled an Indian patrol in this sector.

But despite all this in a classic example of those chaotic times, on September 22, 1962, a joint secretary in the ministry of defence H C Sarin issued the war directive. It is an unworthy example of how not to go to war and therefore deserves to be quoted in full.

'The decision throughout has been as discussed earlier that the army should prepare and throw out the Chinese as soon as possible. COAS was accordingly directed to take action accordingly for eviction of the Chinese from Kameng frontier division as soon as he is ready./

The 1962 border conflict had another dimension to it -- the struggle between Nehru's policy of non-alignment and a determined group that wanted India to join the Western camp led by the US.

In early 1962 during the elections for the third Lok Sabha, the attention of the whole country was riveted on the electoral clash between V K Krishna Menon of the Congress and J B Kriplani of the combined Opposition. Nehru saw this as a direct challenge to his foreign policy.

Thanks to the December 1961 annexation of Goa [ Images ], Menon as defence minister took full credit and defeated Kriplani by over 100,000 votes. Kriplani's criticism of Nehru's China policy failed to make any dent.

The electoral defeat seems to have not dampened the enthusiasm of the pro-West lobby. There is enough evidence to show that B N Mullick, the powerful chief of the Intelligence Bureau, was very aggressive and did everything in his power to provoke the Chinese.

Even Nehru's casual remark while going on a visit to Sri Lanka was headlined by the Indian Express as a policy statement. Its editor Frank Moraes was a known critic of Nehru's policy of keeping distance from the West.

While the Henderson Brooks report dealt mainly with the military aspect of the conflict, there is indeed a hint that a group of individuals within the Government of India was determined to provoke a military confrontation with China.

Most of the blame for the military debacle has been laid at the doorstep of Nehru and Menon. Nehru indeed must take the blame for the systematic neglect of defence preparedness in terms of equipping the armed forces for a conflict in Himalayas.

The casualties of the conflict of around 4,000, a full half were due to the weather. The Indian soldiers were equipped with Lee-Enfield bolt action rifle of 1900s vintage. In the cold of Ladakh, where the temperatures reach minus 40 degrees centigrade, the soldiers were forced to operate the metal bolts with bare hands!

Over 2,000 soldiers suffered chilblains and cold injuries resulting in amputation of hands! The bureaucracy even denied authorising emergency rations of chocolates -- then a monopoly of the elite!

But in fairness, Nehru was not blind to the Chinese threat. Where he went wrong was not factoring in the effect of the Cuban missile crisis, that shut out the implicit American aid to India at a crucial moment. Thomas C Schelling in his seminal work Arms and Influence (Yale University Press, 1966, page 53) says that while help to India against China was not a 'policy', it was nevertheless an implicit commitment. He further remarks that Nehru anticipated it for over ten years.

The Cuban missile crisis that took place concurrently however put paid to these Indian expectations. There is enough evidence to show that the Chinese exploited the crisis to 'straighten out' the border with India.

However, it must be clearly mentioned that while some of the Indian actions were provocative, the Chinese had prepared in advance for the military clash. Some Westerners notably Neville Maxwell, (author of the widely quoted India's China War) have tried to blame India for the war, claiming that the Chinese actions were a 'reaction' to Indian provocations. This is military nonsense.

Tibet at that time had very tenuous communications with mainland China. The support bases for the Chinese army were nearly 2,000 km away from the battlefield. Everything from a needle to food had to be stocked over period of six months.

The Chinese preparations to attack India were going on for at least six months prior to the shooting war. The Chinese had in place heavy artillery in Ladakh that had been shifted from the Formosa front.

All this puts paid to the canard that China merely 'reacted' to the Indian provocations! Maxwell is a confirmed Maoist and his account while seemingly accurate, leaves out the crucial issue of Chinese premeditation and preparation.

A brief summary of the events of those early days of 1962 conflict would clarify the issue:

In 1959, China intruded into the unmanned Aksai Chin area and constructed a road linking the restive province of Sinkiang with Tibet. It was a militarily important road for China.

India had meagre strength in Ladakh and the troops were entirely dependent on air supply, the road link to Leh was barely operational. India neither had the troops or logistics to undertake operations to evict the Chinese from Aksai Chin.

China showed no desire to acquire any more areas, but the Indian government under pressure of public opinion decided to 'do something' about the occupation. Military professional advice asked the government to first build infrastructure and stall the Chinese in the meantime.

'Do something' was translated into a 'forward policy' whereby militarily unsound small posts were established in the disputed Aksai Chin areas. As China became uneasy with these posts and threatened to use force, a new front was opened in the North-East Frontier Agency (now Arunachal Pradesh) on the advice of the military who claimed that India was stronger there and could create 'diversion' to reduce the threat to Ladakh.

The Chinese were aware of the impending Cuban missile deployment and calculated that the US would be engaged in a major confrontation with the erstwhile USSR to come to India's aid. The Chinese methodically built up its supplies and troops in Tibet to wait for the onset of the Cuban missile crisis.

That opportunity came on October 20 when the US decided to confront the USSR on Cuba.

[ramana]

Bji, Was JLN trying to draw the PRC into India in Korean war situation?

His request for so many squadrons of US planes with US pilots would have made India a war torn country. From Non-Alignment to reversal of Independence.
What was he thinking? Looks like PRC declared ceasefire and prevented any US follow-up. US also said no, not when Indian planes were themselves not engaged.

I guess that leads us to a few years down the road to Vietnam.

I stand vindicated after reading Col Athale's article.

Exclusive: What provoked the India-China war?
October 16, 2012 12:41 IST
Colonel Anil Athale (retd), the official historian of India's 1962 war with China, pin-points the reasons for the clash between the Asian giants 50 years ago and the series of blunders that led to India's military humiliation.

October 12, 1962, on his way from Madras (now Chennai) on a visit to Sri Lanka [ Images ], India's then prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru [ Images ], when harried by reporters about the clashes on the China border, remarked that his government had directed the Indian Army [ Images ] 'to free our territory in the northeast frontier', implying, incorrectly, that India had decided to engage China in a full-scale war.

On October 14, China's People's Daily quoted Nehru and told its readers to expect an invasion of China by India. One author would later write 'Nehru's casual statement only served to precipitate the Chinese attack on India.' Many in India have swallowed this canard.

While speaking to this author in May 2003, Professor J K Galbriath, the influential American ambassador to India at that time, believed that the 1962 Sino-Indian conflict was 'accidental', a sort of escalation that neither side wanted. On the other hand there is clear evidence that the Chinese were well prepared for an armed conflict.

An in- depth analysis of those events is of more than academic interest in the 21st century as India and China rise on the world stage, there is a possibility of clash between the two Asian giants.

Indians lack a sense of history as we tend to think in Yuga or thousand-year cycles, in re-birth and have a taboo about writing or saying anything against a dead person. History if seen as a search for the truth, then in India it is also the first causality of this mindset.

The 1962 clash of arms between India and China was insignificant in terms of troops involved (just three divisions on our side and about six from the Chinese side). The conflict took place in remote, sparsely populated area and lasted only about a month, from October 20 to November 21, 1962. But in terms of its impact on Nehru and India, it was indeed a major event.

Even 50 years after the event the dispute remains unsolved.

At a personal level, it shattered Nehru and India lost self confidence. A nation that was till then being compared with China and was regarded as its competitor in Asia, began to be equated with puny Pakistan.

During the conflict itself, Nehru, the true democrat that he was, bowed to Opposition pressure and ordered an inquiry into the 1962 debacle. The two-member committee consisted of Lieutenant General Henderson Brooks and Major General Prem Singh Bhagat, Victoria Cross.

The report continues to be kept out side public domain till date though the official history, largely based on this report, is now freely available on the Internet.

The initial expectation was that the inquiry would be a comprehensive one and would go into the policy issues and higher direction of war. But Nehru would have none of it and the work of Henderson Brooks and Bhagat was confined to the military aspects of the debacle. In this they did a through job indeed. Bhagat, an old hand at the Military Operations directorate was alert and had all the rooms containing the official files sealed before interested parties could tamper with the records.

The report was in my personal custody for over two years (1987 to 1988) and used fully to write the official history of that conflict. There is very little to add to that and one must keep that issue aside.

Wars are fought for political objectives and foreign policies and calculations of national interest play a major role in decision making. No war history can be complete without assessment of these aspects.

Here unfortunately the war history division met with a solid wall of resistance from the ministry of external affairs. The ministry put such impossible conditions that our director Dr Prasad, gave up any further attempts to access the records.

The MEA insisted that the records can only be seen in their office. All the notes made would be left there and scrutinised by the ministry. Luckily, that did not prove too much of a handicap since the ministry of defence had kept meticulous records of the joint meetings held with the secretary general of the MEA and one can have glimpse of the process of policy making.

The fateful decision

Tensions had been rising on the Ladakh front since 1959 when India discovered that the Chinese had built a highway connecting Tibet [ Images ] with Sinkiang through the Indian territory of Aksai Chin.

To counter this Nehru in consultation with Lieutenant General B M Kaul (of the supply corps and his cousin) embarked upon a 'forward policy' of establishing small posts with 5 to 10 men in the areas claimed by the Chinese as theirs. These posts were militarily and logistically unviable and showed Nehru's legalistic bent of mind.

When this led to several armed clashes between the two sides, the military command carried out a major brainstorming exercise, code named 'Sheel' on October 15, 16, 1960 (a full two years before the actual Chinese attack). The professional assessment of the military was that a minimum of seven battalions would be needed and if these are to be withdrawn from the Pakistani border then additional troops would have to be raised.

The government brushed aside the army's apprehensions, turned down the request to raise additional battalions and ordered the army to establish posts as ordered.

As the situation on the border began to worsen, the Western Command wrote to the headquarters on August 15, 1962 that in view of the Chinese military superiority on the border, war must be avoided at all costs.

But less than a month before the attack, army headquarters replied that the 'forward policy' is a success as borne out by the facts as Chinese exercised restraint.

{Spoken too soon.}

'We must show our flag' was the order.

As Nehru faced a hostile Opposition and wanted the army to 'do something', General Kaul, an ambitious general who even figured as a possible successor to Nehru, proposed a bizarre idea of offensive action in the eastern sector, nearly 1,000 kilometres away from Ladakh. The situation there was even worse than in Ladakh in terms of logistics.

Thus, it is India that activated the eastern sector. The army headquarters had no idea of the situation on ground.

Lieutenant Colonel Eric Vas (later a lieutenant general) who led the first battalion that was inducted in Tawang tried to highlight the problems by dramatically writing a letter on a Chapati as there were shortages of everything from ammunition to clothing and even stationary! But Vas was sacked from his command.

It was only in the last week of September that the nation woke up to the reality when the Chinese mauled an Indian patrol in this sector.

But despite all this in a classic example of those chaotic times, on September 22, 1962, a joint secretary in the ministry of defence H C Sarin issued the war directive. It is an unworthy example of how not to go to war and therefore deserves to be quoted in full.

{H.C. Sarin was another ICS officer in the Nehru-Gandhi family coterie! People from AP know him well as a looter during his tenure as Governor of AP during the first Telenagan agitation}


'The decision throughout has been as discussed earlier that the army should prepare and throw out the Chinese as soon as possible. COAS was accordingly directed to take action accordingly for eviction of the Chinese from Kameng frontier division as soon as he is ready./

The 1962 border conflict had another dimension to it -- the struggle between Nehru's policy of non-alignment and a determined group that wanted India to join the Western camp led by the US.


{This is an interesting aspect whihc in ont mentioned in the regualr accounts of the 1962 war. It opens up other venues of thought.}

In early 1962 during the elections for the third Lok Sabha, the attention of the whole country was riveted on the electoral clash between V K Krishna Menon of the Congress and J B Kriplani of the combined Opposition. Nehru saw this as a direct challenge to his foreign policy.

Thanks to the December 1961 annexation of Goa [ Images ], Menon as defence minister took full credit and defeated Kriplani by over 100,000 votes. Kriplani's criticism of Nehru's China policy failed to make any dent.

The electoral defeat seems to have not dampened the enthusiasm of the pro-West lobby. There is enough evidence to show that B N Mullick, the powerful chief of the Intelligence Bureau, was very aggressive and did everything in his power to provoke the Chinese.

Even Nehru's casual remark while going on a visit to Sri Lanka was headlined by the Indian Express as a policy statement. Its editor Frank Moraes was a known critic of Nehru's policy of keeping distance from the West.

While the Henderson Brooks report dealt mainly with the military aspect of the conflict, there is indeed a hint that a group of individuals within the Government of India was determined to provoke a military confrontation with China.

Most of the blame for the military debacle has been laid at the doorstep of Nehru and Menon. Nehru indeed must take the blame for the systematic neglect of defence preparedness in terms of equipping the armed forces for a conflict in Himalayas.

The casualties of the conflict of around 4,000, a full half were due to the weather. The Indian soldiers were equipped with Lee-Enfield bolt action rifle of 1900s vintage. In the cold of Ladakh, where the temperatures reach minus 40 degrees centigrade, the soldiers were forced to operate the metal bolts with bare hands!

Over 2,000 soldiers suffered chilblains and cold injuries resulting in amputation of hands! The bureaucracy even denied authorising emergency rations of chocolates -- then a monopoly of the elite!

But in fairness, Nehru was not blind to the Chinese threat. Where he went wrong was not factoring in the effect of the Cuban missile crisis, that shut out the implicit American aid to India at a crucial moment. Thomas C Schelling in his seminal work Arms and Influence (Yale University Press, 1966, page 53) says that while help to India against China was not a 'policy', it was nevertheless an implicit commitment. He further remarks that Nehru anticipated it for over ten years.

{So Non-Alignment was for public consumption if he was counting on US help all along! What does Notwar Singh and other Nehruvian loins have to say to this?}

The Cuban missile crisis that took place concurrently however put paid to these Indian expectations. There is enough evidence to show that the Chinese exploited the crisis to 'straighten out' the border with India.

{So PRC chose the timing very well. Maybe they had an idea of FSU moves into Cuba and prepared their plans accordingly.}

However, it must be clearly mentioned that while some of the Indian actions were provocative, the Chinese had prepared in advance for the military clash. Some Westerners notably Neville Maxwell, (author of the widely quoted India's China War) have tried to blame India for the war, claiming that the Chinese actions were a 'reaction' to Indian provocations. This is military nonsense.

Tibet at that time had very tenuous communications with mainland China. The support bases for the Chinese army were nearly 2,000 km away from the battlefield. Everything from a needle to food had to be stocked over period of six months.

The Chinese preparations to attack India were going on for at least six months prior to the shooting war. The Chinese had in place heavy artillery in Ladakh that had been shifted from the Formosa front.

All this puts paid to the canard that China merely 'reacted' to the Indian provocations! Maxwell is a confirmed Maoist and his account while seemingly accurate, leaves out the crucial issue of Chinese premeditation and preparation.

A brief summary of the events of those early days of 1962 conflict would clarify the issue:

In 1959, China intruded into the unmanned Aksai Chin area and constructed a road linking the restive province of Sinkiang with Tibet. It was a militarily important road for China.

India had meagre strength in Ladakh and the troops were entirely dependent on air supply, the road link to Leh was barely operational. India neither had the troops or logistics to undertake operations to evict the Chinese from Aksai Chin.

China showed no desire to acquire any more areas, but the Indian government under pressure of public opinion decided to 'do something' about the occupation. Military professional advice asked the government to first build infrastructure and stall the Chinese in the meantime.

'Do something' was translated into a 'forward policy' whereby militarily unsound small posts were established in the disputed Aksai Chin areas. As China became uneasy with these posts and threatened to use force, a new front was opened in the North-East Frontier Agency (now Arunachal Pradesh) on the advice of the military who claimed that India was stronger there and could create 'diversion' to reduce the threat to Ladakh.

The Chinese were aware of the impending Cuban missile deployment and calculated that the US would be engaged in a major confrontation with the erstwhile USSR to come to India's aid. The Chinese methodically built up its supplies and troops in Tibet to wait for the onset of the Cuban missile crisis.

That opportunity came on October 20 when the US decided to confront the USSR on Cuba.

Colonel Anil Athale (retd), as joint director of the War History Division, Ministry of Defence, researched and co-authored the official history of the 1962 India-China war.

[brihaspati]

Stupidity and megalomania - combined with a sneaky penchant for personal political survival, without any consideration or ability to view the long term interests and consequences for one's "nation", is seen equally among those with immense democratic credentials as well as dictators.

In October 1950 India refused to sponsor a Tibetan appeal to the United Nations. When El Salvador sponsored such an appeal, India's foreign policy master played almost a singlehanded key role in destroying it. The U.S. was unsure or uninterested [there could be a British interface], the British most eager to suddenly appear to accept the master's initiative in this regard, and most of the ME nations with strong British connections, showed up as eager to follow India’s leadership on this issue, and India’s opposition to the Tibetan appeal to the U.N. was, in fact, a major reason for its dropping from the agenda. The foreign policy genius was also instrumental in turning down U.S. proposals in 1950 of joint Indo-U.S. cooperation in support of Tibetan resistance to China.

The foreign policy genius was instrumental in deciding on the policy of insisting on the young Dalai Lama not to flee abroad and try to rally international support for Tibet, but to return to Tibet and reach an accommodation with China's Communist government - which led to the 17-Point agreement of May 1951. India formally recognized China's ownership of Tibet in 1954, and again with known reluctance of the US admin, most of the previously mentioned "supporting countries" turned out again to support the genius - over this. After the 1954 agreement between China and India regarding Tibet, GOI encouraged the Dalai Lama and his local Tibetan government to operate within the autonomy demand under the 17-Point agreement. Until mid-1959 India allowed trade with Tibet to continue unhindered. At this stage - the road building from the Chinese side was not so extensive as to help in keeping down inflation in Tibet.

There is a strange ref to an obscure 1950 Zhou en lai given hint that the Chinese would not object to India giving asylum to HHDL, in justifying the action in March 1959. After the HHDL's escape, JLN urged HHDL to work out a deal with Beijing restoring a degree or autonomy and permitting his return to Lhasa. JLN stated repeatedly and publicly that Tibet was part of China and that events there were an internal affair of China. After the HHDL's escape to India, JLN pressurized him to avoid speaking of independence, saying that such a goal was “impractical.” Instead, Tibet should seek mere autonomy instead. India refused to support, and indeed actively discouraged, a Tibetan appeal to the United Nations in 1959 and 1960, just like in 1950. JLN "urged" UK and other states not to contact HHDL and worked to obstruct the Dalai Lama’s efforts to establish such contacts. Even after the U.S. State Department stated in February 1960 that the United States believed that the principle of self determination should apply to the Tibetan people, India did not welcome this move.


John Knaus, the CIA field officer in charge of covert support for the Tibetan resistance in the late 1950s and early 1960s, refers to a communication by an official of the Indian Home Office regarding fighting inside Tibet and Tibetan insurgent’s need for arms, to the US representative. Reportedly, the source thought that the U.S. government might be interested in this information. Knaus calls this a "signal" to the U.S. from Nehru - but even if it was not a signal from the man himself, it does indicate the possibility that intel from Indian side was there about the ground situation. [John K. Knaus, Orphans of the Cold War, America and the Tibetan Struggle for Survival, New York: Public Affairs, 1999, p. 155.]

[ramana]

So you have that book too!

I agree too many clever by half moves on JLN's part.


Whatever his moves backfired and led India into a sorry mess for which the rest have to pay and clear up over the centuries.
The Forward Policy is a replay of the Great Game small pickets frontier posts nonsense of the police adminstration. Only in India intelligence is police function! The Brits had military people running civil intelligence even in India.

They didnt know the Chinese intents even after the occupation of Tibet.

[brihaspati]

This is where - the intel bit - I have my doubts. Intel was there - it was either not understood by the man who monopolized FP [and was apparently really arrogantly dismissive of anyone who suggested any contradictory interpretation, he took every criticism of his policy/action as a personal attack], or he had other reasons not to "understand" what was really going on.

Both the Brit as well as American intel was working in Tibet, continued from 1946-48 stretch. Indian civilian/police/military intel was not yet fully out of British intel shadows and grip at that stage. It is natural to expect a continuity of intel gathering, through the MI model, even if it was Republican India.

[rohitvats]

I have quoted this example earlier as well - The people who understood the nature of the beast and the threat it posed were sidelined.

Lt. General SPP Thorat, who was Thimayya's choice for COAS, was Eastern Army Commander in the period prior to 1962 war. He was sidelined by Menon in favor of Thapar and we know the consequences.

In 1960, he conducted a table-top exercise called 'Exercise Lal Qila' and had in its attendance the Principal Staff Officers from AHQ - including Kaul and Thapar. In this exercise, he demonstrated that should the Chinese decide to attack India, given our force level and status of logistic chain, Chinese will smack us clear and proper. He given gave a clear time table of attack and predicted their moves up to the point T.

A copy was sent to MOD where Menon dismissed it as 'war mongering'....In fact, in his book on Siachen, Kunal Verma has given details of some sections of this assessment. Kunal also has excerpts from Special Intelligence Report (SIR) which clearly mentions the development of important roads in Tibet and in sectors opposite to ours. It is fairly detailed in its assessment of the infrastructure created and the consequence of the same in military terms.

[ramana]

Another thing we are missing is Thapar, Kaul, Sarin whatnot are all Nehru family members onlee.

[harbans]

Coming to think of it..Nehru wasn't much smarter than Rahul..was he. Acknowledging Chinese sovereignty over Tibet also meant acknowledging Lord Shiva was Chinese.

[ramana]

That might have been part of his modernising the Hindu project!

[brihaspati]

Apparently, in the so-called Khruschev-Mao spat over Hungary and Tibet, Mao referred to JLN and the whole so-called "Indian aggression" as "Hindus", and the culture being that of "feudal/backward/regressive". Mao's Beijing student day exposure to the Christo-Marxist group [his first FIL was an early probable exponent of that combination] could be responsible. So whatever and however Indian leaders or elite try to distance themselves from their "Hindu" identity in foreign policy - the relevant religious and political ideologies abroad will always model them as the hated "Hindus".

[brihaspati]

ON the 4th Decemeber, 1962, a CIA report filed that Ratan (R.K.) Nehru's message to Nasser, went along as
[http://www.foia.cia.gov/browse_docs.asp ... 0000782345]
(1) PM Nehru was concerned about Cairo newspapers favorable articles for the Chinese - but also concerned about articles that were unfavourable to himself. The note adds that the Egyptian newspapers were strongly favourable to the Indian cause in general. So this concern was more about personal image rather than the nations - which was favourably treated any way! What strategically minded, foresighted statesman would be concerned about personal image as long as his nation's image was fine?

(2) Nehru was aware or thought all neighbours, and countries of Asia - Burma, Indonesia, SL, Afghanistan...and "6 powers" who were all under Chinese threat as virtually under Chinese thrall - and as opposed to Indian interests.

What internal reasons would prevent Sukarno from siding with India? [I know the possible ones suggested or not suggested, probably three major ones put forward in hagiographic circles, but none of them hold - if one actually follows the timeline of the Indonesian communist party moves.]

More importantly what happened to the Bandung total victory in Asian foreign policy - if just within 7 years - JLN could not find a single friend in south and east Asia?

[peter]

Was there any sector in 1962 war that India carried?

[ramana]

bji

What internal reasons would prevent Sukarno from siding with India? [I know the possible ones suggested or not suggested, probably three major ones put forward in hagiographic circles, but none of them hold - if one actually follows the timeline of the Indonesian communist party moves.]

Please do elaborate.

Also recall Sukarno in 1965 declared the Indian Ocean as Indonesian Ocean and was a major thorn at that time. with constant bluster. This guy owed his life to Biju Patnaik flying him out of Batavia/Djakarta! True by October 1965 there was rumored Commie coup(by Aidit) and he got ousted.

[ShauryaT]

A more nuanced view of Nehru's actions and the thinking behind them. Posting in full.
Beyond Victimology

Beyond Victimology | Srinath Raghavan

On the night of October 19, 1962, Chinese troops began infiltrating Indian positions along the border. At the crack of dawn, the attack commenced and within days, the Indian defences collapsed. A month later, the Chinese announced a unilateral ceasefire and pulled back. The ignominious defeat caused in Indian politics a bitterness without parallel vis-a-vis matters of foreign policy. Jawaharlal Nehru’s standing never recovered from this setback. Nor has his posthumous reputation. Fifty years on, the passions of 1962 are not yet spent. President Radhakrishnan anticipated the verdict of posterity when he chided the government for “credulity and negligence”. Nehru himself seemed to concede to the charge of naivete. “We have been living in an unreal world of our own creation,” he said, in an oft-quoted speech in Parliament.

Nehru’s mea culpa was aimed at soothing political tempers. Historians certainly need to approach it with scepticism. As A.J.P. Taylor observed, all politicians have selective memories—most of all those who originally practised as historians. With the benefit of hindsight and access to records, it is clear that Nehru was hardly as naive as his critics alleged. As far back as 1954, soon after signing the Panchsheel agreement with China, Nehru wrote to a colleague, “In the final analysis, no country has any deep faith in the policies of another country, more especially in regard to a country that tends to expand.” In October 1958, following a stand-off with Chinese troops along the border, Nehru told the chief ministers that India had to face “a powerful country bent on spreading out to what they consider their old frontiers, and possibly beyond”.

Why, then, was India caught out by the Chinese attack four years later? Why did Nehru embark on a “forward policy” that sought to plant puny military posts on the border without backing them with an adequate defensive posture? The short answer is that Nehru and his colleagues believed that China would not engage in anything more than the kind of skirmishes that had already taken place. This, of course, begs the question of why a full-fledged war was ruled out by them.

Nehru’s views on the unlikelihood of a major war with China were based on political calculations. For almost a decade before the war, Nehru had thought that a Chinese attack on India would carry the risk of Great Power intervention. In the wake of the Korean War and of continuing Sino-American confrontation over Taiwan, Nehru thought that China would not risk another war involving potential confrontation with the US. As he told a meeting of the Congress in late 1959, “the Chinese are unlikely to invade India because they know that this would start a world war, which the Chinese cannot want”. The term “world war”, which Nehru used on several occasions, was not meant literally, but referred to the possibility of Great Power intervention.

The second calculation underlying Nehru’s assessment pertained to the role of the Soviet Union. From the early 1950s, Nehru had anticipated and predicted the split between China and the Soviet Union. The ideological glue of socialism, he believed, was insufficient to contain their conflicting national interests. This astute judgement was borne out by the rupture between Moscow and Beijing that came to the fore in 1959. The Sino-Soviet rift coincided with the irruption of the boundary dispute between India and China as well as the Dalai Lama’s departure from Tibet and entry into India. On both these questions, the Soviet Union adopted a neutral stance. By mid-1959, Nehru felt that the ussr had begun to consider India as “a balancing force in relation to China in Asia”. Further, he reasoned, Moscow would not like to see Beijing’s hostility drive New Delhi closer to the Western powers.

Nehru’s assumptions were not wholly off-beam. We now know that until the summer of 1962, the Chinese were indeed mindful of the risks involved in attacking India. Mao Tse-tung knew that the military balance strongly favoured China and yet thought that they could not “blindly” take on the Indians. “We must pay attention to the situation,” he told his colleagues. The Chinese were concerned about the US military presence in Laos, Vietnam and Thailand, and about the possibility of an American-abetted attack by Chiang Kai-shek. These concerns abated only by June-end, 1962, following an American assurance to the Chinese that they would not back any attack on China.

Similarly, Nehru’s assessment of the Soviet role was not entirely mistaken. Nikita Khrushchev repeatedly urged the Chinese to look for a peaceful settlement. As late as October 13, 1962, Khrushchev told the Chinese ambassador in Moscow that he had tried to be even-handed on the Sino-Indian dispute because he wished “to keep India out of the arms of the imperialists”. The Chinese, in fact, informed Khrushchev of their decision to resort to force. They knew that attacking India without at least a nod-and-a-wink from Moscow would be problematic. Unfortunately for India, Khrushchev decided to use this opportunity to repair the fraying relationship with China and temporarily sided with Beijing.

Nehru’s calculations were reasonable but eventually wrong. Interestingly, intelligence assessments prepared by the US, by Britain and by Yugoslavia (which had the best secret service in Europe) also concluded that China was unlikely to launch a major attack on India. If there is any lesson to be learnt from the run-up to 1962, it is that we don’t need a gullible leadership to land us in such situations. Nehru was cannier than his critics assumed then and assert now.

Also overdue is a reassessment of the role of Krishna Menon. None ranked higher than him in the political demonology of the period. The defence minister’s scathing tongue, his conspiratorial attitude and his divisive style drew the ire of his own party as well as the opposition. In the general elections of 1962, the prime minister himself had to campaign on behalf of Menon. Such was the animosity against Menon that Nehru publicly told his opponents: “Go to hell.” Menon won the elections, stayed on as defence minister, and was forced out of government during the war.

Menon’s exit from office was not undeserved. As defence minister, he bore the major responsibility for the military’s state of preparedness—or lack thereof. That he was frequently dismissive of the advice offered by the military brass is well known. But the quality of the advice tendered by the military has received much less scrutiny. From late 1959, until the adoption of the “forward policy”, General Thimayya and his senior colleagues espoused a strategy of “defence in depth”: they advocated holding defensive positions far behind the boundary claimed by India. This strategy was obviously incapable of countering Chinese incursions near the boundary—incursions that were the main cause for concern to the political leadership. It was the military’s inability to come up with proposals to meet these intrusions that gave the civilians, including Menon, the upper hand in the formulation of strategy.

Nor was the military leadership much more alert to the preparation for a major war than their civilian masters. The chiefs of staff paper of 1961, which spelt out the overall requirement of the military, stated that, “Should the nature of the war go beyond that of a limited war...then it would be beyond the capacity of our forces to prosecute war”. Yet, instead of projecting demands to prepare for a major war against China, the chiefs simply assumed that they only needed to prepare for a limited conflict and made modest projections. And they went on to claim that limited resources were a constraint in waging a higher intensity conflict. The paper showed a remarkable lack of strategic judgement on the part of the military.

It is not clear whether, if India had had a defence minister more deferential to professional advice than was Menon, the Indian army would have fared much better in the war. There was another, under-appreciated aspect of Menon’s involvement in the China crisis. Menon was alone among Nehru’s colleagues in appreciating the need for a negotiated settlement and the grave implications of the escalating boundary dispute. Where he erred was in assuming that what should not happen would not happen—he paid for it with his office.

Unlike G.B. Pant or Morarji Desai, Menon did not proceed on the assumption that the only acceptable solution was for the Chinese to drop all their claims and give up all “occupied” areas. More importantly, he understood the domestic pressures operating on Nehru—not least from his own party. In early 1960, when Premier Zhou Enlai was due to visit India for negotiations with Nehru, Menon favoured a via media in the form of a long-term lease of Aksai to China. By not getting bogged down on the issue of sovereignty, the two sides could arrive at a practical solution that preserved their respective interests. Menon appears to have floated this suggestion to the Chinese and warned them that their hardening stance was only strengthening the opposition in India.

As late as end July 1962, Menon sought to arrest the slide in relations with China. On the sidelines of the Geneva conference on Laos, he negotiated a standstill agreement with the Chinese foreign minister, Chen Yi. Menon and Chen also agreed to a joint statement announcing further talks. Unfortunately, there was a delay in getting Nehru’s approval; Chen left Geneva assuming that India was not interested in serious negotiations. Had Nehru’s approval come in time, the history of India-China relations could have been very different.

Such tantalising counterfactuals apart, future historians will also wonder why India-China relations took so long after the war to revert to a semblance of diplomatic normalcy. Part of the answer was the continuing hostility of China, especially at the height of the Cultural Revolution. The other part lay in the deep psychological blow dealt by the war—not so much in the fact of defeat as in its manner—that prevented India from using opportunities that came up later in the decade. Following the Sino-Soviet clashes along the Ussuri river in 1969, Beijing sought to improve ties with India. In particular, the Chinese were keen to ensure that India did not end up in an anti-China front led by the Moscow.

During the May Day celebrations in Beijing in 1970, Mao shook the hands of the Indian charge d’affaires, Brajesh Mishra, and said: “We cannot keep on quarrelling like this. We should try and be friends again. India is a great country. Indian people are good people. We will be friends again some day.” Mishra promptly replied, “We are ready to do it today.” To which Mao said, “Please convey my message of best wishes and greetings to your president and your prime minister.” Mishra immediately cabled the prime minister, urging her to give Mao’s words “the most weighty consideration”. By contrast, Indira Gandhi’s top advisors urged caution. P.N. Haksar wrote to her that “whereas the words used by Chairman Mao are certainly of some significance, we must not rush to any conclusions”.

Mishra was asked to convey to the Chinese foreign ministry that India was open to any “concrete” proposals. Mishra’s Chinese interlocutor was Yang Kungsu, a senior official closely involved in the boundary negotiations in 1960. Yang said that Mao’s personal message was “the greatest concrete action on our side”, and that it was up to India to suggest the next step. The Indians did have a next step in mind—an exchange of ambassadors—wouldn’t deign to broach this directly. Mishra and Yang continued desultory talks until the end of 1970. Early next year, the Bangladesh crisis broke out and put paid to the prospects of early normalisation. The exchange of ambassadors had to wait until 1975 and negotiations on the boundary until 1980. Then, too, Indira Gandhi was heavily burdened by her father’s legacy to be able to take any decisive steps. Ironically, it was not until a staunch critic of Nehru’s “appeasement” of China, Atal Behari Vajpayee, became prime minister that India began serious negotiations with China. The fact that his national security advisor was none other than Mishra certainly helped.

With Vajpayee’s trip to Beijing and the resumption of political negotiations in 2003, India’s China policy came a full circle. As India charts the road ahead, it would do well to dispense with the repositories of received wisdom and take a fresh look at 1962 and all that.

[ramana]

A lot of facts and dots. They are connected in away favorable to Nehruji.

Any reason why the full text is not posted? The full text could reveal more data that we don't know yet.

[brihaspati]

Nehru’s views on the unlikelihood of a major war with China were based on political calculations. For almost a decade before the war, Nehru had thought that a Chinese attack on India would carry the risk of Great Power intervention. In the wake of the Korean War and of continuing Sino-American confrontation over Taiwan, Nehru thought that China would not risk another war involving potential confrontation with the US. As he told a meeting of the Congress in late 1959, “the Chinese are unlikely to invade India because they know that this would start a world war, which the Chinese cannot want”. The term “world war”, which Nehru used on several occasions, was not meant literally, but referred to the possibility of Great Power intervention.

This conclusion was an utterly wrong conclusion. From the time of Stalin, Soviets never seem to have been worried really seriously about JLN turning to the "west". To see the reality - one needs to delve into the archives, parts of which should be accessible in UK, and parts available from post Soviet archives in Russia [at least those that are still not in deep freeze]. Moreover, to a very large extent, the so-called "tiff" between the USSR and China was a temporary one, and more a inner slapping of each other than any real inner break. It was a shrewd tactical move by the communist axis to appear to be divided. True they exchanged border fire in mid 60's but again a pat onlee.

An informed foreign policy genius should have understood the persistent Maoist effort to woo USA, through overseas Chinese, and a virtual hotline that existed between the hedgers of Washington and intermediary Chinese biz interests that wanted to gradually shift interests to mainland China once Chiang had lost out. Even during the war, Mao had found sympathetic ears in Washingtin and the US military - one of whom was also a star of the Burma theatre of ops.

Thus any spat between USSR and Mao would not isolate Mao - but bring him into the arms of USA. Soviets would be aware of that - and they would be, and were more concerned about Mao driving closer to the Americans than they were worried about JLN going anywhere. For Russians, loss of China to US influence would be a far greater disaster than India leaning over sslightly to the west.

The second calculation underlying Nehru’s assessment pertained to the role of the Soviet Union. From the early 1950s, Nehru had anticipated and predicted the split between China and the Soviet Union. The ideological glue of socialism, he believed, was insufficient to contain their conflicting national interests. This astute judgement was borne out by the rupture between Moscow and Beijing that came to the fore in 1959. The Sino-Soviet rift coincided with the irruption of the boundary dispute between India and China as well as the Dalai Lama’s departure from Tibet and entry into India. On both these questions, the Soviet Union adopted a neutral stance. By mid-1959, Nehru felt that the ussr had begun to consider India as “a balancing force in relation to China in Asia”. Further, he reasoned, Moscow would not like to see Beijing’s hostility drive New Delhi closer to the Western powers.

In the Mao-Khrushchev talks in Beijing on 2 October 1959, Khrushchev said:

"If you let me, I will tell you what a guest should not say, the events in Tibet are your fault. You ruled in Tibet, you should have had your intelligence [agencies] there and should have known about the plans and intentions of the Dalai Lama" [to flee to India].
Mao : "Nehru also says that the events in Tibet occurred on our fault,"
Khrushchev: "If you allow him [the Dalai Lama] an opportunity to flee to India, then what has Nehru to do with it? We believe that the events in Tibet are the fault of the Communist Party of China, not Nehru's fault." Mao: "No, this is Nehru's fault,"
Khruschev: "Then the events in Hungary are not our fault, "but the fault of the United States of America, if I understand you correctly. Please, look here, we had an army in Hungary, we supported that fool Rakosi and this is our mistake, not the mistake of the United States."
Mao: "The Hindus acted in Tibet as if it belonged to them."

It should be clear what Khruschev really thought of and whose side he was really on. He was in fact blaming the Chinese for not being hard enough and ruthless enough on HHDL and the Tibetans. This was a Khruschev speaking from the Hungary experience. This is not about Khruschev being sympathetic to Tibet and India.

Nehru’s assumptions were not wholly off-beam. We now know that until the summer of 1962, the Chinese were indeed mindful of the risks involved in attacking India. Mao Tse-tung knew that the military balance strongly favoured China and yet thought that they could not “blindly” take on the Indians. “We must pay attention to the situation,” he told his colleagues. The Chinese were concerned about the US military presence in Laos, Vietnam and Thailand, and about the possibility of an American-abetted attack by Chiang Kai-shek. These concerns abated only by June-end, 1962, following an American assurance to the Chinese that they would not back any attack on China.

This "assurance" of not backing Chiang, conveyed through the Chinese ambassador in Warsaw, came much later than preparations for the war. Its not really revealing to select only a part of Mao's supposed statements to his close comrades and the CMC, Politbureau meetings. From as early as 1955, Mao's general tenor had been a supreme military confidence - and as early as 1958 - he did make comments that he was prepared to withstand "international isolation", that both "Soviets and America may very well oppose a war with India", but that China would eventually win.

I would urge a more thorough study of whatever communist nation documents are available, wherever available. That would help to dispel a lot of myths and propaganda.

Similarly, Nehru’s assessment of the Soviet role was not entirely mistaken. Nikita Khrushchev repeatedly urged the Chinese to look for a peaceful settlement. As late as October 13, 1962, Khrushchev told the Chinese ambassador in Moscow that he had tried to be even-handed on the Sino-Indian dispute because he wished “to keep India out of the arms of the imperialists”. The Chinese, in fact, informed Khrushchev of their decision to resort to force. They knew that attacking India without at least a nod-and-a-wink from Moscow would be problematic. Unfortunately for India, Khrushchev decided to use this opportunity to repair the fraying relationship with China and temporarily sided with Beijing.

There should be limits to hagiography. Khruschev's urging had really no real weight or seriousness. Khruschev could not have had any handle on the Chinese position since, USSR itself was in a similar position with a rebellious Eastern Europe - and an intelligent foreign policy genius should have seen it coming from 1956 the latest. JLN had persisted in placating and sucking up to Chinese demands on Tibet, and helped Mao consistently in consolidating his claim over Tibet from 1949-1959.

The choice of words like "unfortunately" is hilarious in terms of realpolitik. When there is an opportunity to trade, barter and exchange for profit - politicians would do so and sell off their kin if necessary in terms of overall profits. Which foreign policy and international policy genius will rely on "fortunate" sympathetic moves by international powers to stake his nation's interests?

Nehru’s calculations were reasonable but eventually wrong. Interestingly, intelligence assessments prepared by the US, by Britain and by Yugoslavia (which had the best secret service in Europe) also concluded that China was unlikely to launch a major attack on India. If there is any lesson to be learnt from the run-up to 1962, it is that we don’t need a gullible leadership to land us in such situations. Nehru was cannier than his critics assumed then and assert now.

If these were indeed his calculations then they were completely unreasonable, because in estimating international intent, hopes and transfer of attribution of ones own mindset does not work. Anticipating the unreasonable and preparing to mitigate conditions that would cripple the capacity to revive in certain aspects - is a key mark of a stateman. The record does not show any canniness, unfortunately.

[ShauryaT]

A lot of facts and dots. They are connected in away favorable to Nehruji.

Any reason why the full text is not posted? The full text could reveal more data that we don't know yet.

Bad decision, realized that the full text had more information, was editing the post, but got busy...sorry. It is edited and done now.

[ramana]

Perfect. Thanks for being a sport.

My anxiety is that some nugget which sheds light on those dark days will be revealed in a disconnected manner. And hopefully being swarm we can figure that out.

BTW, JLN seems to be acting for West. Will explain myself a little later.

[rohitvats]

Well, I guess, the best of them analyst cannot get over the urge to spread around the blame and some how bring in the Army into the whole issue. At the expense of repeating myself, here is a small rebuttal of the assertions made by the author.

<SNIP>

Menon’s exit from office was not undeserved. As defence minister, he bore the major responsibility for the military’s state of preparedness—or lack thereof. That he was frequently dismissive of the advice offered by the military brass is well known. But the quality of the advice tendered by the military has received much less scrutiny.

The quality advise rendered by level headed Generals which showed the true picture on the ground and likely developments was termed as war-mongering and resigned to dustbin by the stalwart Mr. Menon. I again bring to attention the appreciation paper and Table Top exercise conducted by Lt. General SPP Thorat in 1959 and 1960 respectively.

From late 1959, until the adoption of the “forward policy”, General Thimayya and his senior colleagues espoused a strategy of “defence in depth”: they advocated holding defensive positions far behind the boundary claimed by India. This strategy was obviously incapable of countering Chinese incursions near the boundary—incursions that were the main cause for concern to the political leadership.

Military Leaderships advise was based on assessment of our own strength and that of the enemy. It factored into account the infrastructure available and consequently, the ability of India to induct and sustain troops. Wars are not fought based on some fantasy notions as was proved in case of Forward Policy.

Had the advise of the Lt General SPP Thorat been paid heed to, Indian defense line would have been pivoted on Sela and the utter destruction and massacre of 7 Bde at Namka Chu could have been prevented. IA would have been saved the ignominy of chaotic retreat of 4 Infantry Division and could have held the enemy at bay. The Assam Valley would not have been left at the mercy of Hans...and we could have given a far better account of ourselves.

But alas, such aspects are lost on people quick to blame the army.

It was the military’s inability to come up with proposals to meet these intrusions that gave the civilians, including Menon, the upper hand in the formulation of strategy.

The military was filled with YES MEN who said what Menon and Nehru wanted to hear and acted in the manner which was approved by these worthies. You cannot run down an institution by playing favorites and then expect it to rise to occasion and perform in pressure cooker type situation of 1962. To me, the biggest crime of Menon was him playing with institution of the Indian Army.

When Lt. General Manekshaw took charge of 4 Corps after Kaul was sacked, his first orders to 4 Corps was and I paraphrase, " There will be no retreat till I give order; and there will be no such order"...It is men like him that Menon sidelined and harassed.

Let me quote another incident which clearly showcases the role of Menon - During the lull in the fighting, Nehru called Lt. General SPP Thorat (by then retired) for consultation. Thorat carried with him the appreciation+Lal Qila exercise papers which he had conducted in 1959 and 1960, respectively. During the meeting, Nehru asked him as to why did 'we' did not see this coming? Why did Thorat, who was Eastern Army Commander immediately before 1962, did not see it coming?

To this, Thorat replied that it was anticipated and appreciation was sent to MOD. He showed Nehru the documents and to this, Nehru said, Why were these not shown to him?. Thorat replied that he should ask Menon for an answer as he was sent this document. Nehru exploded in rage and said, "Menon! Menon! Menon!...why do you have your knife into him? You don't know what an intellectual giant this man is. To this, Thorat replied, 'Sir, in this case, the evidence is clearly missing'.




Nor was the military leadership much more alert to the preparation for a major war than their civilian masters. The chiefs of staff paper of 1961, which spelt out the overall requirement of the military, stated that, “Should the nature of the war go beyond that of a limited war...then it would be beyond the capacity of our forces to prosecute war”. Yet, instead of projecting demands to prepare for a major war against China, the chiefs simply assumed that they only needed to prepare for a limited conflict and made modest projections. And they went on to claim that limited resources were a constraint in waging a higher intensity conflict. The paper showed a remarkable lack of strategic judgement on the part of the military.

As I said earlier, Menon played with the Institution of the Army and this act of him then threw up YES MEN and officers of lesser caliber at the helm of the affairs. Such was the level of politicization with in the army and the chain of command has been compromised to such extent that COAS was afraid to take decision against the Corps Commander!!!

Such spineless wonders will forever be held guilty in the fraternity of men in Olive Green but one cannot absolve Mr. Menon and Nehru from creating a situation which threw up such men.

In the North, the Army Commander ignored the directive from AHQ and on his own accord allocated addition battalions to Chushul. And this helped us to save the day to some extent. In the far-east, in the Walong Sector, the Brigade Commander (Brigadier Rawley), inspite of the odds against him, opted for a offensive-defense strategy and even went on offensive to capture+retain the initiative from the Chinese.

There were enough men of steel who saw the 1962 war coming and had forewarned against it. In the last message to men and officers of IA, General Thimayya clearly said that I hope, I am not leaving you as cannon fodder for the Chinese.


<SNIP>

[ShauryaT]

rohitvats: Agree with your views on the above case. Cannot expect to run down an institution for a decade+ and then suddenly expect it to rise to occasion. That is the lesson of 1962 that military preparedness has to be invested in peace time, for if we do not war and defeat are certainly upon us.

The only thing I will say is, do not rush to judgment on the author's intentions.

[brihaspati]

Even the Menon-Chen exchange is not being properly represented. In that actual meeting, Menon was categorical about the demand for Chinese "withdrawal" from "occupied" territory. Menon was seen by Chen as being extremely "arrogant", and a "complete stooge/representative" of "imperialist" Nehru. Menon's public statements against domestic "war-mongering" etc, should be re-explored in the context of available non-Indian versions. He might have been forced to play a certain face in public in India under pressure from higher will and political instruction to do so.

In fact Menon's words in that Chen-Menon meeting was taken to Mao and the CMC as the basis of urging war preparations. It could have been a Chinese ruse - that they would go to war any way - but Menon was obviously not convincing enough in his anti-war, peacenik dress.

Maybe Menon was really under impossible pressures, to pretend in two completely opposite directions at the same time.

[ramana]

Bji. Time to come out with the question? Who fed the Nehru gang the coup nonsense? It was this fear that made them tailor the IA higer command with yesmen and sideline anyone with any brain. The sidelining happened way before the Paki coup by Iskandar Mirza. So can't claim it was the neighborhood going to the RATS. In someway it was started by 1952 when the IA size was cut down claiming to pay for development.


TS George in his bio of Menon says Menon wanted to repalce the IA heirarchy with officers from common background implying the higher ranks were somehow elities. Yet we see that the whole higher commands were sprinkled with Nehru's relatives like Thapar, Kaul and who else?


Was this a modern version of Iqatadari system which went wrong?

[ShauryaT]

Nehru was pre-decided on cutting the military down to 150K BEFORE 1949. Patel clearly refers to this figure in his letter to Nehru warning on PRC's design intents, which he saw very early based on movements in Tibet. The fear of the military stems from a unique blend of the INC led freedom movement not being military inclined, Nehru's deracinations, his unique mixture of admiration for British ways but yet not grasping the importance of military power, some level of naive belief or hope in peace amongst third world socialist/communist philosophy led countries, a poor sense of geo-strategy along with the enormity of issues faced by a new country. A case of not wanting to lead as a kshatriya should. He thought of himself as the brains of the MEA and proved to be dead, dead wrong about geo-politics and to a large extent the political economy and political structure of the union.

My read of the Srinath Raghavan article is it seeks to show that it was not that Nehru was naive, but was dead wrong. Although, the military aspersions could have been more accurately portrayed.

[rohitvats]

This needs to be read in full.

ramana, it answers some of your questions. Slowly, but surely, the bits and pieces are falling in place.

(highlighting and italics are mine as is the breaking up of article into paragraphs)

http://www.indiandefencereview.com/spot ... r-in-1962/

By Air Vice Marshal AK TiwaryIssue Vol 21.3 Jul-Sep 2006 | Date : 15 Oct , 2012

In 1962 as the war clouds gathered over the Himalayan mountains, Indian Army beefed up its defences. As a result IAF was asked to undertake tremendous surge in air maintenance – nearly thrice the normal amount. The air maintenance flying in Sep 1962 was 1179 hours. It increased to 3263 hours in Nov 1962. However, the inflow at the receiving end of air maintenance was not as spectacular. The dropping zones (DZ) were sub optimum; there was shortage of dropping equipment; there were too few porters to retrieve the dropped load and take it to Army posts; the identification between different items of dropped air load was ineffective or absent. All this resulted in around 80 percent of the drop being irretrievable. 1 This despite the valiant effort of IAF transport crew and helicopter crew which continued to provide much needed support. This has been well recorded and appreciated. They are the reasons of not using combat air – that are little known.

This article is devoted to this second part.

During the Sino-Indian War of 1962, the political leadership did not use the combat air arm of the IAF. General Kaul the Army Commander responsible in NEFA, later confessed, “Lastly, we made a great mistake in not employing our Air Force in a close support role during these operations”.

This costly and catastrophic omission was a result of multiple factors which impinged on the decision-making process at the highest level. To begin with was the influence of Prof PMS Blackett on PM Nehru in defence matters soon after Indian independence. Blackett was a British advisor for defence. He had advocated only a tactical role for the IAF firmly advising against escalating any war that India may get involved in the future.3

The second major influence was the analysis of Director Intelligence Bureau BN Mullick, a close confidant of Nehru. Mullick concluded that Chinese bombers will bomb Indian cities in response to IAF’s combat use. Probably the horrors of the bombing of the cities during the Second World War were still vivid on Nehru’s mind.

The next factor was a counsel on similar lines by the American Ambassador John K Galbraith half way through the war who over estimated the capability of the Chinese air force in the absence of proper air defence infrastructure in India.4

Following was the strength of the two air forces on the eve of 1962 war:

(Please refer to the link for this table)

The fourth factor could be the lack of joint planning between Indian Army and Air Force as opined by George Tanham, “The air force knew nothing about the army plans and was not consulted in any way about defence against a Chinese attack – not surprisingly as the army did not have any specific plan”.5

While this may be partly true at the strategic level, nevertheless, it is also well documented that Army-Air Force planners had explored use of air power and recommended the same to the Army Chief on more than one occasion. It is here that the plan came up against a dead end.6 When the chips were down even Kaul demanded combat air.7

Tanham goes on to state, “The Indian government, although in a desperate state and calling for massive American air support, did not investigate what its air power might do to redress the situation”.8 While the political-bureaucratic combine pleaded to US President John F Kennedy for 12 Squadrons of Star fighters (F-104) and four squadrons of B-47 Bombers as an immediate USAF help to stem the Chinese advance, they did not deem it fit even to consult the Indian Air Force Air Chief.9

The question that arises is as to what was the IAF’s professional opinion? It appears that the IAF leadership was quite confident about using combat air to own advantage and did advise the political leadership at every possible opportunity.10 It is a fact that Canberras flew 22 photographic reconnaissance missions between Oct 13 and Nov 11, 1962, during the conflict period, over Aksai Chin, Towang, Se la and Walong area. Some of the sorties were at 300 feet above Chinese concentrations. No damage to the Canberras from Chinese anti aircraft artillery was the proof showing the poor level of Chinese capabilities.11

Mullick admits that around Sep 18, 1962 he was asked to present Chinese air force capability. Since IB did not have first hand knowledge they sought help from `our good friends’ (CIA).

(ramana, this is your answer)

However, as Lieutenant General Kaul states in the “Untold Story”, “Our intelligence set-up, of course, knew little on the subject and was only adept at presuming some facts and not realising the dispensation of exaggerated information about the enemy was as dangerous as understating vital facts”.12

Here General Kaul is referring to Mullick granting exaggerated capabilities to Chinese Air Force. Major General DK Palit put the quandary in the right perspective when he stated that the Intelligence agency (IB) which should have been supplying inputs to user agencies was not only collating information, but also interpreting the same and recommending policy action, mostly directly to the Prime Minister. A case of cart before the horse.

Air Marshal Raghvendran then a staff officer (Wing Commander) goes on to recount the exact professional advice given to PM and RM about marginal capability of the Chinese air force operating from Tibet and beyond. He underscores PM’s apprehension about even a single bomb falling over Delhi and the war escalating out of control. Raghvendran minces no words when he states, “The debacle, partly due to the non use of air power but more so due to our foreign policy blindness as well as emasculation of the Army by playing 'favourites’ by Krishna Menon, interfering with the promotion and posting of senior officers in the Army, ordering a totally unprepared army to `throw out the Chinese’ and above all insisting on giving the command of the operations to a totally unqualified and inexperienced `favourite’ General were all the work of the political leaders and the blame must be squarely laid there.”

General Kaul airs the same views when he states, “The professional judgement of the Air Force Commanders had been completely disregarded and their operational plans ignored to the extent that they called for greater infrastructural resources”.13

Late JN Dixit, former Foreign Secretary (1992-94) and National Security Advisor (2004 – 05) writing on this stated, “I was the Under Secretary in the China Division dealing with external dimensions of the Sino-Indian crisis. So I claim some personal knowledge… suggestion put forward was that India should consider air strikes against the Chinese forces in Tibet all along the front… Our information was that the Chinese logistical arrangements and supply lines were too stretched and that China did not have sufficient air power in Tibet at that point of time…. India’s air strikes would stop the Chinese advance and neutralise the military successes which they had achieved. The suggestion was dismissed on the ground that the officers concerned were not military experts and their suggestion did not merit serious consideration…

And by the time Nehru was coming round to the view of using air power the Chinese declared unilateral cease-fire… Later analyses and records of conversations between Chinese leaders, Henry Kissinger and Nixon clearly indicate that the Chinese considered the decision-making elite in the Indian establishment somewhat naïve and the Indian military planners inept in utilising the strengths which India had at that point of time, particularly in terms of airpower”.14

From one extreme of “throw the Chinese out of Indian territory” announced in the Parliament as an order given to Indian Army, now the leadership and its advisors were afraid to use the air force even when its own army was disintegrating as never before in its entire history.

Air Force could have been employed for interdiction, battlefield air interdiction, attack on areas captured by the Chinese, attack as a retribution on deeper targets. This definitely was possible. It could have been done from July 1962 onwards after Chinese had surrounded our forward post at Galwan in Ladakh. And definitely between Oct 24 and Nov 17 when Chinese were building up the road from Bumla to Tawang inside Indian territory and were restocking themselves. Indian Air force was ready.

The ad hoc – so called “China-Council”, to evaluate threat and formulate the strategy and even tactics to counter Chinese formed by the PM in Sep 1962 did not include the Chief of Air Staff.15 Lt Gen Kaul later stated that, ”Unfortunately, it was the reluctance on the part of the IAF to be able to mount offensive sorties as a legitimate exercise of self-defence which added to the fears of Government in Delhi. If the Air Staff had undertaken to do this, the political appreciation might have been different (?)”16 This is sort of finding a scapegoat after the event. Unfortunately Air Chief was never consulted. Kaul was the same General who earlier as Chief of General Staff for Goa operations a year before had refused to include the IAF and the IN in the planning process, despite repeated advice of his DMO then Brigadier Palit. Since he wielded enormous clout with the PM and RM why didn’t he suggest seeking IAF’s appreciation of the matter? It is only when Kaul faced the music as Corps Commander in the field that he realised the importance of air support and asked for it.

Mullick admits that around Sep 18, 1962 he was asked to present Chinese air force capability. Since IB did not have first hand knowledge they sought help from `our good friends’ (CIA).

Following is a list of arguments put forward by Mullick and my analysis as to why all these were wrong.

1. Chinese Airfields. Chinese air force could operate from airfields in Tibet, Sinkiang and Yunan province, from all of which air attacks on India could be mounted.

Comment. The airfields of Zinning, Lanchous and Kunming (2080 m) were located too far away from the international border to have any bearing on the ground battle. Nachu, though closest to the battle zone, was situated at an altitude of 4500 m, hence, was unfit for fighter/bomber operations. Jye Kundo, elevation 3800 m, and Chamdo, elevation 3230 m, were fit for MiG-19 operations against NEFA area, though with payload reduced by as much as 2000 kg, a penalty for high elevation.

Thus, these fighters could use only cannons. IL-28 bomber could have operated from these bases striking cities like Dibrugarh, Jorhat, Guwahati, Shillong and Kohima. But certainly not Madras (Chennai) as stated by Mullick or for that matter even Calcutta and Kanpur. The strikes would have been with reduced payload. The IL-28 flying a high-low-high profile to extend its range would have had a radius of action of only 700 km and not 2500 km as implicated by Mullick. Even over the ground battle area, MiG-19, only with cannons would not have made significant impact. Moreover due to very primitive infrastructure at Chinese air bases, none of these air bases could have housed more than few aircraft. That too in the open and themselves highly vulnerable to IAF attacks.

2.Night Interceptors. Mullick categorically states that India did not have any night interceptors. Therefore, Chinese bombers could have attacked at will without any opposition.

Comment. The IAF had night fighter squadrons of Vampires. No 10 Sqn had been dedicated for air defence of Delhi by night in 1954. And if the IL-28 had elected to come by day, they would have been intercepted and shot down by the Hunters and Gnats. No 10 Sqn which operated Vampires had airborne interception radar called A-10. Thereafter, Chinese having established themselves within the Indian territory used the lull period upto Nov 17 to build up a road from Towang to Bumla and restock themselves. During this period they would have been highly vulnerable to IAF.

3. Quantum of Chinese Air Effort. Chinese air force was the third largest in the world. Despite spares shortages, against India it would have mounted large and significant air effort, insisted Mullick.

Comment. Chinese air force had only 150 MiG 19 and about 500 IL-28 bombers the contemporary aircraft. MiG – 15 & 17 were obsolete aircraft. It faced major threat across the Taiwan Strait and so could deploy only limited numbers in Tibet. These few would have had very serious limitations in performance operating from high altitude airfields.

4. Canberra Operations & MiG-19. Mullick states that MiG-19 being a night interceptor would have made it difficult for our Canberra to operate against Chinese targets.

Comment. The IL-28 was inferior to the Canberra. MiG-19 was inferior to Hunters and Gnats and was unfit for night interceptions. Yet while IL-28 was granted the capability to roam freely all over India unmolested, our Canberras capability was prematurely written off.

5. Chinese Targets. Targets in China were beyond the reach of our bombers. So using Canberras would serve no purpose.

Comment. The Canberra’s radius of action is 830 Km in High-Low-High Profile with 8000 pound bombs. This could be extended further using drop tanks or reducing the bomb load and operating from airfields at Chabua which could have attacked Chinese cities of Lhasa, Kunming and Chengdu. IAF could have attacked the Chinese airfields and rendered them totally unusable. Thus winning the command of air over contested area.

6. Escalation of War. Using the IAF would have escalated the war which would have been an advantage to China.

Comment. Smart nations prosecute war to achieve set goals. They also prepare for the eventuality of escalation. From one extreme of “throw the Chinese out of Indian territory” announced in the Parliament as an order given to Indian Army, now the leadership and its advisors were afraid to use the air force even when its own army was disintegrating as never before in its entire history. Assam had been given up mentally and yet they called it ‘limiting’ the war.

Whereas Lieutenant General Thorat only two years back had submitted a pragmatic plan in which purposeful escalation of the war was planned to trap the Chinese into our killing ground. This was a professional advice based on cold military logic. It was better than not yielding even ‘an inch of territory’, immaterial if that piece of land happened to be in desolate forlorn icy wastes of Himalayas.

With the second phase of ground war starting on Nov 17, which saw another disintegration of the famous No 4 Division and headlong retreat into the plains, now Indian government was totally flustered. Rather than investigating with its own air force leaders it made a desperate plea to US President asking for 12 Squadrons of F-104s and four squadrons of B-47 bombers. But Indian Defence Secretary was not authorised to consult the Air Chief.17 If a professional appreciation had been given a chance the factual comparison would have revealed:

IAF could carry far more bomb load than the Chinese air force over targets in battlefield.
IAF could attack city of Lhasa, Kunming and Chengdu.
IAF had more modern and capable aircraft compared to Chinese.
IAF infrastructure, though not optimum, was far better than the Chinese air force.
IAF could have attacked the Chinese airfields and rendered them totally unusable. Thus winning the command of air over contested area.18

The Chinese air force was deployed in east China to counter major threat from Taiwan and USAF in Japan and Korea, Philippines etc..
IAF fighter aircraft were deployed both in North and East. Air support net had been established. HQ XV Corps asked for Close Air Support on Oct 31, 1962; HQ IV Corps asked for the same on Sep 7, 1962 and again on Oct 7, 1962. Because 7 Brigade deployed forward had no artillery support. These demands were vetoed by Army HQ, fearing Chinese air force interfering with IAF’s transport supplies to the troops. IAF continued to maintain alert posture for the air support. Series of inexplicable decision continued to be taken. Tezpur runaway was to be demolished on Nov 22.19 The Air Force was asked to fly its aircraft out from forward bases and destroy those that could not be flown out. Fortunately the Chinese announcement of unilateral cease-fire on Nov 21, on radio saved the aircraft and airfield at the last moment.20

It appears that at different times, Air HQ expressed differing assessment of the Chinese air threat. While one section appreciated all the advantages for India in committing its air force into war, the other section was strayed by the reasoning of political leaders and senior leadership of the Indian Army. They argued that close air support against dispersed and dug in infantry in the jungles obtaining in lower Himalayas will not be effective. In fact close air support demands from the army units in the field were raised. But these were vetoed by Army Commands and the Army HQ even though air force pilots remained on cockpit alert for the same. It was also reasoned that this action by IAF may invoke Chinese Air Force to interfere with our transport and helicopter operations which were the lifeline for forward deployed army troops. And of course in case of escalation Chinese Air Force could bomb Indian cities. No doubt the Director Operations, then Air Commodore HC Dewan advised against using combat air.

But there were officers including the Air Chief who felt India would benefit by use of combat air force. Another such officer was then Air Vice Marshal Arjan Singh, then Air Officer Administration at Air HQ. Another was Wg Cdr Raghavendran, a staff officer in Operations Directorate, who later became an Air Marshal. Having stated so it must also be emphasised that from all accounts available, that after the start of the conflict it is quite clear that Air Chief including majority of air force officers advocated use of combat air, time and again but to no avail. Some sources do mention initial reluctance on part of the Air Chief but this is at best hearsay and not based on any evidence.21 Such contradiction in professional opinion on air power matters goes to highlight the accurate description of the complexity in air warfare by Winston S Churchill during World War II. That the air warfare is one of the most complicated affair and difficult to understand even by the professionals. Therefore the need to be thoroughly air minded.
The first phase of ground fighting lasted from Oct 20-24, 1962.

Thereafter, Chinese having established themselves within the Indian territory used the lull period upto Nov 17 to build up a road from Towang to Bumla and restock themselves. During this period they would have been highly vulnerable to IAF. Even during the second phase of the ground war, from Nov 13 to 19, the Chinese would have been highly vulnerable to air power. On Nov 20, when Assam had been mentally surrendered to the Chinese by the Indian politicians, the Director Military Operations (Palit) in Army HQ was busy planning for further defence. Palit writes, “I again stressed the need for allowing the IAF to be committed to battle to provide air support for the ground forces but Sarin (Joint Secretary MoD) was still charry of committing the air arm to a ground support role before we had ensured air cover for north Indian cities. When I insisted he said that he would speak to Nehru once again on the subject”.22

In final analysis the use of combat air power would have turned the tables on Chinese and the 1962 war could well have been a debacle for China.

[ramana]

There was no accountability even after the defeat. All those guys named in the Civil Service moved on to higher and higher positions. Some of them even wrote self-serving accounts without fear of contradictions and are still held in high esteem by their subordinates who sit on the decallification committees and protect theri butts and bogus reputations.

The bigger picture is 1962 ended the Brown British Rule and ushered in a new India but not completely.

[brihaspati]

ramana ji,
Mullick might have named the "good friend CIA" as his source - after the debacle. But here is a public domain hint of what I have tried to say indirectly long ago - and more cannot really be said without exposing identities. I hope you understand.

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_th ... ru_1377898

MI5 left a liaison officer in independent India post-1947. What was the need?
Well, it was part of a broader pattern of British decolonisation that began in India. In most cases, the government of the newly independent country is willing, and some are actually anxious, to have an MI5 representative.

What strikes me about the MI5 relationship with India is how close it was. The MI5 representative and the first head of the intelligence bureau in Delhi, TG Sanjeevi, worked very well together. Amongst a host of other things, they shared a significant distrust of Krishna Menon. The relationship between Sanjeevi’s successor, BN Mullick, and the heads of MI5 were based on close personal friendship. At least in Mullick’s time, the head of the Indian intelligence bureau was in greater sympathy with the head of MI5 than with the Nehru government.

How can you say that? Can you elaborate?
For instance, the IB office in Delhi asked MI5 to send someone who is a specialist in following the payments made by Moscow to communist parties across the world. All the statistics, including those pertaining to the Communist Party of India, were released sometime back in Moscow and it is possible to see the exact figures. Mullick actually asks MI5 to come over and have a look at the records that the IB has collected on the Moscow subsidies to the Communist Party of India.

Another instance is the Suez crisis in 1956. The ignoble attack on Egypt by the UK, France and Israel was rightly denounced by Nehru, but he did not denounce the crushing of the Hungarian people’s uprising by Soviet tanks, which happened in the same year. But Mullick and the leadership of MI5 had similar views on the USSR’s crushing of the Hungarian people’s uprising in 1956, and they were views that were very much at odds with Nehru’s foreign policy on the matter.

In your book, you quote a Russian agent, Oleg Kalugin, as saying that India was a model of KGB infiltration of a third world government. Would you agree with his assessment?

In the period Kalugin is talking about, which is the late 1960s, early 1970s, the KGB was actually carrying out more active measures and influence operations in India than probably just about anywhere else in the world, and they regarded all these as successes. If you also track the records of some of the people who subsequently rose to the top of KGB foreign intelligence, that tells you the story — they rose in the KGB hierarchy on the basis of their successes in India. The last head of foreign intelligence in the KGB, Leonid Shebarshin — where did he make his reputation? He made it as the head of KGB operations in India. Kalugin was also extremely well informed. He was, in the early 1970s, the youngest general in KGB foreign intelligence.

There is a further angle you will understand surely - the double-cross is actually a double-double-cross method. The interface of double cross between Chinese and Russian presence on UK networks, provides the great opportunity to feed in stuff to both of them as well as negotiate underhand for British objectives.

Think of the cold-war as a strategic scenario. Whom was it most beneficial for? UK. Exhausted and bereft of colonial resources, a bipolar world was one where the British financial-political network would still have space and time to survive and hope to regain power in the future - because UK had the interface network to both poles before Rooselvelt effectively broke the monopoly [and for which probably he paid for].

[ramana]

Bji, That is my hints in previous posts.

[brihaspati]

ramana ji,
I don't swallow the IB failure line. Intel was there. How that intel was used or not used - that is the billion rupee question.

People were aware, they were aware, they were very very much aware.
http://www.tibetsun.com/opinions/2012/1 ... n-conflict

According to Ashok Parthasarathi, his father, the late G Parthasarathi, met Nehru on the evening of 18 March 1958, after all concerned had briefed him prior to his departure for Peking as the new Indian Ambassador to China. GP recorded what Nehru said in these terms: “So GP, what has the Foreign Office told you? Hindi-Chini-bhai-bhai? Don’t you believe it! I don’t trust the Chinese one bit. They are a deceitful, opinionated, arrogant and hegemonistic lot. Eternal vigilance should be your watchword. You should send all your telegrams only to me — not to the Foreign Office. Also, do not mention a word of this instruction of mine to Krishna (then Defence Minister VK Krishna Menon). He, you and I all share a common worldview and ideological approach. However, Krishna believes — erroneously — that no Communist country can have bad relations with any Non-Aligned country like ours.”

This is an extraordinary account and is difficult to interpret other than, once again, as symbolising Nehru’s fickle views on China, which GP had no reason to misquote.

But he had consistently done every possible steps to strengthen Maoist demand and prresence on Tibet - and actively done whatever he could to thwart development of international opinion and possibly indirect or direct intervention in favour of HHDL from 1949-1959.

Which side of this obvious duplicity to be believed as the real man? [He was in the habit of lying to the public and trying to control information flow to the public that would reveal the real situation in ways that went against whatever his unspoken agenda was - as seen even before independence, in his rage at Bengal newspapers publishing the news of Islamic atrocities in Noakhali.]

[ramana]

Bji, THanks for the BG Verghese write-up

The war we lost

The war we lost – 1962 Sino-Indian conflict
The 1962 Sino-India conflict shocked India and showed China for what it would eventually become —a military superpower. Fifty years later, BG Verghese recounts the war that gave two neighbours a reason to mistrust each other forever.


BG Verghese
(Photographer unknown)


By BG Verghese | Tehelka

ON THE WEB, 5 October 2012

The 1962 Sino-Indian conflict is half a century old, but to understand what happened, one needs to go further back to Indian independence, the creation of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). and its eventual occupation of Tibet. Perhaps one should go back even earlier to the tripartite Simla Convention of 1914 to which the Government of India, Tibet and China were party and drew the McMahon Line. The Chinese representative initialled the agreement but did not sign it on account of differences over the definitions of Inner and Outer Tibet.

Fast-forward to March 1947 when Jawaharlal Nehru’s Interim Government hosted an Asian Relations Conference in Delhi to which Tibet and China (then represented by the KMT — Kuomintang Party) were invited. India recognised the PRC as soon as it was established in 1949 and adopted a One-China policy thereafter.

In 1951, China moved into Tibet. A 17-Point Agreement granted it autonomy under Chinese sovereignty. This converted what until then was a quiet Indo-Tibet boundary into a problematic Sino-Indian frontier, with China adopting all prior Tibetan claims.

The historic Sino-Indian Treaty on Relations between India and the Tibet Region of China was signed in 1954. India gave up its rights in Tibet without seeking a quid pro quo. The Panch Shila was enunciated, which Nehru presumed presupposed inviolate boundaries in an era of Hindi-Chini-bhai-bhai.

The young Dalai Lama came to India in 1956 to participate in the 2,500th anniversary celebrations commemorating the Enlightenment of the Buddha, but was reluctant to return home as he felt China had reneged from its promise of Tibetan autonomy. Chou En-lai visited India later that year and sought Nehru’s good offices to persuade the Dalai Lama to return to Lhasa on the assurance of implementation of the 17-Point Agreement by China in good faith.

Nehru’s understanding(?) of China

Visiting China in 1954, Nehru drew Chou En-lai’s attention to the new political map of India, which defined the McMahon Line and the J&K Johnson Line as firm borders (and not in dotted lines or vague colourwash as previously depicted) and expressed concern over corresponding Chinese maps that he found erroneous. Chou En-lai replied that the Chinese had not yet found time to correct their old maps but that this would be done :when the time is ripe”. Nehru assumed this implied tacit Chinese acceptance of India’s map alignments but referred to the same matter once again during Chou’s 1956 visit to India.

The matter was, however, not pressed. Nehru had in a statement about that time referred to the words of a wise Swedish diplomat to the effect that though a revolutionary power, China would take 20-30 years to fight poverty and acquire the muscle to assert its hegemony. Therefore, it should meanwhile be cultivated and not be isolated and made to feel under siege as the Bolsheviks were in 1917. This postulate was, however, reversed in 1960-62 when Nehru interpreted the same wise Swedish diplomat to mean it was the first 20-30 years after its revolution that were China’s dangerous decades; thereafter the PRC would mature and mellow. This suggests a somewhat fickle understanding of China on Nehru’s part.

China makes a move

The Aksai Chin road had been constructed by China by 1956-57 but only came to notice in 1958 when somebody saw it depicted on a small map in a Chinese magazine. India protested. The very first note in the Sino-Indian White Papers, published later, declared Aksai Chin to be “indisputably” Indian territory and, thereafter, incredibly lamented the fact that Chinese personnel had wilfully trespassed into that area “without proper visas”. The best construction that can put on this language is that Nehru was even at that time prepared to be flexible and negotiate a peaceful settlement or an appropriate adjustment. Parliament and the public were, however, kept in the dark.

Though outwardly nothing had changed, Nehru had begun to reassess his position. According to Ashok Parthasarathi, his father, the late G Parthasarathi, met Nehru on the evening of 18 March 1958, after all concerned had briefed him prior to his departure for Peking as the new Indian Ambassador to China. GP recorded what Nehru said in these terms: “So GP, what has the Foreign Office told you? Hindi-Chini-bhai-bhai? Don’t you believe it! I don’t trust the Chinese one bit. They are a deceitful, opinionated, arrogant and hegemonistic lot. Eternal vigilance should be your watchword. You should send all your telegrams only to me — not to the Foreign Office. Also, do not mention a word of this instruction of mine to Krishna (then Defence Minister VK Krishna Menon). He, you and I all share a common worldview and ideological approach. However, Krishna believes — erroneously — that no Communist country can have bad relations with any Non-Aligned country like ours.”

This is an extraordinary account and is difficult to interpret other than, once again, as symbolising Nehru’s fickle views on China, which GP had no reason to misquote.

Chinese incursions at Longju and Khizemane in Arunachal Pradesh and the Kongka Pass, Galwan and Chip Chap Valleys in Ladakh followed through 1959. The Times of India broke many of these early stories. There was a national uproar. It was while on a conducted tour of border road construction in Ladakh in 1958 with the Army PRO, Ram Mohan Rao, that I first heard vague whispers of “some trouble” further east. We however went to Chushul — where the airstrip was still open — and to the Pangong Lake, unimpeded.

India considers options
The Khampa rebellion in Tibet had erupted and the Dalai Lama had fled to India in 1959 via Tawang where he received an emotional welcome. The Government of India granted him asylum, along with his entourage and over 100,000 refugees that followed, and he took up residence with his government-in-exile in Dharamshala. These events greatly disturbed the Chinese and marked a turning point in Sino-Indian relations. Their suspicions about India’s intentions were not quelled by Delhi’s connivance in facilitating American-trained Tibetan refugee guerrillas to operate in Tibet and further permitting an American listening facility to be planted on the heights of Nanda Devi to monitor Chinese signals in Tibet.

China had by now commenced its westward cartographic-cum-military creep in Ladakh and southward creep in Arunachal Pradesh.

The highly-regarded Chief of Army Staff, Gen KS Thimayya, began to envisage a new defence posture vis-à-vis China in terms of plans, training, logistics and equipment. However, Krishna Menon, aided by BN Mullick, the IB chief and intelligence czar, who also was close to Nehru, disagreed with this threat perception and insisted that attention should remain focussed on Pakistan and the “anti-imperialist forces”. Growing interference by Krishna Menon in army postings, promotions and strategic perspectives frustrated Thimayya so much that he tendered his resignation to Nehru in 1959. Fearing a major crisis, the PM persuaded Thimayya to withdraw his resignation, which he unfortunately did at the cost of his authority. Nothing changed. Mullick and Menon sowed in Nehru’s mind the notion that a powerful chief might stage a coup (as Ayub Khan had done in Pakistan). For long, this myth was a factor in the government’s aversion to the idea of appointing a Chief of Defence Staff.

In 1959, en route to Dhaka, President Ayub of Pakistan, in a brief stopover meeting with Nehru in Delhi, had proposed “joint defence”. Joint defence against whom, was Nehru’s scornful and unthinking retort? Yet Nehru was not oblivious of a potential threat from the north, as he had repeatedly told Parliament from the early 1950s that the Himalayan rampart was India’s defence and defence line. He had somewhat grandiloquently and tactlessly proclaimed that though Nepal was indeed a sovereign nation, when it came to India’s security, India’s defence lay along the kingdom’s northern border, Nepal’s independence notwithstanding! Yet he had been remarkably lax in preparing to defend that not-quite-so-impenetrable a rampart or even countenance his own military from doing so.

Beginning to take a stand
However, almost a decade later, Himalayan border road construction commenced under the Border Roads Organisation and forward positions were established. This Forward Policy, though opposed by Lt Gen Daulat Singh, GOC-in-C Western Command, was pushed by Krishna Menon, de facto Foreign Minister, and equally by BN Mullick, who played a determining role in these events, being present in all inner councils. Many of the 43 new posts established in Ladakh were penny packets with little capability and support or military significance. The objective appeared more political, in fulfilment of an utterly fatuous slogan Nehru kept uttering in Parliament and elsewhere, that “not an inch of territory” would be left undefended; though he had earlier played down the Aksai Chin incursion as located in a cold, unpopulated, elevated desert “where not a blade of grass grows”. In August, Nehru announced that Indian forces had regained 2,500 square miles of the 12,000 square miles occupied by the Chinese in Ladakh.

A series of Sino-Indian white papers continued to roll out. The Times of India commented on 15 August 1962: “Anyone reading the latest White Paper on Sino-Indian relations together with some of the speeches by the prime minister and defence minister on the subject may be forgiven for feeling that the government’s China policy, like chopsuey, contains a bit of everything — firmness and conciliation, bravado and caution, sweet reasonableness and defiance… We have been variously informed … that the situation on the border is both serious and not-so-serious; that we have got the better of the Chinese and they have got the better of us; that the Chinese are retreating and that they are advancing …”

Backseat driving of defence policy continued to the end of Thimayya’s tenure when General PN Thapar was appointed COAS over Thimayya’s choice of Lt Gen SPP Thorat, Eastern Army Commander. In the circumstances, Thorat had produced a paper advocating that while the Himalayan heights might be prepared as a trip-wire defence, the North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA) should essentially be defended lower down at its waist which, among other things, would ease the Indian Army’s logistical and acclimatisation problems and correspondingly aggravate those of the Chinese. The Thorat plan, “The China Threat and How to Meet It”, got short shrift.

The Goa operation at the end of 1960 witnessed two strange events. The new Chief of General Staff (CGS), Lt Gen BM Kaul, marched alongside one of the columns of the 17th Division under Gen KP Candeth that was tasked to enter Goa. Thereafter he and, separately, the Defence Minister, Krishna Menon, declared “war” or the commencement of operations at two different times — one at midnight and the other at first light the next morning. In any other situation such flamboyant showmanship could have been disastrous. However, Goa was a cakewalk and evoked the mistaken impression, among gifted amateurs in high places, that an unprepared Indian Army could take on China.

Kaul’s promotion to the rank of lieutenant general and then to the key post of the Chief of General Staff (CGS) had stirred controversy. He was politically well-connected and had held PR appointments, but lacked command experience. The top brass was divided and the air was thick with intrigue and suspicion. Kaul had inquiries made into the conduct of senior colleagues like Thorat, SD Verma, and then Maj Gen Sam Manekshaw, Commandant of the Staff College in Wellington.

Even as the exchange of Sino-Indian notes continued, Nehru on 12 October 1962 said he had ordered the Indian Army “to throw the Chinese out”, casually revealed to the media at Palam Airport before departing on a visit to Colombo!

A new 4th Corps was created on 8 October 1962 with headquarters at Tezpur in western Assam to reinforce the defence of the Northeast. Lt Gen Harbaksh Singh was named GOC, but was soon moved to take over 33 Corps at Siliguri and then moved again to the Western Command. Kaul took charge of 4th Corps but appeared to have assumed a superior jurisdiction because of his direct political line to Delhi. Command controversies were further compounded as at times it seemed that both everybody and nobody was in charge. Thapar and Gen LP Sen, now at Eastern Command, also went to recce and reorder defence plans along the Bomdila-Se La sector. At the political level and at the External Affairs Ministry, the adage was “Panditji knows best”.

The Namka Chu battle
Kaul was here, there and everywhere, exposing himself in high altitudes without acclimatisation. No surprise that he fell ill and was evacuated to Delhi on 18 October, only to return five days later.

Following Nehru’s “throw them out” order, and against saner military advice and an assessment of ground realities, a brigade under John Dalvi was positioned on the Namka Chu River below the Thagla Ridge that the Chinese claimed lay even beyond the McMohan Line. It was a self-made trap: “It was but to do or die”. The brigade retreated in disorder after a gallant action, while the Chinese rolled down to Tawang where they reached on 25 October.

The London Economist parodied Rudyard Kipling. In a pithy editorial titled “Plain Tales From the Hills”, the text read, “When the fog cleared, the Chinese were there”!

A new defence line was hurriedly established at Se La.

I was not in the country during the Namka Chu battle, but returned soon thereafter and was asked to go to Tezpur from Bombay to cover the war.

Negotiations, then attack
Nehru was by now convinced that the Chinese were determined to sweep down to the plains. The national mood was one of despondency, anger. and foreboding. Only one commentator, the late NJ Nanporia, editor of The Times of India, got it right. In a closely-reasoned edit page article, he argued that the Chinese favoured negotiation and a peaceful settlement, not invasion, and that India must talk. At worst, the Chinese would teach India a lesson and go back. Critics scoffed at Nanporia. I too thought he was being simplistic. A week or 10 days later, in response to his critics, he reprinted the very same article down to the last comma and full-stop. Events proved him absolutely right.

On 24 October, Chou En-lai proposed a 20-km withdrawal by either side. Three days later, Nehru sought the enlargement of this buffer to 40-60 km. On 4 November, Chou offered to accept the McMahon Line provided India accepted the Macdonald Line in Ladakh approximating the Chinese claim line (giving up the more northerly Johnson Line favoured by Delhi).

By now I was in Tezpur, lodged at the Planter’s Club, which was now a media dormitory. The Army arranged for the press to visit the front in NEFA. Scores of Indian and foreign correspondents and cameramen volunteered. Col Pyara Lal, the chief Army PRO, took charge. On 15-17 November, we drove up to Se La (15,000 feet) and Dirang Dzong in the valley beyond before the climb to Bomdila. Jawans in cottons and perhaps a light sweater and canvas shoes were manhandling ancient 25-pounders into position at various vantage points. A day earlier, we had seen and heard Bijji Kaul’s theatrics and bravado at 4th Corps Headquarters and were shocked to see the reality: ill-equipped, unprepared but cheerful officers and men digging trenches to hold back the enemy under the command of a very gallant officer, Brig Hoshiar Singh.

We had barely returned to Tezpur on 17 November when we learnt that the Chinese had mounted an attack on Se La, outflanking it as well. Many correspondents rushed back to Delhi and Calcutta more easily to file their copy and despatch their pictures and footage. Military censorship delayed transmission. I discovered later that between the Tezpur Press Officer’s inability to handle much copy and censorship, few if any of my despatches reached The Times of India, and those that did had been severely truncated.

Even as battle was joined, Kaul disappeared from Tezpur to be with his men, throwing the chain of command into disarray. The saving grace was the valiant action fought by Brigadier Navin Rawley at Walong in the Luhit Valley before making an orderly retreat, holding back the enemy wherever possible. Much gallantry was also displayed in Ladakh against heavy odds.

The use of the Air Force had been considered. Some thought that the IAF had the edge as its aircraft would be operating with full loads from low-altitude air strips in Assam, unlike the Chinese operating from the Tibetan plateau at base altitudes of 11,000-12,000 feet. However, the decision was to prevent escalation.

On 18 November, word came that the Chinese had enveloped Se La, which finally fell without much of a fight in view of conflicting orders. A day later, the enemy had broken through to Foothills (both a place name and a description) along the Kameng axis. Confusion reigned supreme.

Kaul or somebody ordered the 4th Corps to pull back to Gauhati on 19 November and, as military convoys streamed west, somebody else ordered that Tezpur and the North Bank be evacuated. A “scorched earth” policy was ordered by somebody else again and the Nunmati Refinery was all but blown up. The district magistrate deserted his post. A former school and collegemate of mine, Rana KDN Singh, was directed to take charge of a tottering administration. He supervised the Joint Steamer Companies, mostly manned by East Pakistan Lascars, to ferry a frightened and abandoned civil population to the South Bank. The other modes of exodus were by bus and truck, car, cart, cycle and on foot. The last ferry crossing was at 6 pm. Those who remained or reached the jetty late, melted into the tea gardens and forest.

The Indian press had ingloriously departed the previous day, preferring safety to news coverage, as it happened again in Kashmir in 1990, when at least women journalists subsequently redeemed the profession. Only two Indians remained in Tezpur, Prem Prakash of Visnews and Reuters, and I, together with nine American and British correspondents. Along with us, wandering around like lost souls, were some 10-15 patients who had been released from the local mental hospital.

PRC pulls back
That was the most eerie night I have ever spent. Tezpur was a ghost town. We patrolled it by pale moonlight, on the alert for any tell-tale signs or sounds. The State Bank of India had burned its currency chest and a few charred notes kept blowing in the wind as curious mental patients kept prodding the dying embers. Some stray dogs and alley cats were our only other companions.

Around midnight, a transistor with one of our colleagues crackled to life as Peking Radio announced a unilateral ceasefire and pull back to the pre-October “line of actual control”, provided the Indian Army did not move forward. Relieved and weary, we retired to our billet at the abandoned Planter’s Club, whose canned provisions of baked beans, tuna fish, and beer (all on the house) had sustained us.

Next morning, all the world carried the news, but AIR still had brave jawans gamely fighting the enemy as none had had the gumption to awaken Nehru and take his orders as the news was too big to handle otherwise! Indeed, during the preceding days, everyone from general to jawan to officials and the media was tuned into Radio Peking to find out what was going on in our own country.

“A politically-determined military disaster”
1962 was a politically-determined military disaster. President Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan said it all when he indicted the government for its “credulity and negligence”. Nehru himself confessed, artfully using the plural, “We were getting out of touch with reality … and living in an artificial world of our own creation.” Yet he was reluctant to get rid of Krishna Menon, (making him first Minister for Defence Production and then Minister without Portfolio but brazenly carrying on much as before) until public anger compelled the PM to drop him altogether or risk losing his own job.

Nehru was broken and bewildered. His letter to John F Kennedy seeking US military assistance after the fall of Bomdila was abject and pathetic. He feared that unless the tide was stemmed the Chinese would overrun the entire Northeast. The Chinese, he said, were massing troops in the Chumbi Valley and he apprehended another “invasion” from there. If Chushul was overrun, there was nothing to stop the Chinese before Leh. The IAF had not been used as India lacked air defence for its population centres. He therefore requested immediate air support by 12 squadrons of all-weather supersonic fighters with radar cover, all operated by US personnel. But US aircraft were not to intrude into Chinese air space. One does not know what inputs went into drafting Nehru’s letter to Kennedy. Non-alignment was certainly in tatters.

Tezpur limped back to life. On 21 November, Lal Bahadur Shastri, then Home Minister, paid a flying visit on a mission of inquiry and reassurance. He was followed the next day by Indira Gandhi. Nehru had meanwhile broadcast to the nation, and more particularly to “the people of Assam” to whom his “heart went out” at this terrible hour of trial. He promised the struggle would continue and none should doubt its outcome. Hearing the broadcast in Tezpur, however, it did not sound like a Churchillian trumpet of defiance. Rather, it provided cold comfort to the Assamese, many of whom hold it against the Indian state to this day that Nehru had bidden them “farewell”.

I remained in Tezpur for a month, waiting day after day for the administration to return to Bomdila. This it did under the Political Officer (DM), Major KC Johorey, just before Christmas. I accompanied him. The people of NEFA had stood solidly with India and Johorey received a warm welcome.

Thapar had been removed and Gen JN Chaudhuri appointed COAS. Kaul went into limbo. The Naga underground took no advantage of India’s plight. Pakistan had been urged by Iran and the US not to use India’s predicament to further its own cause and kept its word. But it developed a new relationship with China thereafter.

The West and the US had been sympathetic to India, and its Ambassador, John Kenneth Galbraith, had a direct line to Kennedy. However, the US was also preoccupied with the growing Sino-Soviet divide and the major Cuban missile crisis that boiled over in October 1962.

Unless the country knows, lessons will not be learnt
The COAS, Gen Chaudhuri, ordered an internal inquiry into the debacle by Maj Gen Henderson Brooks and Brigadier PS Bhagat. The Henderson-Brooks Report remains a top-secret classified document though its substance was leaked and published by Neville Maxwell who served as The Times’ London correspondent in India in the 1960s, became a Sinophile, and wrote a critical book titled India’s China War. The report brings out the political and military naiveté, muddle, contradictions, and in-fighting that prevailed, and the failures of planning and command. There is no military secret to protect in the Henderson-Brooks Report; only political and military ego and folly to hide. But unless the country knows, the appropriate lessons will not be learnt.

India did not learn the lesson that borders are more important than boundaries, and continued to neglect the development of Arunachal and north Assam lest China roll down the hill again. However, given the prevailing global and regional strategic environment and India’s current military preparedness, the debacle of 1962 will not be repeated.

Many have since recorded their versions of what happened in 1962: Kaul, Dalvi, DK (Monty) Palit (who served under Kaul as Director of Military Operations), Neville Maxwell, S Gopal in Volume III of his Nehru biography, SS Khera, Principal Defence Secretary and Cabinet Secretary (in his India’s Defence Problem), YB Chavan (as retold in his biography by TV Kunhi Krishnan), and others. Each has a tale to tell. But the truth, differently interpreted, though widely suspected, remains the greatest casualty of 1962.



About the author
BG Verghese was Assistant Editor and War Correspondent, The Times of India.

Copyright © 2012 BG Verghese

[SSridhar]

The war we lost

The war we lost – 1962 Sino-Indian conflict
The 1962 Sino-India conflict shocked India and showed China for what it would eventually become —a military superpower. Fifty years later, BG Verghese recounts the war that gave two neighbours a reason to mistrust each other forever.

Following Nehru’s “throw them out” order, and against saner military advice and an assessment of ground realities, a brigade under John Dalvi was positioned on the Namka Chu River below the Thagla Ridge that the Chinese claimed lay even beyond the McMohan Line. It was a self-made trap: “It was but to do or die”. The brigade retreated in disorder after a gallant action, while the Chinese rolled down to Tawang where they reached on 25 October.

In Dubious Battle at Heaven's Gate - Mohan Guruswamy in The Hindu

On September 8, 1962, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army surrounded a small Indian Army post in Tsenjang to the north of the Namka Chu stream just below the disputed Thagla ridge at the India-Bhutan-Tibet tri-junction. The Indian post came to be established as a consequence of the asinine “Forward Policy” which was adopted by the Indian government after the Sino-Indian border dispute began hotting up, particularly after the flight of the Dalai Lama to India. The Chinese couldn’t have chosen a better place than Tsenjang to precipitate a military conflict with India. For a start, Tsenjang was to the north of the de facto border, which at that point ran midstream of the Namka Chu. The PLA also commanded the high ground. By surrounding Tsenjang, the Chinese had flung down the gauntlet at India. India walked right into it, chin extended.
Government warned

On September 10, the then Defence Minister, V.K. Krishna Menon, conveyed his decision that the matter must be settled on the field, overruling the vehement objections of the Army Chief, General P.N. Thapar. Gen. Thapar warned that the Chinese had deployed in strength and even larger numbers were concentrated at nearby Le, very clearly determined to attack in strength if need be. He warned that the fighting would break out all along the border and that there would be grave repercussions. But orders are orders and, consequently, the Eastern Command ordered Brigadier J.P. Dalvi commanding 7 Brigade to “move forward within forty eight hours and deal with the Chinese investing Dhola.” Having imposed this order on a reluctant Army, Krishna Menon left for New York on September 18 but not before slyly conveying to the press that the Indian Army had been ordered to evict the Chinese from the Indian territory. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru too was abroad having left India on September 7 only to return on September 30.

The Indian Army was under pressure but Gen. Thapar was still not prepared to bow to sheer stupidity. On September 22, at a meeting presided over by the Deputy Minister, K. Raghuramiah, Gen. Thapar once again warned the government of the possibility of grave repercussions and now demanded written orders. He received the following order signed by H.C. Sarin, then a mere Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Defence: “The decision throughout has been as discussed at previous meetings, that the Army should prepare and throw out the Chinese as soon as possible. The Chief of Army Staff was accordingly directed to take action for the eviction of the Chinese in the Kameng Frontier Division of NEFA [North East Frontier Agency] as soon as he was ready.” It was unambiguous insomuch as it conveyed the government’s determination to evict the Chinese, but by leaving the Army Chief to take action when he was ready for it was seeking to pass the onus on to him. With such waffling skills, it is no small wonder that Sarin rose to great heights in the bureaucracy.

Pressure from MPs

Under the previous Army Chief, General K.S. Thimayya, the Indian Army had developed a habit of winking at the government’s impossible demands often impelled by its fanciful public posturing. The posturing itself was an outcome of the trenchant attacks on the government in Parliament by a galaxy of MPs. One particular MP, the young Atal Bihari Vajpayee, was particularly eloquent in his quest to put Jawaharlal Nehru on the defensive. He and others like Lohia, Kripalani and Masani would frequently thunder that every inch of sacred Indian territory must be freed from the Chinese and charge the government with a grave dereliction of duty. Nehru finally obliged by initiating the stupid Forward Policy and resorting to the use of more extravagant language to signal his own determination to the Indian public. A general summed this policy succinctly by writing: “we would build a post here and they would build one there and it became a bit of a game, to get there first!”

Nehru returned on September 30 and was furious that the Chinese were still not thrown out from the Thagla ridge. He was tired of the Indian Army’s refrain of grave repercussions. He shouted at the hapless Army Chief: “I don’t care if the Chinese came as far as Delhi, they have to be driven out of Thagla.” Unlike Gen. Thimayya, Gen. Thapar was possibly a more obedient soldier, probably even less understanding of the government’s compulsions and hence took its orders far more literally and seriously than it deserved.

{He was relative of JLNji!}

Within the Indian Army, there were serious reservations about the efficacy of the government’s orders. The GOC, Northern Command, Lt. Gen Daulat Singh, warned the government that “it is imperative that political direction be based on military means.” The 33 Corps, which was responsible for the sector, sent its candid opinions on the order. Its Brigadier General Staff, Jagjit Singh Aurora, who later won enduring fame as the liberator of Bangladesh, called up his friend Brigadier D.K. Palit, the then Director of Military Operations, and berated him for issuing such impractical orders. Not only were the Chinese better placed in terms of terrain, men and material, the Indian troops were woefully ill-equipped, ill-clothed and had to be supplied by mule, trains or airdrops. They were acutely short of ammunition. The objective of evicting the Chinese from Thagla itself was of no strategic or tactical consequence. The nation clearly needed a greater objective to go to precipitate an unequal war.

Bureaucratic chicanery

The government’s reaction was a typical instance of political and bureaucratic chicanery and cunning. It ordered the establishment of the 4 Corps culled out from 33 Corps and appointed Maj. Gen. B.M. Kaul, a Nehru kinsman and armchair general who had never commanded a fighting unit earlier. Gen. Kaul was from the Army Supply Corps and earned his spurs by building barracks near Ambala in record time. He was a creature peculiar to Delhi’s political hothouse and adept in all the bureaucratic skills that are still in demand there. He had the Prime Minister’s ear and that’s all that mattered. And so off he went, a dubious soldier seeking dubious battle and dubious glory that might even propel him to much higher office. Welles Hangen in his book After Nehru Who? profiled B.M. Kaul as a possible successor. The rest is history, a tale of dishonour, defeat and more duplicity about which much has been written.

[member_23629]

Having imposed this order on a reluctant Army, Krishna Menon left for New York on September 18 but not before slyly conveying to the press that the Indian Army had been ordered to evict the Chinese from the Indian territory. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru too was abroad having left India on September 7 only to return on September 30.

The international joy rides of the two worthies right on the eve of the China war did cause much sarcastic remarks that time. It shows how non-serious they were about the whole thing.

[Kapil]

Interesting thesis by Srinath Raghavan.

He is a former Captain in the Indian Army (Rajputana Rifles, 1997-2003). Now I think with Centre for Policy Research via stints at Kings College,London and NIAS,Bangalore

[ramana]

SSridhar, I dont think the pressure from the Opposition MPs was that much for Nehru to take such foolish measures. I think he was acting per some plan. We dont know yet. None of the actors are talking.

[rohitvats]

^^^I guess, there has been too much focus on the military aspect of the conflict.

The geo-political aspect has been addressed in bits and pieces and need to be elaborated on further. It is then, the entire maze will start taking some sort of shape. There seem to be too many extraneous factors at play here...the actual war is simply culmination of these factors reaching a confluence. It is, as if the 1962 war was 'ORDAINED'.

[ramana]

Rohitvats, Two American thinkers wrote a book on how to analyse complex situations.

Richard Neustadt and Ernest May "Thinking in Time". Its in google books and has different techniques described.

A short version is there on the web called Mini Methods of Thinking in Time as MS Word file. Its time to use such techniques to unravel the mystery.

Shortcut


I have said many times that the 1962 was not a military defeat but a political disaster.
My reasons are a defeated Army needs a generation or more to get its mojo back. We have examples of Imperial Germany, France after Napoleon in 1814, and Franco-Prussian war of 1870s and US after Vietnam etc.

However the IA gave very good account in 1965 and was victorius in 1971 which beats the historical model.